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.
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