I’m preparing for my last BBT class at Columbia Seminary (coming in July). If you peruse this blog much, you know how important Taylor has been to my formation as a human, writer, story-teller and preacher. I would dare say she has shaped me more than any other preacher/writer. Period.

Two of the books we’re reading for this class are Speaking of Fatih and America and the Challenges of Religious Diversity. The class (discussion, lectures, research) is focused on the role of the church in an ever-changing religious climate. That is, there are no more people who do claim atheism/agnosticism than at any point in history (which, by the way, is still a relatively low number). The number of adherents to Buddhism, Islam, Baha’i, Hindu, and Judaism is on the rise (due to many factors, not the least of which being immigration and a post-institutionalist mindset in America). We love the new baby. That’s not all bad.

In Krista Tippett’s Speaking of Faith, she does a remarkable job of describing how Christianity might “sound” in the diverse neighborhood of American religion.  Ruminating upon Annie Dillard’s belief that “love is greater than knowledge” Tippett writes, “I forget that love is more important than knowledge all the time. I have forgotten it, willfully, for long stretches of life, and at my peril. Yet even as the loves in my life are in disarray I recover a sense of its centrality. And every time I let myself go deeper into the mess and mystery of human loving, I am hit over the head again by theology–an insistence that the love of God is so much fuller than we can usually imagine or take in . . . love is not the starting point but the goal. It is not something we are born knowing how to do, not something we fall into. It is something we spend our whole lives learning,” (223-224).

In Wuthnow’s America and the Challenge of Religous Diversity, he distinguishes between three groups within American Christianity (note how these groups transcend Catholic, Mainline Protestant, evangelical Protestant): spiritual shoppers, Christian inclusivists, and Christian exclusivists. The book is full of interesting data based upon detail research. A few of the most troubling to me: Only 42 percent of Christian exclusivists (of which many evangelicals fall into), believe that religious diversity is good for the U.S.   Almost 60 percent of Christian exclusivists used the word strange to describe Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists in a litany of adjective choices.

He ends the book by highlighting characteristics of “reflective pluralism”–a community rigorously maintaining their fidelity to core principles of faith (Trinity, love of others, redemption through Jesus’ life and death, etc.) while holding a genuine posture of humility and curiosity towards other faiths. While I am a Yoderite to the core (church as alternative community), I don’t think we have the luxury of ignoring Wuthnow’s insights.

INTELLECTUAL. Some people connect to God through the mind. They want critical, well-informed, nuanced, but straightforward communication. They won’t settle for cheap/weak stereo-types (no matter how funny) but appreciate a “deep wisdom” based upon the complex questions that under-gird our world.

RELATIONAL. Many people are “heart” Christians. That is, they connect to God/spirituality through the lens of friendships, marriage, and family systems. These folks point out that God is a relational God, and we are called into community. When they hear a message or read something, they want to know/experience how this connects to their immediate relationships.

MYSTIC. A growing group, this sub-set values mystery, creativity, art, and paradox. They tend to gravitate towards meditation, chanting, readings, and silence.

JUSTICE. These are “hands” Christians. Their primary connecting point to God/Christian faith is building homes for Habitat, caring for the poor, spending life with the marginalized.

With any “typology” . . . there are holes and over-simplifications to be found. But, these make sense to me as I think about upcoming teachings/conferences/writing projects. Because I believe Jesus was fully human and fully God, I believe he shows us what it means to be human for our time and place. A human who showed the world what intellectual genius looks like on the ground (philosophers are still wrestling with his social ethic); what it means to live in deep friendship; what it means to endure the mystery of good and evil and the many paradoxes of being human; and what it means to pray for God’s way to be manifested on earth as it is in heaven (justice: repairing the world).

Two questions.

1. What “type” do you most identify with?

2. What “other” type does your wife/significant other/best friend belong to?

Collision

*Jesus came to bring Israel back to Torah-abiding, justice-executing ways.

*The important council’s of the 5th centuries definitively gave the church language to understand who Jesus really was (fully God and fully human–a belief we moderns take for granted)

*The split of the Western Church (Catholicism) and the Eastern Church (Orthodox) and the Oriental Orthodoxy (Coptic, Syrian, etc.).

*Martin Luther’s Reformation of Catholicism in the 16th century

*The Great Emergence of the late 20th/early 21st century (sometimes mentioned as postmodernism).

Every five hundred years, the rummage sale comes a knockin‘. This is the premise of Phyllis Tickle’s new book The Great Emergence. A “short epic” (thanks for that expression Jonathan), this book covers the major threads of Christianity as a social movement over the last two thousand years. Tickle masterfully weaves in and out the complexities of Christianity’s spread: the good, the bad, and the downright ugly.

Too many highlights to cover, so I’ll mention just one facet. Towards the end of GE, Tickle attempts to describe the different branches/response of Christians in this new reality, this emerging world landscape (141-143).

• Traditionalists: “Like those who have fallen heir to Grandpa’s old home place and who still like things just the way he had them, they see no need either to fight with the neighbors or to change the furniture.” This group is content, fine with business as usual.
• Re-traditioning: This group has chosen to stay with their inherited group, but unlike the Traditionalists “they energetically wish to make it [the church] more fully what it originally was.” These folks want to keep the house, but make major interior changes and modifications: create a new kitchen, update the plumbing, drop new floors.
• Progressives: “[W]hile wanting to maintain their position in institutional Christianity, they want also to wrestle with what they see as the foolheartedness of holding on to dogma based ideas and doctrinally restricted governance and praxis.” This group will knock out some walls, extend favorite rooms, even build additions if need be.
• Hyphenateds: “[T]hey recognize theirs is the most schizophrenic of the encompassing circles . . . householders who have fallen heir to Grandpa’s old home place, feel a compelling need to honor the land it sits upon and the trees that surround it, but no need to retain its structural shape. Imaginatively enough, though, while they may tear down the house, they will savage some of the material out of which it was built and incorporate those honored bricks and columns, plinths and antique doors into the new thing they are building.”

—

Which stream do you find yourself in?

First, the dangerous way. In this stream of anti-intellectualism, I hear people say, “Well, I hate to read. I just catch the headlines.” This group (full of conservatives and liberals depending upon where you live) polarizes the conversation (or lack thereof) with words like “naive, crazy, ignorant, and stupid.” I can’t tell you how many times I heard people, on the right and left, use such words towards someone whose political viewpoint was different them. All those comments really do is betray the lack of wisdom of the one speaking.

This kind of anti-intellectualism (the bad kind) does not seek to understand the other side of an issue (be it political, spiritual, etc.) . . . rather, this side has it all figured out. The answers are clear-cut, even if they’ve never considered that there questions might be really bad questions. In this frame of mind, you listen to your favorite polarizing radio voice, read only a few periodicals printed by your stated constituency, and if, by chance, you read a book, it will not be from someone who might totally give you a different slant into the world but someone you know you can trust because, after all, they think like you do. Faces get red. Speeches get slurred. Ideas are out the window. Now, you find yourself defending things that you don’t know about as much as you claim.

I reject that kind of anti-intellectualism. It stands against Jesus’ disposition of entering into people’s lives, asking questions, having dialog, seeing the image of God in every person one encounters. This kind of anti-intellectualism is the easy way out.

There’s another kind of anti-intellectualism. This kind seeks to gain knowledge vigorously through books, news, media, conversations, experience, and dialog. These persons might be conservatives or liberals (or neither) but they surround themselves with diverse viewpoints. They are committed to learning and to the process of changing their mind, because, if you’ve gone twenty years (or two) without changing your mind on something you probably aren’t learning. The more one learns, the more one realizes that knowledge is fleeting and that we are all ignorant save a few subjects.

This anti-intellectualism loves to say, “I might be wrong but here’s what I think.” It always seeks perspective, nuance, and viewpoint. One can have strong conviction and still exist in this camp. It’s not easy. Our church, social, and political climates want so desperately for you to come to the dark side. The side that says everything is “black and white” . . . “clear as the nose on my face.” The side that says, “If you are a Christian you will clearly vote for _______.” Or, “If you are a real citizen you’d believe _________.”

I choose to be anti-intellectual. Not in the sense that I have it figured out and know I am hoping others will come to see my point of view. Rather, I want to be the kind of anti-intellectual who reads everything from Plato to Hitchens but also realizes that the greatest wisdom in life often comes from the janitor at the seminary or the teacher’s aide at the elementary school (or the carpenter from Nazareth).

A note to Christians. When you become the first kind of anti-intellectual (the bad kind) you confirm what most of America already thinks about Christianity. That we are naive, narrow-minded, incapable of wrestling with life’s big questions. This does not mean we bow to the gods of pluralism and tolerance. Rather, it means we seek “truth knowing that we alone do not possess the ability to know truth absolutely.” For the sake of the world (and your marriage), pursue wisdom vigorously, but don’t ever think you’ve arrived. The tide of history will go out, and you’ll be left on the shore holding life’s great equalizer: hind-sight.