Returning to the 1920s and 1930s, the conservative wing of Christianity took a very different path. Having become pessimistic about influencing culture, conservative Christians came to see themselves as lifeboats, plucking individual sinners from the waters of a world doomed to destruction. Preserving the “truth” of Scripture and proclamation of the gospel to “save souls” became the only agenda. Why engage in dialog when our world is slated for destruction? The world needs salvation, not conversation.
Consequently, every human endeavor serves one essential purpose. They were platforms for evangelization. All resources available to a Christian should be marshaled toward this end. Stewardship was equated to giving your resources to finance evangelistic efforts. Business, politics, and other “worldly” pursuits were distractions except as they provided a venue for saving lost souls or financing evangelism.
Another considerable influence within Evangelical, conservative, and fundamentalist communities was an eschatology deeply influenced by dispensationalism. Dispensationalism maintains that at some unknown moment, believers’ souls will be “raptured” from their bodies (a dualistic split between spirit and matter) into heaven, unleashing a series of ominous events that culminates in the obliteration of the material world. The faithful then go to live with God in heaven as spirits for eternity. This is a significant departure from the historical Christian view where God descends to earth to be with humanity for eternity in the material world of the New Jerusalem. Because of this theology, and believing these events are coming sooner rather than later, there has been a strong tendency to see the material world as valueless and inconsequential. The powerlessness felt in the perceived rejection of traditional faith by major ecclesiastical bodies and the growing political and economic crises extending from the beginning of World War I in 1914 to the end of World War II in 1945, made the soil fertile in more conservative communities for sprouting such visions of a rapidly approaching otherworldly deliverance.
Also at work in this milieu was a powerful common sense anti-intellectualism. Intellectualism was often identified as the culprit that led folks away from a common sense “plain literal reading” of the Bible. Furthermore, what was the point of studying law, economics, and politics since these had no practical application to evangelism, and they studied the management of a doomed world. Combing through the scriptures and developing elaborate theories about end-time prophecies was a more worthwhile activity for many. The continued fascination with this quest for secret knowledge is evidenced in everything from the massively popular Left Behind series to The Da Vinci Code.
This is not to say that all conservative Christianity and Evangelicalism were thoroughly entrenched in this thinking. People like Carl F. Henry sensed a need for conservative Christianity to confront the problems of the world. He founded Christianity Today as a tool to promote that discussion. The cultural upheaval of the 1960s and 1970s, especially around political issues like the elimination of school prayers and the legalization of abortion, motivated a host of Evangelical Christians to change their tune about involvement in the world. The election year of 1976 was called the year of the Evangelical because Jimmy Carter was unapologetic about his Evangelical faith during the presidential campaign. Many Evangelicals turned out to support him. The Reagan wing of the Republican Party saw the natural affinity between their agenda and Evangelical values. Powerful political interests courted evangelicals for the first time in decades.
However, despite this change toward re-engaging the culture politically, the propensity to focus exclusively on individualistic solutions to problems, suspicion of intellectual pursuits, and a tendency to adopt modes of thinking from the culture uncritically have persisted to some degree. There has been a tendency to transfer a consumerist mindset into the Church, making some congregations into religiosity Wal-Marts. The focus has become more on the “consumer” having their needs met (however that is defined) than being disciples who are transformed into bearers of God’s image. Having a “personal relationship with Jesus” has often been about quenching a spiritual thirst without significantly touching the material aspects of everyday life. Survey studies repeatedly show little difference between the moral behavior of those who say they are Born Again or Evangelical and the rest of the population. Again, we have a Gnostic-like split between the material and spiritual world and a quest for secret or privatized special knowledge.
This contemporary Gnosticism has significantly impacted how the Church relates to the economic sphere of life. Until the Renaissance and the Reformation, the Church was the central authority on all life matters. The big questions of the times were how everyday living connected with transcendent issues and what was expected of each individual and community. Life was relatively simple in terms of daily living and required no special knowledge or instruction. The organization of day-to-day living was timeless and seemingly unchanging relative to the modern era.
With the disestablishment of the Church and the rise of the Enlightenment, the Church found itself in a disconcerting position. The Church had taught, or given tacit approval of, supernatural understandings of the world that scientists began to show had naturalistic explanations. The Church’s understanding of how the natural world functions was also in error. Christendom started to find themselves restricted to an ever-smaller circle of the “spiritual,” partly because of the hostile efforts by anti-religious thinkers from the Enlightenment onward. A materialistic world emerged that questioned the need for spiritual guidance and claimed vindication for its materialism by pointing to the prosperity and astonishing advancements it had made, often in direct opposition to the Church. Although, as we have seen in earlier posts, the material progress that was made would not have been possible if not for distinctively Christian perspectives like reason, linear time, progress, and the value of the individual as created in the image of God.
By the end of the twentieth century in America, the hope of finding a materialistic basis for purpose and meaning in life has waned. People are curious about spiritual matters and searching for spiritual answers. The question has been how to conceptualize a world where the spiritual and material fully integrate. The Christian narrative has that answer, but reeling from its disestablishment as an authority on the material world and then on the spiritual world as well, Christians in America have devolved into a variety of dualisms, as I have just described, that may give personal comfort but can’t offer a holistic picture.
Looking back over history, we can see this crisis as part of a sequence of unveiling and transformations God has done in the world. God established Israel and introduced the concepts of linear time and procession toward a future reality. Humanity began to be free from fertility gods and the prison of a cyclical view of reality for the first time. Through Jesus, God had provided a means for our transformation back into the eikons he intended us to be. The vision was widened to include all peoples, and the role of God’s people was changed from procession through time to progression through time. Jesus left us with no written record of his teaching, leaving us to “reason” out our faith in community, based on the faithful witness of others, all through the tutelage and direction of the Holy Spirit. With the narrative of Scripture and developing faculty of reason, God has progressively expanded the human capacity to “work the garden,” enabling tremendous advancements in the quality of human life. (I know some will raise environmental questions here. I will address those in coming posts.)
The dilemma we experience today is that we live in a world where for the first time, we have both the technology and understanding needed to be co-creative developers and stewards of creation with God. Until recent centuries, the material world has seemed a fixed, unalterable reality. In such a world, all that was needed was a chaplain who ministers to people as they live out their days, largely at the mercy of the forces at work in their environment. However, when humanity can participate in the forces that touch every aspect of their lives, it is imperative that “ministers” of God be present in every aspect of human existence.
Unfortunately, the transition from chaplain of a relatively static simple world to equippers of a diverse body of ministers in a complex dynamic world has not happened. In all its expressions, the Church is still reeling from the dislocations of the modernist era and finds itself mired in a host of Gnostic dualisms. The Church must recover a holistic Christian anthropology that incorporates the complexities of life today. Fortunately, a sufficient Christian anthropology is present in Scripture. However, realizing it will require unlearning some assumptions and patterns from another age. Moving from clergy and laity to equippers and stewards is central to that transition.
Mike- This continues to be a thought provoking series. Forgive me for quibbling; I realize my perspective is indeed provincial, and my observations suffer from the tendency to treat items that fit my schemata as artefacts, and throw those that don't fit away.
I recognize the "gnostic" dualisms you mention in some instances. But most evangelicals and conservatives I know - even the (rare in my experience) full blown dispensationalists - don't accept a disembodied spirit in heaven concept. The resurrection of the body is a tenet to which they subscribe. The dualism that prevails is one that is far more biblically derrived between the "old man" and "new man" -- spirit and flesh, yes -- where flesh is fallen nature. "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world . . . if any man loves the world the love of the Father is not in him," sounds pretty gnostic - but it defines the things in the world as lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and pride of life. I'm not certain the gnostic parallel to this is so clear [Gnosticism not being the polar opposite of Christianity, but a pre-existing parasitic philosophy that warped Christian concepts to its purposes].
Similarly, the rejection of politics is partly based on the eschatology as you observe, but it is also largely based on an rejection of the false notion that politics provides meaning and answers. Even if human effort could make an ideal [classless was the traditional expression of this?] society, its inhabitants would be no better and have no more meaning than those in the current, far from ideal society.
Also, while there is considerable hubris in the evangelical camp, some of the anti-intellectualism was based on the preceived dangers certain ideas contained. Most notable among this -- and you mentioned it earlier - was eugenics. Eugenics is once again fashionable. People use different terms, but it still involves a few enlightened souls making decisions about who is worthy of life, and who is not -- generally based on assumptions about biology, quality of life, and potential contribution. That this is utterly loathesome to me is beside the point. More importantly, I equally reject the "intellectual" concept. Earlier Bill Gates was praised, but I'm not sure praise is due. One of his biggest philantrhopic causes has been zero population growth. Why not seek ways to include everyone? Why make decisions based on some notion of who, how many, and how qualified the members of the human race should be. The problem with eugenics was not that is was race based -- it was that any decisions of this type were being made by people about the worth of others.
Similarly, a rejection of the assumptions of deconstructionist readings of a text is not anti-intellectual for its own sake. It is, in fact, a rejection of the idea that there is no meaning or communication possible. (People would not say that was what they were doing, but when you transfigure a text to find what neither writer intends nor text contains, you are destroying all meaning. Communication is a delicate miracle -- and, luddite that I am, I resist pseudo-intellectual developments that threaten it.) Along the same lines, there are biases in the guild - in this case in academia, that prevent honest scholarship. (Meaning, I've spent a fair amount of time researching literary criticism. About 40% of it was solid, interesting, informative, and thoughtful. But the other 60% was either derrivative, tautological, trivial, or wrong.) The idea that these should be the gatekeepers of knowledge is farcical at best. The legal standard of peer review for scientific evidence is a case in point. The greatest scientists didn't have peers -- they were generally regarded as wrong by the academic community of the time, and if later proven right - most still never got the credit.
Are evangelicals anti-intellectual? Some are. Are progressives anti-intellectual? Some are. But some ideas ought to be resisted because they are just plain bad.
Posted by: will spotts | Jul 15, 2006 at 01:20 AM
Very helpful input Will. Thanks!
I don’t think I have any major quibbles with your quibbles.
You wrote “…while there is considerable hubris in the evangelical camp, some of the anti-intellectualism was based on the preceived dangers certain ideas contained.”
I fully agree. I think the key to this sentence is the word “some.” It is the corresponding remainder (sum minus some *grin*) that I am trying to get a handle on. Intellectual positions can be rejected without being anti-intellectual. As anti-intellectual, on any given issue I can be in league with those who don’t share my anti-intellectualism but have rejected the idea I am rejecting because of the dangers they perceive from an intellectual analysis. However, I will reject a great many other issues that may have merit, simply because they seem intellectual. I would also go so far as to say that anti-intellectuals sometimes react as they do as a defense mechanism. It deflects challenges to their comfort zone by discrediting the messenger.
My point isn’t that the varieties of Gnosticism are absolutely monolithic. However, they don’t need to be to be paralyzing. It isn’t that there are not individuals or groups who are relatively uncompromised by the Gnostic problems. The problem is that any momentum to holistic Christianity is severely restricted if not actually squelched by this Gnostic ethos. The problems are clearly far more complex than I am describing but my intention is to capture the gist of how I think this Gnostic virus has penetrated multiple avenues of the church and made it unhealthy.
You wrote “Gnosticism not being the polar opposite of Christianity, but a pre-existing parasitic philosophy that warped Christian concepts to its purposes.” Very well said. “Parasitic” is precisely they metaphor I am aiming at. I agree with the biblical allusions you mentioned and I think part of the reason Gnosticism is so resilient is the NT writers were writing in Greek to Greek speaking cultures where Gnostic dualities were alive and well. Thus, the writers tried to enter into their audience’s culture and explain realities using conceptualizations that they were familiar with. And, as any missionary can tell you, the real danger of infusing cultural concepts with the gospel is that you can get a backwash that infuses culture into the gospel. I think the Church has been struggling with this through its entire history.
Your critique is very helpful and I don’t disagree with most of your qualifications. My point is that there is a parasite alive and well in the body and it is debilitating. These posts have been my attempts to describe the symptoms. I have never tried to write this up quite the way I have here and I am still reflecting on what I have written here. If I try to re-write this for other purposes your critique will be quite helpful.
Posted by: Michael Kruse | Jul 15, 2006 at 10:47 AM
"sum minus some" - lol.
I recognize the intent of speaking generally -- and the vast majority of your observations have an uncomfortable degree of accuracy.
I 100% agree with you about the paralyzing effects of Gnostic ideas on Christianity. You raise an interesting point about the culture into which the NT writers were speaking. This might be an earlier (albeit reverse) example of the Constantinian problem - e.g. in gaining cultural currency, the early church runs the risk of losing itself.
For me, the danger posed by Gnostic concepts (both ancient and modern) is similar to CO. While some are harmful in themselves, the greatest harm comes when they crowd out authentic Christianity. After a certain threshold, O2 is no longer available to cells. For me, the Gospel is compelling, unlooked for, in some senses difficult to fully comprehend its implications. The richness in this is lost when the Gnostic senses of words are used instead.
Of course, I might just be reacting to the elitist nature of Gnosticism -- and the fact that I always tend to identify with the outsider (meaning I'm not among those trusted with the esoteric meanings of the secret mysteries . . .).
I'm interested to see where you go with "holistic" Christianity.
Posted by: will spotts | Jul 15, 2006 at 12:41 PM
BTW, if you're considering it, I think you should re-write this in a different form for other audiences. It covers a wealth of ideas.
Posted by: will spotts | Jul 15, 2006 at 12:44 PM
Thanks Will. More helpful observations.
"I'm interested to see where you go with "holistic" Christianity."
So am I! *grin*
I suspect I will revisit this topic and work it some more. I was listening to a presentation recently by Robert Sirico when he made this passing observation about Gnostic influences and the light bulb came on over my head. It tied together a number of things that seemed to "hang together" for me but I couldn't quite express. I still need to do more processing.
Posted by: Michael Kruse | Jul 15, 2006 at 06:43 PM
I second Will about you shaping this up for a larger audience- maybe in actual print/book form. I've often thought while reading this series that it really should be a book.
Re the afterlife, most "bible believing" Christians I know expect to "go to Heaven" when they die, no small number without bodies. Nearly all expect this world to "burn up", and the ones who anticipate a return to earth see it as entirely re-created ("New heavens and New earth"). The dualism runs very deep. Interestingly, it is these folks who have trouble reconciling dualities, the "both/and" aspects of so much.
Dana
Posted by: Dana Ames | Jul 15, 2006 at 07:10 PM
Thanks Dana. I have been following a general outline thinking there might be a book in here somewhere. Eventually I will have to go back and read it all to see if it makes any sense (and correct what I am sure are oodles and oodles of typos.) The comments you all give are a big help!
Your experience is similar to mine, especially among charismatics and Evangelicals in conserviative denominations and independent churches.
Posted by: Michael Kruse | Jul 15, 2006 at 08:00 PM
Always keep to hand the five fingers of Fraudulism
Posted by: Master Peace | Jul 16, 2006 at 04:31 PM