The world was living under the threat of nuclear holocaust and Lionel Richie. The fundamentalist takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention that started in 1979 had begun to get serious traction, and the Christian Right was becoming a political force to be reckoned with. I was going to college, where I was flirting with a major in political science, playing endless games of Defender, and perfecting my air guitar. I was tight-rolling my jeans and teasing my permed mullet. Business in the front, party in the back. I wore pastel shirts and skinny knit ties for my part-time job at Sears selling paint, electrical supplies, toys, and sporting goods.
And I campaigned for Reagan.
Yes, that's right.
No need to reread.
I was part of the Reagan Revolution.
I'm not sure I can fully explain it. I suppose part of it was overcorrection. I had recently made a dramatic turnaround from a life of narcissism; and, much like the Bob Dylan of that era, I found a home in an opposite pole. I wasn't part of the pinstriped set or the ultra-angry religious mob; but, I sincerely bought into the idea that the marketplace (of commerce and ideas) was the best hope of lifting all boats. I was a serious reader of Christian apologetics and activism, and I got carried away with arguments for moral absolutes, creationism, and biblical inerrancy. I was good at it. So good that I was capable of destroying a relationship in under 10 minutes.
I spent endless hours in the university coffee shop posing philosophical challenges for my detractors. I had (emphasis on "had") a friend--Jerome Shapiro--who was Jewish and planning to go to law school. He, like many of my acquaintances at the time, didn't buy my absolutist ontology, so we engaged the issues over Chik-fil-A sandwiches and Mello Yello. When friends like Jerome left and never came back, it just added verve to my swagger and my martyr complex ("Doing the work of the kingdom means we will suffer in this world.").
My Aunt Vinita had worked at Sears her entire career. Sometimes we would run into each other and have pleasant exchanges about our family. I didn't know her well, but she was a good soul with a kind heart. One of the things I didn't know about her was that she was a yellow dog Democrat. It was probably more of a cultural resentment of Lincoln and the Civil War than progressive ideologies, but whatever the reason, she was a hardcore Dem.
One night, I had stationed myself near the timeclock to pass out Reagan/Bush bumper stickers. It was closing time and employees were herding out the door.
I saw Aunt V making her way through the stockroom toward the exit. She saw me and her eyes filled with joy, until she saw what I was handing out.
"Reacher. Oh, Reacher" she exclaimed, voice dripping with despair and head wagging in shame. I didn't get it. How could this decent, heavenbound woman not support God's cause and candidate?
Didn't matter to me. I was committed to the "Truth," and I was prepared to suffer for it. Being right was the ultimate calling.
People like Jerome and Aunt V haunt my dreams sometimes. I never saw Jerome again, and I never talked to Aunt V about God or politics after that day in 1984.
I wonder how many relationships I sacrificed at the altar of a false god. Oh, Certainty, you wretched beast!
When Aunt V died last year, I went to her funeral. I'd like to tell you that I placed a Kerry/Edwards bumper sticker on her grave. I didn't. She sure would have liked that, though.
16 comments:
In other words, "the medium was your message."
I've run across several folks in my college years who seemed bent on making their case to the detriment of relationships, although these were over issues of predestination and free will. I've also met people who destroy interpersonal relationships in order to accomplish a mission that they believed would save or improve the quality of thousands of lives, possibly millions, depending on the lasting significance of their efforts. I confess that I have been among the latter number at various points in my own life.
I wonder if certainty is not itself the evil, but the selfish perversion of certainty. Is it being certain of something that is so repulsive, or the reckless way one goes about validating his own position? I would venture a guess that it is not those who are most certain who are to be feared, for if one is certain of something, he need not obsess over proving the validity of his arguments to everyone he meets. Could it rather be that it is those who are grasping to shallow answers and picking apart people's words for the sake of argument who are dangerous? Could it be that, if you took two people with identical ideological/theological positions, that one would seek to dominate others and the other would seek a true dialogue and symbiotic relationship?
Well put, Beloved. I set out to make a very similar point, but daresay I would not have phrased it as well as you.
I think you're right, Beloved. I guess certainty is sort of like money: It's not the manna that's the problem, it's the love of it, or the unhealthy relationship with it, that's the problem. Of course, also like money, the problem is addressed rather thoroughly if you don't have it. I don't mean just the absence of money or certainty--sometimes those who lack are the ones with most unhealthy desire--but the conscious disregard of it as important.
I certainly don't think that if there is a "truth" inside of me that beyond doubt that I should rid myself of it; but there is quite a difference between discovering a truth that has grown within you and become a part of your being, and a truth that you pursue and consiously attempt to validate. Going back to the money metaphor, there is a qualitative difference between the person who realizes they are prosperous because they have done what they love and they have done it for love, and the person who is prosperous because they wanted to make money.
You know, Buddhists say, "If you find the Buddha, kill the Buddha" as a rejection of static truth propositions over inner truth. I may not entirely agree with the whole story, but they have a point that we often miss: If your search is for Truth, when you think you have found it, you will expend great energy (even violence) to bring others under its control. If what we search for is authenticity and relationship that is dynamic and moving all the time, there is less chance you will try to use that relationship as a weapon.
I'm definitely tuned in to your wavelength. But I have a difficult time separating "Truth" from "God". According to my very best understanding, God IS Truth. Jesus is Truth. So to me, there is no dichotomy of seeking God vs. seeking Truth. They're synonymous. And i think that draws important implications for us. I think you'd agree that if we keep the two inseparably joined, then the passionate pursuit of God/Truth cannot be a bad thing. But if we develop a complex where we are seeking certainty (i.e. comfortability, convenience, predictability, self-validation, power) instead of God, then I agree with you 100%
However, I believe there are many more God-Truth seekers out there than Emergent and more liberal communities give credit to. "Younger Evangelicals" are no longer paying much attention to hardcore "fundamentalist" right-wing types with closed minds, political agendas and power lusting schemes. Even theologically conservative younger evangelicals. I forsee a shift on the horizon where the substantial majority of conservative evangelicals abandon "the war" and become more active in "the conversation". It's only a matter of time for the hardnoses to retire from churches and denominations and for the younger evangelical insurgence to usher in the dawn of a new conservativism. If that would be welcome news to you--that conservatives would become conistently, ethically engaged in the conversation--then I think you're on the right track.
I'm with you on the truth is god thing, but I don't think that is the way the concept of truth is handled in our culture...at all. Relational truth is radically different from the propositional truth that is pushed in our culture.
It will be great if the "younger evangelicals" forsake fussbudgeting, but I have to wonder why they (or you) would insist on continuing to use the label "conservative." If that remains as a primary identifier, then this "change" you speak of is no real change at all...disingeuous at best. Because, if public life is still seen as a struggle of ideologies, then they can dress it up in strategically tousled hair and urban coffeehouses all they want, but it's still little more than a nicer version of James Dobson.
I think there is a religious tweaking going on: a joie de vivre-ish shift away from the linear, hierarchical way of thinking. But it's still a long way from being a truly authentic change. There is still a lot of smoke-and-mirroring going on. It will take more than hip worship and snarky prose to mark the change of an era.
Narcissism? I won't argue w/that, though I think a case for hedonism could easily be made. You don't do anything halfway, do you? For good or bad.
I'll cop to the hedonism, PJ. Although not in the classical sense. I didn't elevate pleasure as an ultimate ethical goal, I used pleasure as a way to escape, or obscure, my guilt. A moving target is harder to hit.
I am all about "relational truth." But it seems as though there is a confusion, perhaps due to their semantic similarities, between "relational truth" and "relative truth."
When you mentioned "snarky prose", Reacher, I wondered if you were thinking of Donald Miller and such books as Blue Like Jazz. In all of Miller's writing he emphasizes the relational nature of the truth presented in the Bible. This means that the majority of the Bible's truth is imparted by way of interaction among people, or between people and God. This is to be contrasted with what you call "propositional truth", by which I suppose you mean truth arrived at through deconstruction, analysis and the scientific method.
To write off propositional truth as useless or irrelevant is foolish, even for spirituality. There are many examples of Jesus, Paul, and other apostles and prophets making their points through logical reasoning, not exclusively through relationships. The problem is that we have ignored the concept of relational truth basically ever since the Enlightenment began, and now we are in danger of letting the pendulum swing back again to the opposite incorrect extreme.
"Relative truth" is a totally different concept, referring to those statements that are only true under certain circumstances, such as "It is raining," or "The Dairy Queen is on your right." Relational truth, just like Propositional truth, can be Relative in nature, but obviously it doesn't have to be.
And finally, I want to echo Beloved's assertion that many Younger Evangelicals are coming to grips with the damage done by their evangelical predecessors. In some cases, this will simply (and sadly) result in new genres, new venues, and new hairdos. But I agree that there are plenty of those who call themselves "conservative" to refer to their view of the authoritative nature of the Bible, yet steer clear of divisive politicking and logic-mongering that you found so irresistable as a lad.
I know that this has nothing to do with anything but the name of McLuhan's book is The Medium is the Massage
I didn't realize at the time that you were using drinking, drugs and the fairer sex to lose your guilt. Lose your inhibitions, lose your cool, lose your keys, yes.
business in front, party in the back. yessss!!! no one makes fun of my "7." i cant believe you used to be in the brotherhood, man. you have great hair, but it would have been so much greater to see it in all its mullet glory.
Ocho, I always thought Medium Massage was a setting on my thermo-therapy chair.
:-)~ How's that for snarky prose?
8,
Not to try and be a propositional debater or anything... but the title of McLuhan's first serious work ended in "Message". "Massage" came later. But hey, at least you're familiar with him.
Reach,
You seem mighty certain of the proposition that relational truthing is moral or ethical, and that propositional truthing is immoral or unethical. ;-)
I think the loaded words that are thrown around muddy the waters in these types of discussions, so I'd like to hear your definitions of "relational truth" and "propositional truth". Then I'd like to ask the question, Are these our only two options of how to experience and communicate truth?
Gee, looks like everyone else has been out of blog-commission for as long as i have! Hope ya'll's Labor Day was without too much labor. ;-) Thankfully mine was!
Reacher, perhaps this is what you're getting at:
"This people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honor me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by precept of men." Isaiah 29:13
You're worried that the faith of too many Western Christians is wrapped up too much in our intellect, our "proof", our ability to reason. Would that be an accurate perception?
Post a Comment