Worthen: The Evangelical Mind (11)

The final chapter of Molly Worthen's, Apostles of Reason: The Crisis of Authority in American Evangelicalism. 

Reviews of previous chapters include:

Introduction
Chapter 1 (Birth of Neo-Evangelicalism)
Chapter 2 (Evangelicals on the Edges)
Chapter 3 (The Strivings of Christianity Today)
Chapter 4 (Mennonites and Nazarenes in the 50s)
Chapter 5 (The Drive to Accreditation)
Chapter 6 (The Church Growth Movement)
Chapter 7 (The Canterbury Trail)
Chapter 8 (Democrat Evangelicals)
Chapter 9 (A Form of Intellectualism)
Chapter 10 (The Presuppositionalists)

Finally, chapter 11: "The Paradox of the Evangelical Imagination"

1. The lead off of this chapter is a now famous question by Mark Noll in his book, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind: could it be that "it is simply impossible to be, with integrity, both an evangelical and an intellectual" (241). Noll wrote that in 1994. He has since converted to Roman Catholicism and moved from Wheaton to Notre Dame.

I wondered if there was a little more opinion in this chapter than the others. But here is the basic point of the chapter and perhaps the book: "The problem with evangelical life is not that its participants obey authority. All rational thought requires the rule of some kind of law based on irreducible assumptions. The problem is that evangelicals attempt to obey multiple authorities at the same time. They demand that presuppositions trump evidence while counting the right kind of evidence as universal fact" (258).

This critique is similar to my critique of Ken Ham. He tries to look like he is using an evidentiary approach but he only uses it until the evidence seems to point away from the desired direction (to be fair, he makes the shift most when shifting from "observational science" to what he calls "historical science." Then he invokes his presuppositions to channel the evidence in a different direction).

So if it looks like stars are millions of light years away, we can simply assume God created the light in mid-stream because of our presuppositions. When our presuppositions are in danger, we find a "possible solution" relating to evidence and thus avoid the more "probable solution." We are still talking evidence but we look for a more complex and less likely interpretation that will fit with our assumptions.

There is a spectrum to this dilemma. At what point should presuppositions be brought in to trump the apparent trajectory of evidence, if ever? We inevitably operate with certain "irreducible assumptions," but are they huge systems or more atomic in nature?

2. Worthen mentions the founding of what came to be called the CCCU in 1971. This coalition of Christian colleges and universities met even a couple weeks ago, I believe. It has made it possible for grants and exchanges to take place. It helped Christian colleges become more than they could have become on their own.

3. The chapter mentioned the bromance that has occasionally happened between evangelicals and Catholics. For example, Notre Dame has hired a string of famous evangelicals over the last few decades: George Marsden (historian), Alvin Plantinga (philosopher), John Howard Yoder (ethicist), Stanley Hauerwas (ethicist), Mark Noll (historian), Christian Smith (sociologist). Chuck Colson and Richard John Neuhaus founded Evangelicals and Catholics Together.

The Catholic idea of "natural law" has provided a way for Christians to argue for various things in the public sphere without explicit religious language. The notion is that there are certain features of the world that argue for certain legislation and that all humans can see these laws without having to reference special revelation or Scripture.

4. I didn't like the way a section on thriving anti-intellectualism threw in together Richard Mouw and Ken Ham. Mouw is worlds away from Ham, IMO. This section also mentioned David Barton, who is very popular in some circles but considered an incompetent historian by most historians. Harper Collins pulled his book on Thomas Jefferson almost as soon as it was published because of its historical problems.

5. Worthen also mentions left-leaning evangelicals in this chapter, the "emergent church" in particular. She depicts the "new monasticism" of a Shane Claiborne as picking a few features of the Middle Ages and laying them over a still very modern mindset. "Without quite realizing what they have done, evangelicals often use these ancient teachings and practices to confirm, rather than challenge, their own assumptions" (254).

She especially has Western individualism in view. "Worship is more of a therapeutic means to personal fulfillment than submission to a higher authority" (256).

6. The last section of the book speaks of the "evangelical imagination," something deeper than ideas, something that involves underlying drives and impulses. She especially engages James Davison Hunter in this section. To him, evangelicals exaggerate the importance of ideas and worldviews. To him, evangelicals take history and "warp it into self-serving myth" (260).

"The anti-intellectual inclinations in evangelical culture stem not from wholehearted and confident obedience to scripture... but from deep disagreements over what the Bible means, a sincere desire to uphold the standards of modern reason alongside God's word--and the defensive reflexes that outsiders' skepticism provokes" (261).

Here is as close to a conclusion as we get: "If we continue to use the word evangelical at all, and we will--we must allow room for diversity and internal contradiction, for those who love the label and those who hate it. We must recognize that American evangelicalism owes more to its fractures and clashes, its anxieties and doubts, than to any political pronouncement or point of doctrine" (264).

7. Take-away
I have personally hated the word evangelical because I have come to associate it with the neo-evangelicalism of the 1940s and the fundamentalism of the Moral Majority. This book has helped me, in the words of Donald Dayton, "re-discover an evangelical heritage." The publisher changed his title to, "discovering," but the title he wanted was "re-discovering."

That is to say, the word evangelical was revivalist before it was co-opted to primarily be what it is today. The book has helped me be able to use that word of my faith community without exactly equating it to the mainstream evangelical establishment that has evolved over the last 50 years. The book, no doubt annoyingly to those who think they speak for evangelicalism, makes it clear that we are a bigger group--and more diverse--than at first appears.

Shane Claiborne at IWU Today

We had Shane Claiborne in chapel today, with a Q & A session this afternoon. Here's the mp3 of it. A significant portion of the campus read his The Irresistible Revolution: living as an ordinary radical this summer. All the proceeds go to the poor.

I'm about half way through and find it a very readable and attention holding book. I hope I can get my teenage step daughters to read it. If you want to know what the evangelical youth of the next generation look like, read this book.

Claiborne is a breath of fresh air. Yes, we all know that he represents one end of the spectrum. He reminds me of the Jesus People in Chicago in the 60's. I don't agree with all his positions.

But he is far more right than wrong, I firmly believe. It is a matter of the gospel and the message of Jesus in the gospels. Frankly, I can't even get into the mind of a Christian who gets angry about a guy like this one. What was the fuss at that other college that ended up cancelling him? Because he has dredlocks? Really! How can anyone with the heart of Christ find this man offensive if they've really listened to him?

I shouldn't assume you know his message. He is all about the simple life and giving away everything we have to give to those in need. He has a bit of the Barna perspective on the church, but we need to hear what he has to say.

There is a broader issue at work when people get upset at visitors like Claiborne... or at me for even thinking about voting for a Democrat. Tons of Christian colleges were founded in the late 1800's/early 1900's to withdraw from developments in broader Christian culture and its educational systems, to insulate our children and, to be honest, to indoctrinate them in our beliefs.

Most such groups did not have the clout or the power to carve a space for themselves at the broader educational table. These Christian groups were "group cultures" whose goal was not to teach critical thinking but to teach their children the beliefs and practices of their group.

There are still groups of this sort. But it is harder and harder for them to insulate themselves from the thoughts of other groups, especially with the internet and satellite TV. You almost have to build a compound these days.

And a place like IWU is too big to have such uniformity. Good grief, I'm not even sure that half of our students are even Wesleyans any more. Teaching students to memorize a set of beliefs and practices thus is ineffective preparation for the world. They need to know how to think and weigh things. And one of the most effective ways to do that is to bring thought leaders for them to engage and critique. You know, teach them to fish rather than giving them fish.

So you shouldn't think that my students blindly accept whatever I say on whatever topic. I encourage them to disagree or at least probe and question. I serve the truth and where I am wrong (and surely I am on many things even though I don't know it), I serve the truth by fostering the conflict of ideas in which we hope the truth will overall emerge the victor.