March 06, 2005
BS and Intellectual Snobbery
Well, as I imagine just about all of you know, this last week has been "Family Life Week" at LeTourneau, and LeTourneau brought in a special speaker from Focus on the Family to talk to us about self-esteem, relationships, etc. All told, she spoke at five chapels, of which I attended four. I was very impressed and liked it very much. However, many of my friends of the SC were not ... the only post I've seen on the subject is by Master Ross, but I've talked to a number of others who expressed varying levels of disdain for the entire series.
My reaction to this is mixed. One of the things I appreciate and receive from my friends on the SC is a certain BS detection. It seems to have (largely) been left out in my mental makeup. I am becoming a more critical, discerning person, but my instinct is to uncritically approve any and all utterances of people who meet certain basic criteria. In other words, I tend to be a sheep. It's a recurring theme in these last few years - I listen to a speaker or idea and get all fired up about it ... and then I listen to my friends and they start to make me think and I come to the grudging conclusion that what I thought was so good was mere babble.
But, on the other hand, merely transferring my mental allegiance from one group of people to another is no answer, even if it is my first reaction. The ideas of the SC are no more inspired than any of those they critique, even though they are usually more rigorous. Unfortunately, I have to think in order to sort out what is what. Bother.
There's also a certain angry reaction in me that wants to ask my friends if there is anything on this whole bloody planet that does meet with their approval. This is, of course, not entirely (or even remotely) fair. One of the things I admire about them is that they not only criticize most things, but approve of a few. The Longview Symphony, John Fischer, certain professors, and other things come to mind. However, to some degree, they remind me of the dwarves in The Last Battle of the Chronicles of Narnia that "refuse to be taken in." It seems to me that they approve of very few things, and that a certain elitism has crept in, in which nothing that the "unwashed masses" approve of can be considered good. This is, of course, a common trap among intellectuals and not, by any means, isolated to the SC. In summary, they are swift to criticize, slow to approve, and mistrustful of popular opinion or emotional appeals.
That said, now I have to decide what it is that I think about the recent series. My first reaction was enormously positive. To some degree, I hung on every word she uttered. I was genuinely moved and thought that the series made several good points. Very little new or innovative was said, but it was good to be reminded of the truth. I found it genuinely useful to me as I thought about my own self-esteem and family-of-origin issues that have become apparent in the last few weeks and months of my life. Perhaps the reason it meant much to me and little to them was that I found it so applicable and relevant to my life where they did not.
But, reflecting back on it in the light of some of my friends' comments, she did rely more on emotional appeal and connection that hard fact. She made several factual errors and blunders. She argued more from an emotional basis than an intellectual basis, and much of what she said can be boiled down and condensed into the realizations that a person's self-esteem is a critical part of himself or herself, that a person's self-esteem is profoundly influenced by our upbringing, and that a true self-image is found in seeing yourself as God sees you. Good thoughts, yes, but trite. At least, so my friends found them, and I understand why (or I think I do, anyway).
Their reactions could be similar to the writer of Hebrews, frustrated that we are still learning and struggling with the elemental things, rather than moving on to more mature ideas.
Concerning him [Christ] we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant. But solid food is for the mature who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.Hebrews 5:11-14, NASB95
In seen in the light of this passage, I agree with my friends that a great part of the modern American church (including our campus chapel) struggles with mastering and moving beyond the basics. So much time seems to be spent belaboring the simple, elemental things, and minds like those of my friends starve for something more substantial. Their minds and attention were meant for more than what they usually hear. Their intellect is simply not challenged or sharpened at all, and this frustrates them. And it should. In writing this, I'm starting to be concerned because it is to easy for me to be content with the "milk" I get without longing after meat. Too much of me is content to let my mind be lazy.
And yet there is a horrible risk of arrogance and pride setting in. This is always dangerous as people grow, because they start to feel superior to the poor wretches who aren't as mature as they are. Just think of our reaction to a five-year-old boy talking about when he was a little kid. Nikki and I have only been married seven months, and when we talk about how much we've learned and how far we've come since we were married, it's hard for older married couples not to break out laughing. I still remember (ruefully), when the wife of a pastor at a church I was attending explained that she didn't teach men - she only taught women and "little baby married couples who don't know anything."
* in pausing to reflect over what I just wrote, I realize that I'm wandering from my first subject. Now I have to decide whether or not to permit this wandering or bring myself back to the main thread. I'm enjoying this train of thought, but I liked my original track as well ... I've decided to indulge this rabbit trail for a while longer. *
Arrogance and inferiority are inevitable results of comparison with others. You will always be advanced beyond some and always hopelessly behind others, on virtually any measuring stick. It is particularly dangerous to talk of levels of Christian maturity and spirituality ... dangerous and stupid. Every Christian stands or falls before God alone ... and God is able to make us stand. The more a Christian grows, the more any comparison is null and void, because the only measuring stick that matters is Christ. And yet at the same time, there really are Christians who are more mature than others. There really are levels of maturity, and it really is good to progress. I just wish that admitting to levels of maturity didn't give Satan such an easy way to divide us and stick some Christians' noses in the air and others in the dirt. Yes. And now I'm being trite.
In another way, to speak of growing up beyond the essentials of the faith is completely wrong. I hope none of us ever become "more advanced" than simple grace. No one should stick their nose up at concepts of Christian self-esteem. The realization that God loves you unconditionally, and that His acceptance is the rock of your own identity and worth, is absolutely vital and too few people actually believe it.
So how in the world do we as Christians (and thinkers in general) deal with this conundrum? How do we contrive to be ever progressing, learning more and more and fully engaging our minds, but at the same time never losing our love of and fascination with the most basic, beautiful things?
I suppose it's rather like the saying "a little science will challenge a Christian's faith. A lot of science will strengthen it." The deeper and more complete and clearer our understanding of the mind of God becomes, the more wonderful and awesome the thought becomes: "God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life."
