The Failure (and Ironic Success) of Apologetics

The Failure (and Ironic Success) of Apologetics

        In 1988, a book by Alasdair MacIntyre was published under the title, Whose Justice? Which Rationality?  Without attempting to summarize the argument of its 400 pages, suffice it to say that MacIntyre demonstrates admirably that Justice (and, by extension, morality) is a word or concept that means different things to different cultures and times.  He traces, as a paradigm case, the change from what people meant by "justice" and "rationality" (two ideas MacIntyre claims are always deeply intertwined) from presocratic Greek thought, through Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, through the Middle Ages to Hume and his heirs.  The change, even within Western history, striking.

         Some would argue that this means that there is no such thing as "absolute" justice, morality, rationality and the rest.  The argument being, if so many different cultures disagree on what these terms mean, how can we possibly say that one of them is right and the rest of them are wrong?  This is amplified when we consider that we have a tendency to assume that the rationality, etc. that we are immersed (or grew up) in is "right."  In such a case, how can a claim to be committed to an "absolute" truth of any kind be anything other than a new form of imperialism, where we go into new cultures and, under the guise of spreading "rationality" or "truth," in fact end up spreading nothing more than our own forms of thought and life?

        I am not entirely convinced that arguments like MacIntyre's (and also, in their own way, of Kuhn, Feyerabend, and others within the philosophy and history of science) lead us to conclude that there is and can be no such thing as absolute truth.  Rather, it means that, if there is such a thing as absolute truth, which is not just a characteristic of Christian faith but also is true of philosophical systems like Plato's (as well, incidentally, of Eastern philosophies which do not so much emphasize what is, but what is not which, ultimately, presuppose their own metaphysical convictions), we do not have access to it in any way that somehow manages to bypass a particular language and conceptual framework.

        There has been a longstanding strategy in modern Christian apologetics which gets an awful lot of mileage out of the idea (which, in my opinion, is suspect if not entirely false) that, because all human beings are created in the image of God, we all share a kind of common moral awareness.  By building on that, along with other related claims to commonality, apologists often try to reason that the "whence" of that moral awareness is God, and therefore, since everyone already believes in moral standards, everyone already believes in God.  It should be noted that, while many contemporary apologists for Christian faith would identify as being theologically (if not politically) conservative, this idea has far more in common with the theology of Schleiermacher, the father of Liberal theology, than the example of Paul the apostle and the other Biblical authors.  It should also be noted that, even if this line of reasoning were valid, it would not be a victory for Christian faith but for classical theism.  Any train of thought that simply does not take the actual life, death, resurrection and ascension of Christ is not a distinctly "Christian" argument.

        What is interesting is that, in addition to the fact that this line of argument is not good theology, nor is it good apologetics, it is also fundamentally flawed from a philosophical and sociological point of view.  The irony of this is that anyone who is involved in missionary work can see the flaws.  It does not matter into what culture you enter, there are interesting differences as to what is "just" or "moral" that belie any real confidence in the standard apologetic argument from morality.  The best one could say is that, because every culture has moral standards (though they are often very different from one another), the source of the existence of standards in general (not the standards themselves) is God.  If this line of reasoning is sound, it is no more helpful than the other.  There have been several missionaries in the last twenty years or so who have shared how their experiences in other cultures have called into question their conviction that their own culture was the standard by which to judge the values of others, but this has challenged them to reflect all the more deeply about the nature of justice, morality and truth, rather than abandon them.

        All of this is to say that this line of reasoning (that truth and faith are bound up with moral standards) has become so deeply engrained into our culture that both the theological (and political) left and right believe it.  In fact, it has become something of a basic axiom which people have turned into a means to critique Christian faith from a new angle.  The argument goes something like this.  You are correct that I have a deep moral sense.  It is part of my very identity and I believe it, even when other things seem uncertain.  When I take this moral sense and I read parts of the Bible (or, as often as not, when I hear others tell me what is in the Bible), I find things there that violate my sense of right and wrong and so, therefore, I stand in judgment over what I find there.

        It is significant that, in many ways, this is nothing more than a contemporary, non-Christian (not to say atheistic) appropriation of the apologetical argument from morality.  While Christian apologists attempted to say, "Anyone who reflects for a minute on their sense of morality will realize that the gospel is true," these new non-Christian apologists are attempting to say, "Anyone who reflects for a minute on their sense of morality will realize that the gospel is ridiculous, as well as the Bible in which we read about it."  It is deeply ironic that this way or arguing has demonstrated that the apologists have actually won, even if their victory doesn't look like they wanted.  They have finally convinced the American people of their major premise, that our moral sense ought to be judge of everything else.  The only problem is that people took that major premise and concluded, not that they were immoral, but that the gospel is immoral.  If we combine this with a decreased sense of the majesty of the Christian tradition (which may or may not be too bad a thing), we find that people are unwilling to give the gospel the benefit of the doubt and, when their first encounter is bad, simply dismiss the rest.

        The problem with this is that, in the attempt to reveal Christians as naïve and non-Christians as enlightened, the secular world has joined large portions of the church in their naïveté by becoming every bit as imperialistic and paternalistic as the views they condemn.  We don't say that sex-slavery is wrong because it violates our own, culturally conditioned notion of how we ought to treat other people; it is wrong because it violates universal human rights.  In many ways, this is a more arrogant position than a Christian position that says that, because sex-slavery is clearly against what God would will, as revealed in Christ, it is against God and therefore is wrong, which at least recognizes that we need to be informed by God what really is right and wrong and that we cannot trust our feelings to always be right on the topic of morality, because it presupposes that there is something about humanity that should make it clear what is right and wrong and that people who do otherwise are not just in communities that have not yet been shaped by the gospel but are fundamentally evil and must be restrained from maintaining their tradition.

        If we cannot understand that other people have different points of view from ourselves and that we will need to translate and, at a more basic level, learn to listen, we will never rise above name-calling.  Baptizing our own point of view and using it as the standard by which to judge others does not become magically noble when separated from Christian faith.  Secular culture is every bit as biased and full of agenda as religious culture.  What we must do is learn how to work together and acknowledge the fact that, if indeed there is such a thing as absolute truth (which, as a Christian, I believe in wholeheartedly) it very well may stand in every bit as much judgment over me as it does over you.

"The Most Frightening Day of the Year" (Pentecost 2012)

05/27/12 Pentecost 2012 Grace UMC

Something I say with some frequency is that Pentecost is the single most frightening day in the entire church year. Often, when I say that, I get funny looks, as though people can't understand why Pentecost would be a frightening day. After all, it certainly seems like it is a time of great joy and celebration. It is indeed that, but it is the most frightening day of the church year nonetheless.

Why is that? I had the tremendous privilege at my last appointment to preach, passage by passage, through the entire Gospel according to John. It took two and a half years, but it was a significant time of growth for myself and, I hope, for others. As we spent a great deal of time looking at that particular account of the life of Jesus, we found ourselves paying attention to what the disciples were doing. It was an incredibly encouraging time because we realized that the disciples were so far from being perfect and unattainable examples of what faithfulness ought to look like, that they were just as messed up as we are. Time after time, we read about disciples putting their feet into their mouths, saying things they immediately regret, doing things that only a moment's worth of reflection would tell them is a bad idea. We realize that if Peter can still be a disciple after breaking his promise to stand by Jesus' side until death only hours after making it, then we can still be disciples in spite of all the mistakes that we make. In fact, Peter makes just about every mistake you could imagine. There is probably not anyone else in the gospel narratives that should fill people who make mistakes, which is everybody, with hope than Peter. Peter was given his name, which means "rock" by Jesus and throughout the gospels, you can't help but think that the name is meant to be ironic, since he is probably the least stable, least reliable disciple of the bunch.

And then comes Pentecost. All of a sudden, the Peter who didn't seem like he could do anything right, the Peter that we all too often can identify with, starts to act differently. All of a sudden, the man who's name "rock" only served as an ironic reminder of how not firm he was, starts to be bold in a new way. The Peter who was unable to stand firm for Jesus in front of a servant girl the night he was betrayed, stands up before thousands of people, including some of the leaders, and proclaims the good news, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him."

What exactly has happened? We live in a world where the disciples have been glorified to an almost unhealthy degree. They were the ones who followed Jesus, they were the ones who wrote the New Testament, they were the ones who took the gospel out to the ends of the known world at the time. They are the kind of people that we sometimes even name our churches after. When we read the accounts of the life of Jesus, it takes us a while to get used to the fact that these people are, in so many ways, just like we are. It is almost as if we are afraid to really say that the people who followed Jesus so closely could be just as broken and messed up as we can be, but that is what we read.

However, it seems that it is right as we are getting comfortable with this idea that the disciples had just as many problems as we do that we run into the story of Pentecost and the rest of the book of Acts. All of a sudden, it becomes much harder to relate to the disciples. After all, how many times have you been walking down the street and someone who is sick asks for help and, simply by reaching out your hand to them, radically and dramatically cure their disease and send them on their way rejoicing? I must admit that it has never happened to me. It is almost as if we have just gotten used to the disciples being just like us and now we are made to come face to face with mighty heroes of the faith, miracle workers and life-changing preachers. What in the world has happened?

I remember the first time that I asked the question, "What is the difference between the disciples in the gospel accounts and the disciples in the book of Acts, and what is it that brought about that change?" There is no real conflict of opinion about what happened. The disciples were radically transformed. Within the space of a single chapter of the Bible, we see just how amazing this transformation really is. At the beginning, the disciples are all huddled together, frightened that the people who killed Jesus would kill them, as his followers. By the end, we find that they are proclaiming the good news of Christ to everyone around, in every language, with such passion and such anointing by the Spirit that over three thousand people, something like a quarter of the population of Spencer [2010 census], gave their lives to Jesus that very morning.

So, if we can see that the transformation went to the very root of who these people were and we could see that, for all intents and purposes, it happened in a moment, we have to ask what actually brought it about. Really and truly, at the end of the day, there are no sociological reasons why the disciples should have changed so radically in such a short period. There must be something beyond the merely natural to account for this. Some people want to figure out other explanations for the miracles of Jesus, but I think that the transformation of the disciples on Pentecost is every bit as amazing and is something that actually goes to the root of your life and mine.

According to our text, the only real difference between the disciples before Pentecost and the disciples after Pentecost was the giving of the gift of the Holy Spirit. The people who were shy, who had so clearly misunderstood Jesus, because they thought he was going to be a political king who would overthrow the people they thought were the enemies of God, who were afraid of being killed because of their association with Jesus became people who stood up and made the name of Christ known to those around them, who did not stop short at just sharing words, but followed through with deeds of love and kindness, and became people who were indeed killed because of their association with Jesus, and went boldly to their deaths.

Now why is all of this frightening? It just sounds like great news, and it is indeed great news, the greatest of all possible news, but that doesn't make it any less frightening at the same time. The reason why this news is so great is because it reminds us, once and for all, that what God has done in Christ is not just something that happened once upon a time, a long time ago, that God did not stop interacting with us once Jesus had died and been raised. It means that the very same God who came among us as Jesus Christ is still at work in us, that the ministry of Christ did not stop when he ascended into heaven, but through the power of the Holy Spirit, it has been entrusted and imparted to ordinary people like you and me. What's more, we see that all our mistakes that we have ever made do not disqualify us from being called and equipped by God to be about his work here and now. After all, the disciples made all kinds of mistakes and yet the Spirit had no problems coming on them. If it could come on the people who scattered when Jesus was betrayed and denied him within hours of pledging their undying loyalty to him, what have we done that makes us think for a moment that the Spirit cannot do in us what it did in the lives of the disciples?

And that is why Pentecost is the single most frightening day in the whole Christian year. The fact of the matter is that many people not only relate well to the disciples in the gospel narratives, but like to relate to them. We love the compassion that Jesus shows to his disciples who make so many mistakes, many of which are so foolish that they are almost laughable, because it reminds us that, in spite of all our own foolishness, God's love and grace is there. Even if we remember that this love and grace is still available, we don't necessarily like to relate to the disciples after Pentecost.

The moment we realize that the only difference between the weak disciples before Pentecost and the bold disciples after Pentecost is the gift of the Holy Spirit, and the moment we realize that this same Holy Spirit that radically transformed those disciples is not only available, but promised, to us, we are forced to ask the question, "Does this mean that God might want to so transform me that I go from looking like the disciples before Pentecost to looking like the disciples after Pentecost?" How can we avoid that question? Well, we might try to say something like, "I love Jesus, but I don't really want the Spirit." However, in what we could call one of the most significant chapters in the entire New Testament, Romans 8, Paul says this, "But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him." It seems that, according to the New Testament, it is simply not possible to really be a Christian if we do not have the Spirit dwelling in us.

When all of these things weave themselves together, we are forced to answer that question from a moment ago, "Does this mean that God might want to so transform me that I go from looking like the disciples before Pentecost to looking like the disciples after Pentecost?" with a loud and resounding "Yes!" Now, that boldness, anointing and strength might look a bit different from person to person. After all, not everyone who was radically changed because of the gospel and the indwelling of the Spirit did the same thing. Yes, the twelve apostles had a strong preaching ministry, but there were more people transformed by the Spirit than just them. We read about seven people selected to be deacons, to help make sure that all the Christian widows in Jerusalem were taken care of. We know there were wealthy Christians who were empowered by the Spirit to give boldly of their resources, not only by taking care of the poor but also by providing the means for the other Christians to do what they were called to do, not least by providing the upper rooms in their homes for the church to meet in.

We know that Paul, one of the people who was changed perhaps more than anyone else, acknowledged that, through the power of the Holy Spirit, we are bound to one another as the body of Christ, with gifts as different from each other as eyes are from hands and ears are from feet. He says, "We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness."

By all of this, I hope that you take two things to heart. First, make no mistake; if you belong to Christ, you have the Spirit dwelling within you and if you do not have the Spirit dwelling in you, you do not yet belong to Christ, though God yearns for you to receive that Spirit. Though the strongest examples that we see in the book of Acts of people being empowered by the Spirit are preachers and teachers of the gospel, there are a wide variety of gifts that God gives in order to build up the church and if you have not received one of them, you most certainly have received another one. If necessary, recruit the help of friends, but find out where God has gifted and called you.

The second thing that I hope you have noticed is that, in many of you and in many ways, this transformation has already begun to take place. The fact of the matter is that there are at least several people in this congregation who have witnessed miracles in their lives or in the lives of those close to them. Undeniable miracles; miracles that can be explained in no other way than as the result of the almighty power of God intervening in our lives. There are those have seen a transformation, not altogether unlike the one we see on Pentecost, take place in their own lives. There are people who can go into great detail about what their lives were like before God transformed them and what they are like now and the difference is like night and day. There are people who have found strength in times when they thought they would have no strength, who have found boldness in difficult situations, who have tried something new and found that they were really good at it. I know that these people exist, even in this congregation because I have met you, I have heard your stories, I have seen the mark of grace on you, in worship, in studies, in your homes, in the hospital, and even in the grocery stores. I don't want to put anyone on the spot, but if you have experienced the Spirit in your life, if you have had your life touched in any way by the power of God, if you have tasted any of these first-fruits of the transformation of the Spirit, will you please raise your hand as a testimony to the goodness and faithfulness of God.

Those of you who raised your hands (and those of you who could have raised your hand but didn't), share your story. Share it with me if nothing else, but share it with others. Remind others of what God has done in your life. Not only will you encourage them when there may seem to be no hope, but you will remind yourself of what God has done and how far he has brought you. Tell the stories, rejoice in what God has done, fill your hearts with joy that God has transformed your life. Always remember the amazing transformation of the disciples on Pentecost and always remember that the same transformation, in whatever form it may take, is promised to you today just as much as to those disciples two thousand years ago. Who knows? If you can get excited about sharing and hearing what God has done in this community, we might be able to have a Sunday morning where we have a love feast like the first Methodists, where we set aside time to bear witness to what God has done and is doing so we can be reminded of what God has promised he will do, and maybe God will move among us in the midst of that sharing like he did among them.

God has given his Spirit to his people, his church for whom he died. This Holy Spirit is not just some kind of Spiritual substance [spiritual energy goo] that we use for our own purposes, but the high and holy God of all, who takes up residence in our hearts and lives. With confidence that the only thing you need to be transformed into a bold, equipped servant of God is the Spirit that God gives freely to all who believe, go out into the world and do great things! Go heal the sick, go raise the dead, go be the means through which the world comes to know the healing and transforming love and power of God. Let us pray.

AMEN

A Polanyian View of Church Order?

A Polanyian View of Church Order?

As most people probably already know, I am a theologian. I am not a theologian by profession except inasmuch as all pastors are implicitly theologians, whether they take that task seriously or not. I am not academically qualified to speak as a theologian in the sense of one with a PhD in theology. And yet, I consider myself a theologian nonetheless. This does not mean, however, that theology is my only interest. It isn't. My secondary interest that has developed is the philosophy of science. Though there are certain aspects of this field that do not interest me (perhaps because I am not convinced they are dealing with the kinds of issues that are primary), I am trying to read as widely as I can since I have found the issues being discussed in it to be remarkably parallel (though not identical) with my primary interests in theology.

One of my favorite philosophers of science is Michael Polanyi, who actually may have had a more profound impact and influence on theologians than on scientists, judging by subsequent literature. Polanyi began his career as a physician, then went back to school to be trained in chemistry. Later, he was pulled into philosophy almost unwillingly because of discussions about the nature of science that were going on between Western scientists and the scientists in the Soviet Union. The question that dominated these discussions was to what extent (if at all) should the state provide guidance for the development of science. Those in the Soviet Union argued that the state, which planned everything else, should plan science. After all, if one of the great purposes of science is to serve the advancement of a state, then the state should be able to say what these scientists should be working on. In the West, this was opposed, though there was a time when this opposition was rather weak which, it would seem, is what pulled Polanyi into the debate in the first place. Western scientists argued that science could only be pure if it was free from political oversight, at least in the sense advocated by the Soviets.

Polanyi had many reasons to advocate for his view. First, because he is convinced that all knowledge, not least scientific knowledge, is the knowledge of persons who are dedicated to the truth of reality. That is, all knowledge is personal knowledge, which does not mean subjective knowledge but the acknowledgement by persons of what is the case independently of that acknowledgement. Because of this, persons engaged in research must be free to follow their personal (and largely tacit) insights and hunches. Often, significant discovery arises, not because a research program has made it clear what one should work on but because a scientist travels down the lonely road where they see a promising result that nobody else could see.

Additionally, Polanyi draws attention to the fact that much of science is only verifiable by a small number of specialists. This deviates from the kind of objectivist notions that have become increasingly popular in our culture today that say that all scientific claims are publicly verifiable, that is, anyone could do the experiment and see that the results are true. This, of course, is not true. In point of fact, only people who have been educated into a scientific culture, who have been trained to operate in ways consistent with contemporary science, who know how to use the laboratory equipment, and who have spent years working on a specialty are actually able to verify every experiment, and indeed many experiments go unverified, not least because of the tremendous cost of time and money it would involve. The point of this for our discussion is that the state is fundamentally unqualified to discern which paths in research are promising and which are not. To trust what has traditionally been done by the dynamic and unformalizable scientific intuition to bureaucrats would be to destroy science in one fell swoop.

What would seem to be a measure introduced in order to improve efficiency would turn out to be grossly inefficient, because it kills the creativity that makes science, which is far less exact and formal that many people often think, work. Rather, Polanyi argues that the most efficient way forward is to allow each scientist the freedom to pursue their own interests, to follow their own clues, and to make their own discoveries. By making the government over what research is done decentralized, it can benefit from the mutual oversight of all scientists instead of one, perhaps scientifically minded but perhaps not, politician or committee. This means decisions can be made quickly by the people who are competent to make them rather than slowly by people who may know nothing about the matter. Also, because of the practice of academic publishing, scientists can know what is going on around the world and adjust their own work to most effectively take advantage of these global insights.

In the last month or so, I have been struck with the significance of this line of thought for the church. I have begun to realize recently that most of the churches I have known have a tendency to decide, in the abstract, what it is that a church should be about, develop ideas of the kinds of ministries that should happen, and then try to recruit leaders to shape it. When this is the approach, I have noticed that several things happen. First, we tend to have some degree of difficulty to find the right people to lead these different ministries. There are some who have the skills necessary but who are already overburdened with volunteering. There are others who have the skills but have no passion for the ministry they are being recruited for. There are still others who have the skills needed but have never been asked and so may not even realize that they have such abilities. There are also times when we have people who are excited and passionate about something but simply do not have the competence to get it done.

Secondly, I find that when the ministries of the church become fundamentally more basic than the people who are leading them, there comes a time when leadership shifts for whatever reason and we often find that the idea that we might allow a ministry to cease too horrifying, so we scramble to find someone, anyone, who is willing to fill the spot. They might not be the kind of person needed for that ministry, they might be being pulled from another area where they are effective, and we must also always entertain the possibility that the church might be being called to allow a particular ministry to come to completion so that resources can be reallocated and new things can get started.

This way of approaching ministry puts the main power in the hands of very few people, who are often all too happy to take it and use it. Masterful "visions" that are generated in the mind of one person are imposed on others and what is and what is not in line with it is decided ahead of time, which carries with it the double-edged sword of the fact that the vision is clear, but it is not necessarily shared by the people. What ministries should and should not be pursued are no longer based on the prayerful answer to the question, "What is God calling us to at this time and place" and instead rooted in the question, "In what way does this further the vision we voted on once upon a time."

The problem with this whole way of approaching ministry is that it sometimes works and it has worked for some time in many churches. Leaders in a more authoritarian past established such rules for church governance and they have remained more or less unchanged. Even those who have come from such rebellious generations, who have been ruthless at changing the outer trappings of so many churches, have left the internal structure largely unchanged. The people are different and the hairstyles and clothing have changed, but the top-down authoritarian structure that the church learned, not from the self-giving Lord, but from the marketplace, has remained.

This is why I have found Polanyi's conception of academic freedom for scientists to be so compelling for the church. This is not simply because I like Polanyi's work (though I do), but because it seems to give some concrete insight into what Paul wrote so often in the New Testament. Paul does not create job descriptions out of abstract speculation and then apply them to every church without adjustment. His vision for the church approaches ministry in such a way that ministry is never a job to do, where qualified people can be swapped in and out with no real change. Ministry is always done by people who are prepared and gifted by God for the task, which means that the gift of God must be understood as more basic than the task that is performed by means of it.

To put this in more concrete terms, when Paul speaks of a five-fold ministry in Ephesians 4:11-13, we must not read it in such a way as to imply that there were clearly defined "job descriptions" for what it was to be an apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor or teacher. Rather than saying, "We need these five tasks done, who can we find to do them," it seems more consistent with Paul to say, "God seems to consistently raise up these five kinds of people. It is not for no reason that he does this. Find them and recognize them." Paul often exhorts the leaders to lead, but he never seems to be concerned about where leadership would come from. God would raise it up if we only have eyes to notice.

Who knows what it means to be an evangelist? Those who receive the ministry of the evangelist? Not really. Who can spell out what an apostle is? Someone who has never been called to nor participated in the apostolic calling? In many ways, it is not even entirely possible to have the ministers themselves define what it takes to do their job, since God does not seem to be all that worried about the secular qualifications of those whom he calls. Jesus did not send Peter and the other disciples off to seminary to be trained; he simply called and they followed. Peter never took a preaching class, Paul was never formally trained in pastoral care. The passion and the anointing that comes from the Holy Spirit can do what all the training in the world could never do on its own (it should be noted that I am in no way against formal training. However, we must never imagine that God is waiting for someone to go to school before they can be used by him).

In spite of all the efficiency that seems to be inherent in a rigidly centralized conception of the church, it can be woefully inefficient. So long as the central leader is well aware of the gifts and graces of the people in the church and can entrust leadership into their hands, it is true that such church government can be quite efficient. However, it is often tempting to insist that the pastor is not only an overseer who responds to issues by reallocation of resources but is also the prime minister, who has skills that nobody else can approximate, who fills a professional need, who sees themselves primarily as an employee of a local church and not primarily as a servant called and sent by God. If this happens, ministry quickly becomes made after their image and any gift of a layperson that does not fit into such an image becomes marginalized, regardless of how necessary it may be.

If a central planning agency for science could be trusted to always know which are the promising projects, could be relied upon to always know what is needed and how to maximize resources to that end, it would be amazingly efficient and helpful. If it falls down, even in a minor way, it has the distinct possibility of crippling science and discouraging scientists from making new and hitherto unlooked for discoveries. In a similar way, if a pastor is always able to see clearly what is needed and the best way to go about responding to that need, it could be a wonderful way to run the church. However, if a pastor lacks the knowledge and discernment needed for this task at any point (which inevitably happens as they are human and finite like everyone else), they may find that their greatest strengths can turn out to be their greatest weaknesses in a given context.

Is pastoral ministry important? Absolutely. Is it as important as the ministry of lay people? Of course. But, it must be clearly noted, it is no more important than this. To behave as if this were not so not only skews the whole Polanyian system but is tantamount to an eye saying to a hand, "I have no need of you." It seems to me that a more significantly decentralized approach to ministry is more conducive to allowing the Holy Spirit to govern, not only the individuals who make up the church, but the church as a whole. Those who have gifts in particular areas will be able to provide mutual oversight, freeing up those with different gifts to work elsewhere and elsehow.

The questions that remain are these. How can we move forward? How can we convince the average Christian that God actually wants to use them, has gifted them, not only with skills, but with passions, that he wants to harness for the good, not only of the church, but of the world? Undoubtedly the answer involves prayer and repentance regarding ways we have been discouraging in the past.

Toleration

Toleration
 
Recently, I have been thinking about the issue of toleration.  It is very interesting being a Christian thinking about this topic because the church, it seems, has been on every conceivable side of this issue over the years.  At the very beginning, the church was a persecuted minority.  Occasionally, Christian thinkers wrote treatises about the practices of the church to show authorities that they were not downright evil people as some were saying (there were some rather disturbing rumors going around about what happened during the Eucharist, for example).
 
Later in Western history, you had the Protestant Reformation, where various secular leaders aligned themselves with different religious leadership, effectively choosing what brand of Christianity their domain would practice.  Those who dissented from the majority made appeals for toleration, that they might be able to continue practicing the religion they chose.
 
Now we find ourselves in the modern day, in a country that, in so many ways, was founded on the idea of religious toleration (or at least, such an idea was close to the main few ideas included in the Bill of Rights).  And yet, it feels like there is just as little toleration as there has ever been.  Sometimes, it is the church that persecutes people of other religions or people of no religion at all.  Sometimes, even, the persecution goes the other way.  What is fascinating to me as a Christian leader is to see that Christianity can be seen simultaneously as the dominant religio-cultural influence in America and yet also be a persecuted body, perhaps in some instances, as a persecuted minority, depending on the context.
 
When one glances back over Western history, the cry for toleration has been nearly ever-present.  Somebody always wants to be tolerated by someone else and does not feel like they are being so tolerated.  However, it has not always been the same groups.  What that means is that, as persecuted minorities become tolerated and eventually become more and more dominant, there seems to be a trend that they then deny other groups the toleration they battled so hard for.  Why should that be?  Should not those who have yearned for tolerance be that much quicker to show it?  Or perhaps, to be somewhat cynical, do those who have more acutely felt the need for toleration withhold it precisely because they were denied it in the past, a kind of “I’ll do unto you as they did unto me,” attitude?
 
There is much that could be said on this topic, and I do not pretend to have studied this particular issue as deeply as I might, but I have a few thoughts to share.  It seems that, when people refuse to tolerate others, it is because, to their mind, those others are wrong.  To tolerate people who are wrong, it would seem, is a disintegrating force in our society at its most basic level.  When people are tolerated, it is as if we are saying, “We don’t agree with you, but you might possibly be right.”  This is, of course, perhaps part of the reason why many people do not want to tolerate others in the first place.  Toleration can easily be read as tacit approval, and, if the opposing group is wrong, they ought not to be approved.
 
I think that this has done tremendous disservice to the idea of toleration.  It seems that to tolerate someone is precisely to tolerate them as someone who is wrong, at least from your point of view.  If I think that you might be right, it would seem that it is best to say that I conditionally accept you rather than say that I tolerate you.  But once I have conditionally accepted you, toleration is really not the issue.
 
It might seem that I am asking for people to be more harsh with one another, since I am not necessarily advocating “conditional acceptance” for all, but rather “toleration.”  The reason for this is because to insist that we all “conditionally accept” one another is, in practical terms, to superimpose a kind of uniformity (or at least a meta-uniformity) that just does not exist in everyday experience.  I think that, in order to really find unity among people, we need to allow the differences to be what they are so that those differences can be in dialogue with one another as differences.
 
What this means is that I still reserve for myself the right to think that someone else is wrong, but it also means that I reserve for others the right to think that I am wrong.  What it also means is that I will tolerate you, not because I secretly think that you are more right than I am, or that I, deep down inside, wish I could think like you do, but because you are another human being for whom Christ died.  It means that I don’t want you to tolerate me because you think that I have some secret key to happiness that you have missed, but simply because I am another human being, even if, from your point of view, I am completely wrong.
 
It is simply foolish that Party A should persecute Party B, then tolerate Party B so that it can gain a foothold in the culture and even rise to prominence or dominance, only for Party B to deny toleration to Party A because they are “wrong.”  Since when did “right” and “wrong” enter into the rules of toleration?  A toleration that says, “I will tolerate you so long as you fit into my definition of ‘right,’” is not toleration at all.

Let us strive for genuine toleration, that we might join together to seek genuine truth.

Strong Feelings in Our Contemporary Culture

Strong Feelings in Our Contemporary Culture:

We live in a culture today where many people have extremely strong feelings about various topics.  That’s fine.  Not only do I believe that people should have strong feelings about things, I myself have very strong feelings about certain issues.  However, what inevitably happens is that a person comes into contact with another person, or especially another organization, that disagrees strongly on the same issue.  This is where the problems come in.

Let’s say we have a person, let us call them “Person A” who has strong feelings in favor of an issue, let’s say, “Issue B.”  Eventually, Person A meets someone or reads an article or even just hears through the grapevine that some organization, “Organization C” is very much Anti-Issue B (Whatever issue B happens to be), ostensibly because of their own deeply held, strong feelings about the issue.  What is Person A to do?  They are now faced with something or someone who disagrees with their strong feelings.  Surely, they cannot simply remain silent about it.

So they write an article, or post a link to an article that someone else (who agrees with them) or just even a strongly worded status update on Facebook denouncing Organization C for taking a stance that deviates from the opinions of Person A.  However, this seems to seldom take the form, “I do not think that you should support Organization C because they are against something that I am in favor of or because they are in favor of something I am against.”  Rather, they are usually much more pointed than that.  Often, the strong feelings underlying the position of Organization C are acknowledged simply to be dismissed or, what is more often the case, demonized.  Words like “hate” and “evil” are thrown around with alarming frequency.  The impression one gets after reading something like this is that, if I find myself either agreeing with Organization C or even simply deviating slightly from the rigid position of Person A, then I must be equally hated by Person A and therefore am equally dismissed or condemned by them.  The other potential conclusion is that I may find myself completely in agreement with Person A and the writing has further empowered me to continue to hold my own strong feelings and condemn those of others without feeling the need to understand the other person.  This particular point is deeply related to the content of my previous note (Some Reflections On Understanding People).

It is important to point out that there are both liberal and conservative forms of this situation.  I have seen countless appeals from one group to completely boycott or fight against another group because of the views they hold.  I say this because, though it might seem that I am particularly picking on one side or the other, I am fully aware that this is a widespread issue and cannot be pinned only on one side of the political spectrum.

The question that I believe needs to be raised is, “How can we, in good conscience, do these kinds of things?”  I cannot express how many times I have seen someone write words to the effect of, “This person/organization supports/is against this particular issue.  They are so arrogant, closed-minded and exclusive.  You should avoid them or write letters of protest against them.”  How is this tactic any less arrogant, closed-minded and exclusive?  How is it that I can, on the basis of my own strong feelings, condemn someone else who, on the basis of their own strong feelings, acts accordingly?  Does that not seem as though I am doing precisely the same thing that I am condemning them for?  How are my own exclusive actions and words more noble than those I condemn?  Is it because the other group or person is wrong while I am right?  If so, how am I so sure that I am right?  I fear that, all too often, the determining factor of whether I am “right” or not is simply because I choose to believe that I am right.

This leads me to say a few words about what has developed in Western culture, particular in America, which I like to call the ideology of inclusivity or the ideology of pluralism, as the two ideas are deeply interrelated (There is some overlap here with a previous note on pluralism).

Inclusivity is something that is prized very highly within the various mainline denominations in America, not least the United Methodist Church, of which I am a minister.  There is a deep conviction that the church ought to be inclusive.  The rationale for this is that Jesus was remarkably inclusive, eating with sinners and Gentiles, ministering to women and the poor.  So far as we remain rooted in Christ, I have no problem with being inclusive.  However, when we take the statement, “Jesus was inclusive and we are called to be like Jesus, so let us be inclusive like Jesus was,” and transform it into, “Jesus was inclusive so inclusivity is a goal in and of itself,” insurmountable problems arise.

What does it mean to be inclusive in an ideological sense, that is, being inclusive for the sake of being inclusive?  Perhaps this can be best expressed by taking a look at the cognate idea of “pluralism” that has developed.  I am a Christian.  Someone who is a pluralist in the popular sense would say to me, “It is fine that you are a Christian.  However, you must not make any claims that Christianity is true, unless you limit it and say, ‘Christianity is true for me.’”  The reason for this is because it is clear that not everyone in the world is a Christian and to say that “Christianity is true,” is to say to the non-Christian, “Your religious convictions are wrong.”  This implication, that someone else might have a wrong opinion, is deemed as “not loving” and “exclusive,” and must therefore be eliminated.

This seems to be a consistent view at first, because it advocates and actually insists upon making room for other views.  However, it is, in practice, almost never consistent.  What does the ideological pluralist do, for example, with the neo-nazi or the member of the KKK?  If we are to make room for everyone’s convictions, religious or otherwise, on what grounds can we say that some people are wrong?  Those who advocate pluralism or inclusivity as an end in itself, find themselves condemning people, in spite of their own philosophy.  What began as a view that allowed everyone to have their own opinions and lifestyles transitions into a view that says that at least some opinions and lifestyles, are not allowable.

Why are some lifestyles allowable and others not?  It cannot be on any pretence to “truth” because the ideological pluralist or inclusivist is too postmodern to think that any community can have a monopoly on truth and that we must allow for those who disagree with us.  However, radically intolerant groups, if left unchecked, will tear society apart.  They must be opposed.  But on what grounds?  What seems to be put forward most often is an ideal that is stated with such confidence that it must not be questioned, “Ideas and lifestyles are alright if they do not hurt other people.  If they do, they are not acceptable.”  This is so widely believed, but on what is it based?  At best, purely Western values such as are enshrined in the American constitution; more often, simply on the whim of the speaker, who does not want to be hurt by others.”

The problem with this is that, once you have said that something is wrong and it is always wrong, regardless of the community to which a person belongs, a standard has been made by which every other view is judged to be acceptable or not acceptable.  In spite of the alleged “humility” that presses someone into a radically pluralist or inclusivist view, it actually becomes very paternalistic and judgmental because it claims that the radically pluralist or inclusivist view is “right” and any group that is exclusivist is “wrong.”

Let us put this into its clearest form.  Those who wish to be radically inclusive realize they must take a stand against those who are radically exclusive, so they take the stand, “Everything is relative, but pluralism is true!”  This solves their moral problem by condemning any person or group who is exclusive in their eyes.  However, this statement has shown that the radical inclusivist is indeed exclusive of exclusivists and therefore must be excluded by their own ideology.  If one must be exclusive of those who are exclusive, that same person is automatically excluded.

Professor Alan Torrance at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland, has written a profoundly insightful essay called “Toward Inclusive Ministry:  The Logical Impossibility of Religious and Theological Inclusivism, Pluralism and Relativism.”  Torrance, a committed Christian, begins by explaining the famous threefold typology of “Inclusive, Exclusive, and Pluralistic” popularized by Gavin D’Costa.  However, in the years following the publication of his book, D’Costa has completely changed his mind on this issue and now contends that it is only possible for human beings to have an exclusive stance, inasmuch as it is logically impossible to truly follow the implications of an inclusive or pluralist ideology.

Without going into all the details of this excellent essay, what is important for this discussion is that Torrance questions what we mean when we say that we should be “inclusive.”  Do we mean that we must be inclusive of ideas or that we must be inclusive of persons?  This is a significant distinction.  If we wish to be inclusive of all persons, we must consider certain ideas to be out of line, such as genocide and all forms of abuse.  However, if we wish to be inclusive of ideas, we cannot be inclusive of persons, as some ideas are defined by their stance against certain persons.  Torrance concludes by upholding this understanding of inclusivity, which is markedly different than the word is popularly understood, but as, he believes, is much more consistent with the gospel and much more productive of actual conversation with people of differing opinions.

To bring this back to the original point of this writing, our strong feelings are not intrinsically evil.  However, what ends up being destructive is our determined ignorance.  If I criticize someone else for running roughshod over my cherished beliefs and, by doing so, run roughshod over their cherished beliefs, I am just as much to blame as they are.  To complain that a person or organization is being closed-minded and discriminatory in such a way as to use primarily emotionally charged words without actually engaging in the issue in a calm and clear way is to be equally closed-minded and discriminatory.  Nothing will change so long as we continue to insist that we are always right and that any deviation is grounds to brand the other as “evil” or “hateful” or “closed-minded” or similar things.  We have to be the ones who take the lead, who treat others with love, even when we are not treated in a loving manner.  We must be the ones who allow our strong feelings to be what they are but refuse to let them isolate us from others, but put them to the test in dialogue with those who disagree with us.

Why Christians Believe

The following is a response to a friend who has strong ties with pagan thought. He is particularly critical of the tendency of Christians to say, "We need to believe that Jesus is God because the Bible says so. We need to believe the Bible because it is inspired. You need to believe the Bible is inspired because we say so." He specifically asked for Christians to respond. Here was my response.


For right or for wrong, whether you find this convincing or not, here is my response.

I have thought about this issue and ones closely related to it for quite a while and I often find myself in self-conscious disagreement with how many American Christians approach this issue. But first, some history is necessary.

The predominant movement that we know today as "Biblical Innerancy" (with which I disagree, for the record) arose in the second half of the nineteenth century (it existed, in a different form, before that time, but we only get the radically militant form of it that we know today at about that time). It was developed as a response to what was seen as the attack of the "higher criticisms" of the Bible, which argued that we must not treat the Bible as somehow fundamentally different than other books, that is to say, we must be willing to examine the books of the Bible in their historical and cultural contexts, just like we do to other books, and try to understand them at that level as well. For people like me, such a move has only helped me to understand the texts better and to fully take into account the fact that God has moved through human beings, not by bypassing their humanity, history, or culture, but working in and through it (though it does yield some degree of transformation as well).

However, others felt that to do so was to "desacralize" the text and undermine faith as a whole. In order to combat this, conservatives/fundamentalists (they were effectively the same in those days. Fundamentalism was a much less militant movement in its early days) ratcheted up their doctrine of inspiration so that history and context no longer played a role in interpretation. The Bible became nothing more than free-floating oracles, independent of context, that all bear equal weight in interpretation.

Once this move takes place, the Bible becomes the ultimate authority and Jesus becomes a doctrine taught about by the Bible, on the same level as any other thing taught in it. This is precisely where I disagree with such an interpretation. I do not think that a text as a text (that is, as words on a page) can be the ultimate authority, nor do I think it was ever meant to be such. I think that ultimately, the text needs to be a witness to God (to use an idea of Karl Barth) or spectacles through which we look to discern what lies behind them (to use an idea of John Calvin). What matters is not the text as such, but at what the text directs us to.

I don't know how much confidence you have in natural science, but that is precisely the same kind of attitude that has been developing in natural science over the last hundred years or so. There is a tremendous conservative bias in science, when ultimate paradigms are concerned. There was so much support for Newtonian mechanics, both among scientists and laypeople, that Einstein's theories of Relativity had almost no chance of being heard or taken seriously. It was only the fact that, after long and careful scrutiny, it seemed to be a closer and more adequate representation of what really is the case (given concrete expression by its prediction of the change in the perihelion of Mercury) that made it win the day. It was not merely political power (for it certainly did not have that), but fidelity to the truth. If you doubt the hesitancy of scientists to adjust to new ideas, you should read "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" by Thomas S. Kuhn, and "Against Method" by Paul Feyerabend.

My point is that, at the end of the day, Christian convictions do not, ultimately, rest on what a particular text says. The ultimate conviction is that God stepped into our world of space and time (which is only incomprehensible if we begin by presupposing a dualistic outlook) as an actual human being. Not that God took human "form" and only "seemed" to be human, nor that it was something less than God who came to earth as Jesus of Nazareth, not that Jesus was just one more prophet, but that the human being, Jesus of Nazareth, was very God of very God. This is a conviction that is proclaimed as truth. I would argue that authentic conversion takes place only when a person becomes convinced of this truth, which I do not think happens by intellectual argument (or the authority of a text), but by a personal encounter with this Jesus who has been raised from the dead and lives even now. Because of this, authentic Christian experience is inherently Trinitarian.

Now, one might argue, "How do you know that someone had a genuine encounter with the risen Christ? How can we be certain that it was not simply an illusion, or wishful thinking, or anything of the kind?" If one means "certainty" as, "absolutely impossible to be doubted," like the kind of truth Descartes was searching for, then we cannot be. But, by that same token, the same can be said of anything, as Foundationalism is widely believed to have completely failed. Absolute certainty of that kind is an unattainable, and thus false, goal. There is always room for doubt.

However, if a person claims to have such an encounter and becomes liberated from destructive habits and lifestyles and their life is utterly transformed by it (which does happen), there is reason to believe that something has happened, call it what you will.

My ultimate answer is that real Christian conviction is reached by personal experience, not by argument from a text. The text of the Bible becomes the source and norm of Christian theology, as there is no other text that can not only present Jesus Christ in his time and place, but also present the whole historico-cultural context that led up to it, as well as the impact that he had on his first followers. That experience is always open to doubt, as every other claim to truth and knowledge is, but the Christian believes that their experience is not merely subjective, that it connects, in some way, to a deeper reality that is true, regardless of whether they believe it and acknowledge it or not. This reality might be only imperfectly understood and need to be revised in some way or another (as Newtonian physics had to be refined by Einsteinian thought), but the reality with which they have made contact is fundamentally reliable.

When done well, it is my conviction that Christian theology bears a much stronger resemblance to science than it does to many forms of philosophy.

To return, in closing, to your example of "Why Jesus and not Thor?" I must say that, on one level, there is no reason. After all, from the point of view of historical evidence, we can only learn about them from sources written by human beings, which might very well be wrong. However, my conviction is that Jesus is indeed alive and meets people, myself included (though that does not mean that I equate my theology with the truth, though I hope it bears some resemblance to the truth), whereas I do not believe the same is true for Thor. Could I be wrong? Absolutely. Is it possible that Thor has encountered me and I have just not noticed it? Certainly. I just do not believe it to be so. It can be doubted, but so can any other position, so dubitability as such is not condemning.

Those are just some thoughts. I do not imagine that you will be convinced, but you specifically asked for Christians to respond, so here is my response.

In Christ,
Travis Stevick

The American Political System

The American Political System

Those who know me know that I don't usually like to talk about politics. I find myself fitting neither with the general stance of the Republican party, nor with that of the Democratic party. I feel that, in my experience, the moment a hot topic in contemporary politics gets brought up, both sides retreat to their talking points, which is an incredibly defensive position. There are people with whom I am friends on Facebook who are otherwise calm and considerate people who try to understand issues from every point of view who I am hesitant (not to say frightened) to engage in dialogue on political issues as I have found that they tend to gravitate, just like most people, into extreme positions.

One day, I found myself wandering on a YouTube trail (where one video leads to another, without any overarching goal in mind), which I usually try to avoid and I ended up watching part of a video of a presentation by Christopher Hitchens. The presentation in question took place during the Clinton administration and Hitchens (who is British) was functioning as a journalist and cultural commentator and not primarily as a militant atheist (which he also does from time to time). How I ended up on this particular clip, I cannot explain, especially as it was only one part out of ten or so, and the only one I watched was somewhere in the middle. I do not know exactly what issue was going on at the time that prompted the observation, but Hitchens made an incredibly insightful comment. He said (words to the effect of), "In America, I have noticed that the word 'partisan' has a distinctly negative connotation, whereas 'bi-partisan' has a distinctly positive connotation." He ultimately concluded by saying, "I think that America is afraid that it might one day become a two-party system."

Now, this comment got some laughs from the (American) audience, because, as everyone in America knows, we do have a two-party system. We have some other parties that show up every once in a while, but they tend to not do very well. Even though we may have more than two parties on paper, in practice, there are two parties in America.

But Hitchens' comment cuts deeper than that. In spite of the fact that, in America, we have two parties that hold opposite views on a multitude of issues, the idea that we ought to strive for truly bi-partisan politics as the ideal, whereas partisan politics is a problem is very much the product of the Enlightenment. Hitchens, who is from England where there are many viable political parties, sees the truth perhaps a bit more clearly than we Americans do.

I think that we in American desperately want to believe that there is one position that is objectively and completely "right," and that, if we all just got together and shared all our opinions and brought forward all the arguments and checked all the facts, we would all come to the same conclusion, we would all agree on what is right, what is wrong, and how we should proceed so that we can be right and not wrong. The contemporary issues surrounding taxation of the wealthy and organized labor, among other things, seems to operate with the presupposition that, if all the facts could be on the table, nobody would be confused as to what we should do. We would all agree. There is clearly a "right" way to go about these things and a "wrong" way to do so. What we need is to get beyond all our political platforms and discern this together.

But there is a problem with this. The fact of the matter is that, while a good portion of Americans can get along most of the time and make compromises on most things, there are certain communities that simply cannot get along. To give some fairly extreme examples, radical Fundamentalists simply cannot get along with the homosexual community (and vice versa) without in some significant manner changing who they are and what they believe. Another example is the KKK and the African-American community. These are two communities that, because of who they are and what they believe, simply cannot exist side by side, short of bloodshed, without some kind of external restraint.

But what happens in the application of external restraint, which must be applied, if for no other reason, than to keep the peace? One group is given privilege over the other, at whose expense this privilege is purchased. Now, the question is, which side do you choose? In the examples I have provided (which are extreme to make the point clearer, though this happens on smaller scales as well), most contemporary people would say that we ought to side with the homosexual community and the African-American community, respectively, if for no other reason than because those groups have tended to be less driven to violence toward their opponents, but, though this is firmly in line with our constitution as classically interpreted (you have rights until your exercise of them infringes on the rights of others) it is still the prioritizing of one community's desires over another.

By the way, we can see, especially in the case of the KKK, where the de-facto decision was in favor of the more violent group and was only later overturned. There is nothing in our law or society that guarantees that we will always operate in the same way.

The reason why I bring up these issues is that there are certain communities that no amount of conferencing and "compromising" will yield a solution that is fully acceptable to both parties (think, for example, about whether it would be possible to find a solution that is fully acceptable to both the KKK and the African-American community). Decision between such communities always has to be made, and made by a third party, who does not necessarily agree completely with either party.

I think that this is the case more often than we would like to admit. If I am particularly wealthy, I am likely (though not guaranteed) to oppose high taxes on the wealthy. Yes it is true that such taxation might be aimed at the greater good, but my willing participation is based on a few presuppositions. First, I would have to believe that the taxes actually do aim at the greater good. It is entirely possible that I might conclude that what we call "the greater good" might actually simply be "what is good for this community in which I do not find myself," only with an absolutized name and a noble sound. Secondly, I would have to believe that this is actually the best way to reach this greater good. Third, I would have to believe that the elected officials would know better how to spend my money than I do for the greater good they are seeking. Fourth, I have to actually believe in this greater good exists and agree that it is something worth striving for. None of these is guaranteed, and the absence of any one of them (let alone more than one) could result in the opposition of such taxation in the defense of self-interest (which, by the way, is what Adam Smith says is the driving force behind capitalism. It seems to be built into our economic system, that we dogmatically export all over the world).

In a similar way, one could easily make the argument that organized labor is not for the greater good, but for the good of those engaged in labor. On some levels, it is not good, or at least is perceived not to be good, to certain businesspeople. If this were not so, there would be no argument about it. A victory for upper management is paid for by labor, but it is equally true that a victory for labor is paid for by upper management. Perhaps we can dress it up in noble garments, that it is the right thing to do, that really, it is the best for everyone involved, or at least the best for enough of a majority (or supermajority) to make it worthwhile. It might also be claimed that upper management can afford to pay for this victory, whereas the opposite cannot be said. All these things might be true, and might be judged as true by those who get to make such decisions, but it does not change the fact that no statement of "better" or "worse" political decisions is made in a vacuum, but reflects the interests of a certain community.

The point that Christopher Hitchens saw so clearly is that we in America want desperately to believe that, if we just work together, we will come to a conclusion that satisfies everyone involved, that, even if we have to settle for something less than our personal ideal, it is acceptable because our desire for the best for the totality of our society is our primary concern. It is a kind of political pluralism. We sincerely hope that both political parties are equally dedicated to independent "ideal" political decisions, but are simply talking past one another, or are momentarily distracted, but can and should be set right. Hitchens was able to see what we often cannot: We are different people with different interests, some of which are mutually exclusive. A victory for one community carries with it the defeat of another community. No political gain is made without a corresponding political loss somewhere else. Nobody gains power unless someone else loses power.

I think that, until we can throw off the mask and see how our own interests color the whole political process, we will never be able to see other people as real human beings, albeit human beings with different, sometimes mutually exclusive, interests and desires, but human beings who are just as self-consistent and just as passionate about their convictions as we are. And I believe it is only when we can do this that we can really move forward in civility and love.