Toxic?

     Toxic Intellectualism: just for the few following the conversation.

Dr. Kristen Du Mez is an engaging speaker and prolific author, a believer, a wife and mother, and a thoughtful academic.  We're looking at  Jesus and John Wayne,  A Modern Church History of Toxic Masculinity, and others.

Dr. Du Mez has said, “ ... the ideals of Christian manhood were drawn from popular culture, not from deep biblical exegesis.  The fear was real in the hearts of followers, and it was actively stoked by religious leaders, by evangelical men in almost every case to consolidate their own power.”

Now note the two positions she offers regarding ideals about manhood:

1.       The ideals came from popular culture, not from biblical content. 

2.       The ideals were fear-driven and a deliberate play for power by leaders and evangelical men.

The first (1.) is partially true and somewhat defensible.  The secular world did and does influence the church.  It has always done so, and we must understand the conflict.

The second (2.) claims a simplistic motivation imbedded in the millions of evangelicals and the popular voices among them; fear-induced self-advancement, self-benefit, self over others. 

While Dr. Du Mez’s historical narrative is somewhat correct, her attributions of motive, often implying a measure of malicious or wicked intent, are each individually troubling. 

Thinking:  A centerpiece in our thinking is in how we interpret the actions of others.  When control is out of our hands, we assign responsibility (or blame) and all to often, a motive.  

Attribution theory explains how we interpret the behavior of others.  We want to understand and be equipped to respond.  On that path, we tend to ascribe a single mindset to groups of people based on the category in which we have placed them.  In doing so, we attribute a simplistic motivation which, while it may have some minimal relevance, is always incomplete and inaccurate.

For example:  Bob hired his friend Charles to work with him on a project.  At a meeting with others, Charles is harshly critical of changes proposed.  Bob thinks Charles is unreasonable and begins to regret having hired him.  David, who was in the meeting, is thankful Charles had the courage to speak up, because the proposal had troubled him as well.

Two people in the same situation, and they attribute different motivations for Charles’ behavior, unreasonable vs. courageous.  They’re both wrong in this example.  Charles wasn’t concerned what others thought, he was just offering his objective thoughts on the proposal, just doing his job the way he saw it. 

Charles’ behavior was the result of years of experience.  Was he unreasonable?  Was he courageous?  Or was he just working through the issues?  Was there a motive?  Of course, but it will be spread across those preceding years of learning.

Expand the venue:  Majorities in both parties are concerned with the increasing divide between the parties.  Each blames the other.  Each believes the other party is less moral than their own, less reasonable, and lacking in basic principles.  Each believes the other is pursuing unethical goals and is deliberately avoiding essential truths.  Each has attributed deliberate immoral motivation to the other party and its participants.

Du Mez describes every word and choice by Billy Graham (more than one hundred references) as politically formed and delivered, and she offers no acknowledgement of any good done or intended by him.  She doesn’t mention the careful message he offered and the openness he offered to others.  She mentions the scandals associated with religious leaders and the unreasonable support they were afforded by some conservatives.  She doesn’t mention the hundreds of evangelists, pastors, and teachers who, across those same years, spent their lives drawing others to God.  We’ve known them, and we’ve seen the personal sacrifices they made, the good that was done, the truths that they spoke, and the lives that were changed.  We’re aware of the millions that were pulled back from a worldly selfishness and refocused on God’s calling.  To reduce all of that to some flawed motivation supporting a cultural trend is an interesting illustration of toxic intellectualism.

Interim Conclusion:  Let’s go back to Dr. Du Mez and her various attributions of motive; is she accurate?  When she assigns a motive to a category of individuals, her chance of getting it right is 0.00%.

In her epilogue to Jesus and John Wayne, we arrive at the purpose for her narrative.

“... understanding the catalyzing role militant Christian masculinity has played over the past half century is critical to understanding American evangelicalism today, and the nation’s fractured political landscape.  Appreciating how this ideology developed over time is also essential for those who wish to dismantle it. What was once done might also be undone.”

Agreed, with this one caveat; Dr. Du Mez describes white evangelicals as having collectively abandoned true faith in favor of a preferentially corrupted version of God’s call, while in fact, there have been millions across those years who honestly and sincerely gave their lives to God.  We’ve known so many who were magnificent examples of grace and mercy, of sacrifice and love, of willingness to serve for the good of others.  Leaders and followers, pastors and teachers, mothers and fathers who, however imperfectly, labored to find His truth in their day.  They learned, they changed, and they changed the lives of others.  They brought us forward in our understanding of God’s good heart and purpose for us all. 

The author’s thoughtful purpose is clear from beginning to end, to clarify our view of Our Father and his ways.  Dr. Du Mez, in her analysis, hopes to serve well, just like the many whose motives she attributes so inaccurately.

A perhaps more helpful conclusion to such a discussion might be found in Paul Johnson’s A History of Christianity.  

“Of course human freedoms are imperfect and delusory.  Here again, Christianity is an exercise in the impossible, but it is nevertheless valuable in stretching man’s potentialities.  It lays down tremendous objectives, but it insists that success is not the final measure of achievement. ... We must bear this in mind when we consider the future of Christianity in the light of its past.  During the past half-century there has been a rapid and uninterrupted secularization of the West, which has all but demolished the Augustinian idea of Christianity as a powerful, physical and institutional presence in the world.  Of St Augustine’s city of God on earth, little now remains, except crumbling walls and fallen towers, effete establishments and patriarchies of antiquarian rather than intrinsic interest.  But of course Christianity does not depend on a single matrix: hence its durability.  The Augustinian idea of public, all-embracing Christianity, once so compelling, has served its purpose and retreats – perhaps, one day, to re-emerge in different forms.  Instead, the temporal focus shifts to the Erasmian concept of the private Christian intelligence, and to the Pelagian stress on the power of the Christian individual to effect virtuous change. New societies are arising for Christianity to penetrate, and the decline of western predominance offers it an opportunity to escape from beneath its Europeanized carapace and assume fresh identities.”

He ends with , “...our history over the last two millennia has reflected the effort to rise above our human frailties.  And to that extent, the chronicle of Christianity is an edifying one.

We’ll want to remember as we continue our cultural analysis that we’re looking at imperfect people just like us, folks who hope to get it right and to leave a meaningful legacy in the lives of those they know and love.