Do you cruise or engage? I tried to make it clear in the last post that what you PUT into faith is what you GET out of it. This shouldn’t come as a surprise, since everything else in life is this way. If you invest time, your faith will have an effect on your daily life, and that will be a sign that you are making faith a priority. However, “faith having an effect on your life” should not be the goal. Many writers warn against making faith the means and an improved life the goal. If you are only paying attention to God to become a better person, feel safer, get a better social life, get rich, get wisdom, have a good marriage, further your career, or have raise moral kids, not only will you not get God, you probably won’t get that stuff either. Even if you do, it’s like snow skiing in the ditch outside the front of your house, rather than skiing in Vale or Breckenridge. You still have faith/you're still a Christian if you don't put in the effort, because it's all about grace. But you're missing out.
The gospel meets your mind where it is. One great thing about faith is the personal intellectual opportunities it provides. There are few (if any) other things that can challenge the greatest minds around and also meet Forrest Gump’s intellectual and emotional needs. For some reason, the Gospel can be simple enough for a child to understand, but vast, powerful, and consequential enough to make an impact on a genius. The intellectual issues and significant. I get more challenges from studying the Bible and faith-related things than I do anywhere else. After you have a familiarity with faith, you can start looking at the world through that lens, and that provides an additional challenge/opportunity.
Faith Glasses: I see the following C.S. Lewis quote more than most other Lewis quotes: “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.” The reason this quote is used so often is that it rings true for Christians on a deep level. This is what happens: You know certain things are true and that they exist. You accept these things and arrange your life around them. Examples include: Love, morality, human behavior, darkness/evil, the ego, existential angst, pleasure, wisdom, storytelling, and compassion. Christianity provides a complex “why” for these things that exist, and suggestions on what to do with them. The longer you think about the world through the “Christian paradigm,” the more you see the world and faith go together. They explain each other, and they provide solid, concrete reasons for paying attention to the things that you pay attention to anyway. Hopefully, in later posts, I will be able to provide detailed examples of the way the world and “Faith Glasses” mesh.
Two types of Christian thinkers, and two sub-types: There are two types of Intellectual Christians that I've come across: Educated and uneducated. Then there are two types in each of those types: security-based thinkers and exploration-based thinkers.
Let’s start with educated Christians. These are Christians who have actually read the Bible. Google informs me that Christians who have read every word of the Bible make up 10-20% of Christians, which is just pathetic. Come on, guys. You can get it on tape! Educated Christians study the Bible, are familiar with it, and are able to apply specific things from it to their daily life and their thoughts. They have a reason for what they believe and their mind is on the specifics of their faith at all times. Not only that, they have gone deeper into spiritual issues.
Uneducated Christians are still Christians, but they are at a disadvantage. If you don’t know the material and engage with your faith, how do you expect it to sink in? These Christians operate at a more shallow level and miss out on the intellectual and philosophical depth to be had. They ignore their faith and study other, more present and temporary things. They are preoccupied with distractions, for now. It shows. It shows to atheists when these Christians give a cliché, trite answer to a question the atheist has really struggled with, because that Christian can’t pull wisdom from scripture. It shows in their actions. I know the people reading this are thinking of a few people who are like this. Because it shows. Your faith really isn’t that important to you, because you don’t spend time learning about it, and lots of people can tell. If you are this person, at least try to refrain from judging others and holding them to your standards, because you don’t have a full understanding of your standards, the reasons behind them, and how someone can actually live by them beyond employing sheer will alone. Focus on giving lots of grace and serving others, if you can.
Security-based thinkers- Both educated and uneducated Christians (and people at large) can be security-based thinkers. These Christians, when faced with a question, immediately look for the answer that fits the beliefs they have had for years. Then they find that answer, and the issue is closed. They rarely seek out questions themselves. They want an answer to everything, and they don’t want to stir the pot. These people often have gurus or similar authority figures whose word is law. If they come across a grey-area theory, they run this theory by their authority figure or church denomination, and what that person says is the way it is, end of discussion.
This is common, and just fine, among young Christians, teens, and children. Young Christians and young people need a foundation on which to build. I remember loving apologetics books, because they posed the questions and then gave me a list of answers that I could use to bolster my faith. I think these are great, but I think most Christians grow out of them, at some point, because they aren't necessary anymore. The Gospel is powerful enough to drive a point home without statistics. The existence of God becomes evident enough in your daily life.
For adults and people who have been Christians for more than 15 years, I’m not a huge fan of people staying solely security-based thinkers. It just isn’t any fun, and coming to your own conclusion, over time, makes that conclusion stronger and more meaningful to you anyway. Also, it’s harder to be wrong when you fully explore different viewpoints. It’s also harder to be judgmental of others for disagreeing, because you honestly understand their point of view. Also, security-based Christians have to be right about every piece of the puzzle and they also have to have every piece, or their whole faith tends to fall apart.
Exploration-based thinkers- These thinkers can pilfer concepts from other religions and cultures when they see that these concepts are objectively true and useful. I got scolded by another Christian once for taking a Buddhism class. When I asked why he was against it, even though I had a firm Biblical foundation, he said, "If you don't know why it's wrong, I can't even begin to make it clear to you." Helpful chap. Instead of freaking out and thinking, "Everything in Islam is incorrect BECAUSE IT'S ISLAM," Christians can appreciate Muslim teachings that don't contradict what Christians already know to be true. Christians can take scientific concepts and theories and the science can coincide with faith, and they can compliment each other. As I commented on a relative's blog recently, "I think everything in the Bible is true, but not everything that's true is in the Bible."
Exploration-based thinkers don't have whole boxes of thought and categories of people labeled "good" and "bad." The most convincing lies in life are wrapped in truthful statements. Separating what makes sense from what doesn't on a detailed level is a skill that helps with life. If you just reject a whole category and accept a whole category (all Republican things bad, all Democrat things good, for example), lots of truth gets lost and lots of little lies seep in. Islam and Hinduism are the two religions I really just don't get. The others make at least half a lick of sense to me. But I know that those two religions that I don't like have things that I would agree with, if I looked at them closely. Which I haven't, I'll admit. Rob Bell brought this up in one of his less controversial books (it was still controversial, haha). He asserted that all truth is from God and that Christians should claim truth wherever they find it, because it is theirs. That thought stuck with me. If you are going to go to college, study other belief systems, and associate with smart people who are not Christians, you are going to need this concept, or you are going to become confused.
I once lent a book to a Christian friend. It was Christian nonfiction and it had about 12 chapters. In one of the chapters, the author brought up a viewpoint that is unpopular among mainstream Christians. The rest of the book was totally helpful, sweet, deep, and Biblical. However, that Christian unfortunately zoomed in on the 10 pages she found objectionable. Rather than just disagree with that one part, she decided that this book wasn't something that I, my friends, her friends, or she should be reading. She mentally discarded the entire thing, which to me was excessive.
Christians are going to disagree. Rather than splitting up into 500 denominations based on different interpretations, can't we discuss and then let people disagree with us? Can we only worship with people who only baptize adults and not babies? Are they not Christians? The fact that we have so many denominations answers this question, and it's sad. Some disagreements are "material" and should create different denominations. Most are not material, I think. For everything a fellow Christian has wrong, in your view, they have 100 things you would agree with and about 20 things you can learn from them that you will accept as true. Exploration-based thinkers can benefit from worshiping and thinking with these people.
C.S. Lewis (again, I know) told a story about three friends. Friend #1 died, and Friend #2 thought, "Well, at least I will have more time with Friend #3 all to myself and I will get to know him better." To his sadness, Friend #2 discovered that there were certain parts of Friend #3 that only Friend #1's mind and personality brought out. Because God is a personality, this is true of him as well. It's beneficial to have as many people as possible sharing with you what they are learning about God. Lewis points out that it is much better to have all types of Christians, because then you have a full range of perspectives, observations, and modes of worship. You weaken the intellectual part of your spiritual life when you surround yourself by Christians who agree on absolutely everything.
The exploration-based thinkers aren’t afraid to spend time on a difficult or scary concept. Aristotle said, “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” It makes sense that since we are trying to decipher another dimension and know God, there are things that will be beyond our theology, concrete answers, and simple explanations. The Bible is full of people questioning God to his face, and God seems to like it. God engages with and uses these people. This type is honest and unafraid to say, "I don't know the answer to that yet." At the end of the day, their faith can be just as strong as anyone else's, but fearless and more applicable to specific life situations and other cultures.
Here's a C.S. Lewis quote (this blog is turning into C.S. Lewis bonanza, seriously.) discussing the Trinity and Christianity- “As you advance to more real and more complicated levels, you don't leave behind the things you found on simpler levels; you still have them, but combined in new ways—in ways you couldn't imagine if you knew only the simpler levels…On the Divine level, you still find personalities; but up there you find them combined in new ways which we, who do not live on that level, cannot imagine. In God’s dimension, so to speak, you find a being who is three Persons while remaining one Being…Of course we cannot fully conceive a Being like that: just as, if we were so made that we perceived only two dimensions in space we could never properly imagine a cube.” You see him pointing out that there are 1) levels of truth and 2) things of which we cannot conceive. This means there is plenty of room for theorizing, guesswork, experimentation, and other fun things. Don’t be afraid to go there.
Now, uneducated, exploration-based thinkers may fall right out of the box they are trying to think outside of. They have all the love of exploration without a solid foundation. This is to be avoided. Uneducated, security-based thinkers can get annoying, fast. They have all the surety of someone who knows everything and none of the knowledge or intellectual experience. At least with educated, security-based thinkers, you will have someone who can back up their thought. I don't know which category that people whose faith requires them to accept everything their church accepts (like with strict, traditional Catholics and Mormons) fit into. Likely, it's a mix of both exploration and security (the security part being the parts that their churches have explicitly rule on). Most Christians are probably a mix, depending on what topic is on the table. I'm a mix, for sure.
One thing that is lame about Christian thought: Exploration-based thinkers may have opinions or questions they are literally afraid to bring up, because the security-based thinkers will decide that they are wishy-washy, don’t take the Bible seriously, are “liberal,” or are not even Christians. I know I have a few subjects I don’t bring up in “Christian circles.” Heck, I’m even debating whether to bring them up here on my blog or keep them in my private mind. Whatever. I do what I want. So don't crucify me when I do bring them up.
Are there any issues you guys are afraid to bring up, hypotheses that you don’t bring up in Bible study, or things you just don’t say, because you want to avoid an uncomfortable argument or influential, traditional people of faith deciding you are stupid?
Next time, I will try not to quote Lewis at all. We'll see if it can be done. I've just read all of his stuff, so it's firmly ensconced in my head.
