Anti-intellectualism and the Subculture of Fundamentalism

Though my increasingly exiguous mental capacities prevent all notions of me being even casually intellectual, the last thing I want to be accused of is being 'anti-intellectual.'   As a Christian, and even worse, a Christian who is a member of a fundamentalist church, I align myself with a culture that is often portrayed as just that.  I find this a frustrating place to be.  In a single conversation I will find myself shaking my head at the smug, twisted attacks from the left and then wincing at the declarations from the loud mouthed representatives of the right.    The idea of the "Christian", or maybe more descriptive ''Evangelical", subculture has been on my mind lately and was the subject of this Op Ed from The New York Times.  From 'The Evangelical Rejection of Reason':

Like other evangelicals, we accept the centrality of faith in Jesus Christ and look to the Bible as our sacred book, though we find it hard to recognize our religious tradition in the mainstream evangelical conversation. Evangelicalism at its best seeks a biblically grounded expression of Christianity that is intellectually engaged, humble and forward-looking. In contrast, fundamentalism is literalistic, overconfident and reactionary.

I can't disagree.  'Biblically grounded', 'intellectually engaged', 'humble', 'forward-looking'.  Right on!  And yeah, this idea of a sub-culture, one that has significantly lost its influence in contemporary society and has been reduced to the joke in an SNL skit, stems largely from an 'overconfident and reactionary' response to the threat of liberalism.  But I think the authors take a misstep from there.  In their article, Giberson and Stephens present an expression of Christianity that may be engaged, humble and forward-looking, but I wonder about the intellectual effort to be biblically grounded.  Does societal norms influence (dare I say dictate) biblical interpretation?  What does it mean to be concertedly 'biblically grounded' and 'intellectually engaged'?    While I think anti-intellectualism runs deep in evangelical and fundamental circles, I don't think holding fast to a particular (often literal) hermeneutic places a person in the anti-intellectual camp.  While I do believe the rejection of science to be anti-intellectual, I don't think that holding to a literal interpretation of the early chapters of Genesis is necessarily anti-intellectual.   While it is unreasonable to gauge a society's conscience on its rejection of homosexuality alone, to dismiss what the Bible does have to say on the matter as irrelevant is no more an intellectual stance.   

The way I see it, an intellectual mindset is no more the acceptance of a certain tenant than anti-intellectualism is the rejection of that same tenant.  Reason is in the conversation in-between.   Reason has more to do with the arrival to the conclusion than the conclusion itself.  And what I find frustrating in the fundamentalist/evangelical circles I'm a part of is not the dogma that is held on to, but the lack of conversation that surrounds it.   "The Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it" has got to be one of the stupidest phrases ever pronounced from the pulpit or put on a refrigerator magnet.  The problem with the church and its sub-culture is not that it doesn't agree with the masses, but that it spends far too much time protecting and defending itself against culture rather than engaging it with the Gospel of Christ.

The incredible Abert Pujols

I love baseball.  I don't give much time to it anymore, but when I get the chance to watch a game, I still get those warm fuzzy feelings.   With the World Series in full swing, I stayed up late last night to watch game 3  ... and it was worth it.  Pujols is absolutely amazing.   His swing makes my insides smile.  And although his name will go down among the best ever to play the sport, I love that as my son grows up to love baseball, I can point to this guy as someone who is as great off the field as he is on. 

I couldn't embed this video, but it's worth the click.  Albert Pujols on 60 minutes.

Fool's (ramblings and) Movie Review: Courageous

Let me be clear.  I hardly qualify as a movie critic.  The last time I saw a non-Pixar film at the movies?  I have no idea.  But, since it's been awfully quiet around here from the Fools and I recently had the rare opportunity to get out and see a movie with friends, I thought it might be blog worthy.  Yes, my standards are low, as was my expectations for 'Courageous' (how's that for a lead in?).  My wife says I have a bad attitude.  She's probably right.  She says I'm too critical.  She's definitely right.  I'm a Christian.  I belong to the Church.  Why am I so critical of Christianity and the church?  For some reason, the expectation of another 'Christian Film' doesn't excite me.  I don't expect to see excellence.  Rather, I hear descriptors like cheesy and hoaky in my mind, I feel my shoulder cringe, and my eyes roll.  Maybe it's because Christians have been nothing more than poor imitators in the arts for so long.  Slap 'Christian' on anything and it sells right?  But I guess that's for another post at another time.  Back to the topic on hand:  'Courageous'.

'Courageous' is the fourth film made by Sherwood Pictures, the movie making ministry of Sherwood Church in Albany, Ga. Its last film, “Fireproof,” received some attention and did fairly well at the box office.  Whereas 'Fireproof' spoke to integrity in marriage, 'Courageous' trumpets the importance of integrity in fatherhood and challenges fathers to re-examine their level of commitment to raising their children.  The film tells the story of 4 policemen, invoked by tragedy and their friendship to each other, to commit themselves against the sin of passivity and to press toward being the father God has called them to be. 

To be honest, I'm not sure how to judge a film like 'Courageous'.  By Hollywood standards, I can't imagine it will impress too many.  Film critiques will have a heyday with the thin plot, forced dialogue, and general emptiness of the characters.  The presentation was oddly familiar.  Growing up in churches prone to bring in the occasional revival meeting evangelist, attending a Christian university with daily chapel services, and working my college summers at a Christian youth camp all have made me quite familiar with the traveling evangelist and the style in presentation they bring.  If an evangelist could preach a movie, it would look a lot like 'Courageous'.  Like so many of the messages I've heard, it was longer than it needed to be, sprinkled with humor offset with a lot emotion, and had points drawn in from here and there with disregard for their fit in the narrative.  And, of course, the most important part of any evangelist's message, the invitation.  Without thinking, at the conclusion of the movie I stood up to sing 'I Have Decided' before realizing those were just the credits rolling.  With that said though, evangelists exist because they tend to be effective, at least in the short term.  And in that sense, 'Courageous' is effective.  Despite its shortcomings as a mainstream film and debatable worthiness of the ridiculous $10 movie ticket price, 'Courageous' is not a failure.  This movie is not about the characters, the plot, or even the'Snake Kings'.  It's about the message.  It's about the need for fathers to step up and be fathers.  It's a sermon wrapped in a hollywoodish setting and as far as sermons go, it was pretty good.  One that every daddy should listen to.  Fatherhood is challenging and should be handled aggressively.  I need that reminder.

So while the film does not exceed my low-bar expectations, it has value.  The movie goer should probably consider that this film was not created for the sole purpose of entertainment (though it does have some entertainment value).  The viewer's enjoyment is not it's main driver.  It was made by a church, often sounded like something you'd hear in a church, and because of that, will likely have it's greatest effect on the church.   To it's credit, 'Courageous' doesn't embarrassingly masquerade itself as a Hollywood film with Jesus undertones.  It's blatantly Christian.  And for that, you have to applaud the church that puts these films together and promotes them for the world to see.  I'd say that's pretty courageous.

Fool's Book Review: Forged

 

Misjudgment, misfortune, or just plain foolishness.  Anyway, I had a little extra time to read this past vacation.   So when I opened ‘Forged’, Bart Ehrman’s latest popular level work on Biblical criticism, only minutes after finishing Sarah Held Evans’ ‘Evolving in Monkeytown’, I knew it would be a great lesson in contrast.   Both Ehrman and Evans tell a similar story of conservative roots.   Ehrman began his forge into academia a conservative, born again evangelical.  In fact, it was his love of Scripture that led him to his criticism of it.  He began his education at Moody, graduated from Wheaton, and earned his PhD from Princeton Theological Seminary under the advisory of Bruce Metzger.  If Evans’ story is an illustration of how a faith can evolve in the face of adversity, Ehrman’s illustrates what can happen when faith is not free to converse with evidence.  In Ehrman’s case,  when his study began to conflict with what he believed to be true about God’s word, more was lost than just his view of Biblical inerrancy.

Let me begin by saying I like Ehrman.  I like his writing.  I like his honesty.  I like his perspectives.  I like his willingness make the discussions usually held among the egg-heads accessible to intellectual simpletons like myself.   He is both an expert and good communicator.  Forged is much like Ehrman’s previously popular books, Misquoting Jesus (an introduction to textual criticism that questions the reliability of the Gospels) and Jesus Interrupted (a look at Bible contradictions) in that it brings the issues and developments raised by modern NT textual criticism to the non-scholar.   He’s open about his now deceased faith as a ‘Fundamental Christian’ and uses his story as a bit of a straw man that fell hard in the face of reason and evidence. 

  

In Forged, Ehrman aims to inform [his] readers about an important ancient literary phenomenon, correct mistakes that other scholars have made, invoke the reader to think more deeply about the roles of lies and deception in the Christian religion, to show the irony in the fact that lies and deception have historically been used to establish the ‘truth’, make the reader aware that there may be forgeries in the New Testament, to share interesting stories about intriguing and relatively unknown writings from antiquity, and finally, to entertain [his ]readers.