As a self-styled "radical Christian," I find myself fighting what seems to me to be a theological/intellectual disease very deep and prevalent in our contemporary situation, including in the churches. This disease has its heart and origin in the denial, on the one hand, of a subject matter capable of defending itself against the constructive manipulations of ideologies, and on the other, of a subject capable of standing on its own intellectual feet against communitarian embeddedness.
This disease has two dominant forms. The first form insists that because there is no such subject matter and subject, the only solution is to defer absolutely to the opinion of an authoritarian source or some collection of authoritarian sources. The second form of this same disease insists that the solution is to defer to every opinion equally. And anyone who, like myself, refuses one of these solutions is always presumed to be accepting the other one.
It is rather like trying to defend oneself against two tribes of zombies. One tribe angrily yells at you "GIVE ME YOUR BRAINS NOW!" The other asks, pleads, and manipulates, saying, in effect, "If you are a nice person and want to avoid having your brains devoured by the first tribe, just let each of us take a little nibble. If you do not, we will be very hurt and disappointed with you."
In the churches today, one constantly encounters pleas to be "humble" by giving up one's own view and going along with everyone else. No charge is considered more damning than that of "individualism." Individualism is criticized as being "modern," "western," etc. In direct opposition to this, radical Christianity, as I conceive it, is irreducibly individualistic.
First, let's define the term. "Individualism" as I define it does not mean selfishness, a refusal to be in community with others, or the like. Rather, it is a way of being in community, of being in relation to others, and of responsibly acting with and toward one's neighbors. It means being a self, a definite locus of thought and activity. Additionally, it is more of a prescriptive than a descriptive idea. I do not doubt that, as a matter of descriptive fact, everyone finds him- or herself in a community or a nexus of overlapping communities, which bring with them all kinds of assumptions, biases, and so on, not all of which we can resist perfectly, or even be clearly aware of. But a person ought to work to own up to his or her own thoughts and take responsibility for them. In fact, everyone is responsible, in the sense of morally or ethically culpable, for what he or she thinks, regardless of where the idea comes from. At least to an extent, and a significant one at that, taking responsibility for one's own thoughts is possible. That is what I mean by "individualism."
It is my view that, contrary to popular opinion, this kind of individualism is prevalent in the Bible, especially in the New Testament. It is the corrolary of the move, apparent especially in the Apostle Paul's letters, against settled communitarian distinctions that would divide the Church or order it hierarchically. This is how I read the famous "neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free" from Galatians.
This kind of individualism means that each person is responsible for his or her own faith. By no means do I intend here to downplay the role of the Holy Spirit; in fact, this role dovetails nicely with individualism. Because we believe by an act of God in our hearts, we are never bound directly to, nor dependent upon, anyone else for our faith.
Finally, this kind of individualism does not contradict, but actually supports socialist, even communist collectivism. It is because we, as individuals, have our own thoughts, that when our common thoughts agree, we can act in egalitarian unity.
Ecclesiologically, this means that our churches ought to embody this kind of individualist collectivism. We come together, as the Gospel of Matthew puts it, in Jesus' name. In my view, that does not mean we use the name of Jesus as a mere word, void of definitive reference, waiting to be filled in by our opinions. Rather, "in Jesus' name" means according to the truth of God's act and being in the irreducible particularity of the human life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. In other words, it is our common idea, which each person holds individually, that brings the Church together.
The usual assumption today is quite different. It is often assumed that whenever people are together in an ecclesiological institution, they are duty-bound to hold onto some kind of unity no matter what happens, and no matter how superficial this unity turns out to be. Strangely, perhaps, this idea seems more prevalent in the so-called "left wing" of denominations more than the right wing. But in the final analysis, this move is inherently right wing.
Therefore our determination is to be individuals, not so that we can avoid collective activity, but so that our collective activity, when it happens, will not be superficial but deep and authentic. Doctrine, or ideas, should lead here, not unity for its own sake. Otherwise, the tail is wagging the dogma.
Hey, Jason, I just found the site from a facebook link you posted, and I'm glad to see you're blogging (at least some) again.
ReplyDeleteI'm starting with reading the earliest posts, so I may be asking questions you answer in later posts –– I hope that’s okay.
My first question/challenge would be: does this approach to the faith mean everyone has to developing something like their own systematic theology? How are individuals to come together if they’re not, on the whole, accepting certain traditions as starting points? And if they are accepting certain starting points, how is that not ultimately a matter of them sharing a communal faith?
Clearly you’re discussing a system that’s more complex than I’m party to, so I thought I’d start with some angle and see if you’d like to clarify. Thanks!
Hey Scott,
ReplyDeleteI hope all is well with you. I had to re-read this post to refresh my memory about what I had said in it! Having done that, I will try to engage with your questions.
The question about everyone having their own systematic theology is an interesting one. I would say definitely that each Christian does not have to have a systematic theology. That would clearly lead to absurd consequences. Not everyone can be expected to do such a thing. I would say no biblical writer, and not even Jesus himself, had one, strictly speaking. So does that mean systematic--or, perhaps better, "academic"--theology is useless? Again, I would say no. It's an academic, even scientific, discipline concerning the object of Christian faith and therefore of the faith itself. But you no more need this science to believe in this object (viz., God) than you need to know Newton or Einstein to believe in gravity and trust it to keep you from flying off into space.
I would say that everyone needs their own faith. And faith is capable of being an object, or a condition for the academic discipline of theology. I'm using "condition" here like Badiou uses it. He calls love, art, politics, and science the "conditions" of philosophy. These are the truth procedures that philosophy theorizes about. Philosophy, for Badiou, doesn't produce truth, it can only discover it in other disciplines. I think it might be fruitful to think in the same way about faith and theology. Does that make any sense?
In reading the rest of your comment, I get very confused. "[A]ccepting certain traditions as starting points" doesn't seem objectionable to me, as long as it is clear that what is commonly accepted is the truth of the tradition and not something extraneous to this truth, such as the authority of the source. And I don't think I have a problem with "communal faith" as long as it's communal FAITH, rather than group pride or some such.
I'm probably not understanding your concern very well. Perhaps you could help me understand it better.
Thanks for your response.
ReplyDeleteMy question may be a bit confused, so I'll try it from another angle. How far do you mean to push the statement: "In fact, everyone is responsible, in the sense of morally or ethically culpable, for what he or she thinks, regardless of where the idea comes from."?
So for example, suppose person A takes by faith a certain church teaching that is quite reasonable (though ultimately wrong), because it is taught by an authority who has shown themself a trustworthy authority (say, a Calvin or an Aquinas) in the church. Person B takes by faith a certain church teaching that is highly questionable (and ultimately wrong) on the authority of a minister who is compelling but has not shown himself a trustworthy authority (say, a minister who started his own church and has no accountability to any larger community of Christian leaders) and is broadly rejected by most Christians.
I would say that both people are ultimately responsible for what they believe, but that person B is far more culpable than person A for the wrongness of their belief.
The upshot might be that we would encourage a Christian in general to follow some Christian tradition or body of doctrine, knowing most people aren’t likely to carefully work out the implications of all their various beliefs anyway––or else are likely to do so badly. Naturally the goal would be to have faith in Christ rather than the body of doctrine, but this approach would emphasize that doctrines developed by careful thinkers in community are usually more conducive to faith in Christ than are individual theologies developed by each Christian.
This wouldn’t mean an insistence on unity “no matter what happens,” as you say. It *would* mean a bias toward unity except where something extreme happens. In other words, no Christian should ever trust a tradition completely, but Christians should expect to trust their traditions––provided they are good traditions (whatever that means)––in most instances.
When you say people are responsible for their beliefs, do you mean something like this, or do you mean it in a more total sense, such that every belief needs to be based on their own reflection and nothing taken on trust from a tradition or teacher?
(This is me signing in with wordpress so I can hopefully get further comments emailed to my other email address.)
ReplyDeleteScott,
ReplyDeleteA few points:
I wonder whether we should consider an authority or teacher to be good, to be trustworthy, etc., based on communal or individual criteria. I also wonder how you would define "extreme" as you use it in the next-to last paragraph above. And who are "most Christians?" Obviously one's (individual?) definition of the word "Christian" determines the group that counts, and that would make a huge difference in what beliefs you wind up with. But how can we define "Christian" except by their beliefs? So it seems you'd be caught in a vicious circle.
Furthermore, what good is a belief that is not thought through, at least to some extent or on some level? So let's assume that the Christian faith, if you think it through, leads to certain actions, say charity and the like. If someone accepts Christianity nominally but doesn't think through the implications, and therefore acts uncharitably without any remorse about it, what good is that? So perhaps we would direct this person to an authoritative figure of some sort that has thought through these implications and hope that, even though our nominal Christian won't think things through for him or herself, they will accept the authority of this figure and benefit from the theological work indirectly. Maybe that would work. Then again, maybe not. In part we'd be back to the problems I mentioned just now: how do we know which figures are authoritative without ourselves thinking things through, so that we can understand who has done this? And if I can make these judgments, am I not in part appealing to my own authority when I direct our nominal Christian to this other authority? Are we comfortable doing that? If so, why? If not, why not? And what if the nominal Christian misinterprets the authority, as he or she has obviously shown a propensity to do already? You always get some kind of regress, whether infinite or not is the question.
In the end, I think part of the issue here is the question of what is at stake in people getting the correct beliefs, along with the question of what is at stake in "unity." I am, perhaps, more concerned that people believe freely and genuinely, from the heart, and a bit less interested in whether someone's more-or-less nominal beliefs are correct. Also, I think I am more interested in people being unified around their free and genuine beliefs and less interested in them having institutional unity. Correct me if I'm misreading the situation.
Well, I think participating in pretty much any Christian tradition is going to solve the problem of the person who accepts Christianity nominally but don’t realize they should act charitably. They may hear different definitions of charity (telling everyone you meet about Jesus, serving those you know sacrificially, fighting in the military, donating to charity, voting democrat, voting republican, etc.), and some of these are wildly inadequate, but at least all the traditions have the goal of being charitable. It seems to me it’s precisely the individual who isn’t paying much attention to a particular tradition, who might simply leave charity out of the equation without reflecting on it, because other parts of Christianity seem to them more important.
ReplyDeleteI agree that sending the person to a tradition may not work, as far as conforming the person to Christ. But of course, encouraging them to reflect carefully on their faith may not work either, since the fact that they’re “nominal” suggests already that they aren’t predisposed to passionately working out their salvation with fear and trembling. I’d call the risk-side of those two possibilities a wash; in either case, some undefinable percentage of people won’t follow Christ very well. The solution in either case is to become more sectarian and kick out less passionate people, which I don’t think should be a Christian goal.
So to be practical: people like you and me who study theology for a living are probably not going to fit completely into one tradition, because it’s our job to have strong opinions about things. But there’s a huge spectrum of the degree to which people think carefully about their faith. It’s easy to imagine one end of the spectrum of people for whom ideas don’t make any sense. I don’t think those people should be treated as lesser Christians because they’re following a tradition rather than having strong opinions themselves.
Then take the huge range of people who are smart enough to think about theology but don’t really have the time, or haven’t been to school to learn exactly what theology is in all its complexity. They’ll have thought about some questions theologically, but other questions probably not at all. Maybe they’ll have a strong opinion on what Christian love should mean, but they take the doctrine of original sin totally on faith from their tradition.
I think that’s okay, because I don’t think God can plausibly expect Christians to get all their beliefs correct anyway. I totally agree that Christ should be the object of our faith, and that faith in any tradition should only be a means to faith in Christ, rather than faith in the tradition itself. But we as people simply don’t have access to means of choosing reliably which authorities we should follow on any given question. We can’t just follow “the church,” because people disagree (with good arguments) on who the proper church authorities are. We can’t just follow “the Bible,” because we can’t agree on what it means––and many of us suspect that it has multiple answers or no clear answer on a variety of important questions.
We *can* follow our own individual consciences and beliefs, which to some extent we all bound to do. But I disagree that this should be done radically, since it won’t really solve the problems of wrong beliefs or shallow/insincere faith, unless it does so by excluding people from Christianity all the people who don’t work out their own systematic theology. In my view, rational reflection on the faith should lead us to conclude that we are more likely to better know and serve Christ by joining some tradition than by figuring out our salvation more individually and expecting others to do the same.
Would you say that you and I differ in that you’re more idealistic on this point and I’m more pragmatic?
I'm not sure what the disagreement is. I certainly approve of paying attention (as you say) to traditions, major theologians, etc. There's a difference, however, between dialogue and common intellectual work on the one hand and unthinking conformity on the other. I'm mostly against the latter, not the former.
ReplyDeleteYou say we don't have access to the means of choosing which authorities to follow. Well then, is it just a crap shoot? I hardly think that view would be helpful. What's the point in following just any authority? And is that not just as individualistic, at the end of the day, as having some (however inadequate) reason why you adhere to one tradition rather than another?
Finally, you seem, despite what I said in my first response above, to have foisted upon me the position that everyone needs a systematic theology. I have explicitly denied that thesis, haven't I? I don't think our choices are limited to either randomly choosing some authority to believe unquestioningly or insisting that everyone have a systematic theology. Surely there's a third alternative, even if I'm not sure what it is in every detail. I personally know lots of people who think through their faith more profoundly than others, despite their lack of formal theological training. Surely that suggests that more is possible generally.
One more point. Issues of what is good versus what is bad are different from questions of what is practical and what is not. I think our disagreement is more on the former, not the latter. I'm not saying it is practical that everyone would be a deep thinking Christian. Certainly I cannot hope to make them be so. That's not my job in any case. The question to me is whether a little institutional disunity is worse than a little unthinking conformity, or--what seems inevitable to me in the latter case--the kinds of manipulation, bullying, force and/or violence that so often (perhaps always) accompanies it. The only time the Church has ever had anything like total unity was when having a different opinion and speaking about it in public was likely to get you in major trouble with the state. It's all well and good to say you are being practical, but I am skeptical that the solution to Christian disunity can so easily be found.
ReplyDelete