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December 23, 2019

The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion: A Review

By Clarke Morledge

Here is my big book review for the best book I read in 2019….

“Why can’t we all get along?”

This is the question of our age. Societies are divided. Schools are divided. Politics makes us divided. Churches are divided. What can we do about it?

Do I have a book recommendation for you!

The Righteous Mind, by Jonathan Haidt. Best book I read this year. Though written by an atheist, Haidt makes sense of why different Christians (and people in general) think so differently.

If I could ever get my fellow Christians to read just one book written by a secular-thinking atheist, this would be it. Jonathan Haidt, the author of The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion, is a social psychologist at the New York University, Stern, in their School of Business. Haidt grew up as a secular Jew, and rarely ever met any evangelical Christians, until he taught a few years ago at the University of Virginia. But that encounter with evangelical Christians at UVA changed his approach to scholarship, and it really shows in The Righteous Mind.

The Righteous Mind is the best book I read this year. I can not believe I waited this long to read it!

Jonathan Haidt specializes his research in an area known as “moral psychology,” which probably sounds like a bunch of academic “hooey,” to many Christians I know. But I was stunned to find out that The Righteous Mind, actually has a lot of lessons to be learned by evangelical Christians.

I mean, a lot.

Haidt’s experience with evangelical Christians at UVA helped him to realize, to his astonishment, as a secular Jew, that conservative evangelical Christians can be moral, too. This will make more sense as the review below unfolds.

Haidt is most recently known as a co-author for The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas are Setting up a Generation for Failure, examining how college campuses across American have become insulated in a world of liberal theological and liberal political ideologies, mentored at times by overly-enthusiastic, extreme proponents of “intersectionality” and “critical theory.” Along with co-author Greg Lukianoff, Haidt argues in Coddling that with a well-intentioned motivation of promoting multiculturalism, today’s university system is inadvertently creating an atmosphere void of discomfort and distress, sheltering students from hearing opinions different from their own, whereby young people are becoming increasingly unable to engage other people with civility. Coddling contends that such suppression of robust dialogue, among others with different points of view, is having a negative impact on the moral development of young people.

But in 2012, Haidt wrote The Righteous Mind, a book that evangelical Christian leader, Russell Moore, described as being “the most important book in years.” I just finished the Audible audiobook version of this title, and I could not agree any more strongly with Moore’s assessment.

Here is a nugget right near the outset of the book:

If you think that moral reasoning is something we do to figure out the truth, you’ll be constantly frustrated by how foolish, biased, and illogical people become when they disagree with you. But if you think about moral reasoning as a skill we humans evolved to further our social agendas – to justify our own actions & to defend the teams we belong to – then things will make a lot more sense. Keep your eye on the intuitions, & don’t take people’s moral arguments at face value. They’re mostly post hoc constructions made up on the fly, crafted to advance one or more strategic objectives.

The brief question, at the beginning of this post, “Why can’t we all get along?,” though slightly altered, is often attributed to Rodney King, an African-American man, who was almost beaten to death by police officers, triggering the Los Angeles race riots of 1992. I remember vividly watching the events unfold on live television, as neighborhood after neighborhood went up in flames. Following six days of violence, Mr. King made his appeal for peace, after a videotape of him being beaten a year earlier, failed to convince a jury, of the wrong that was done to him.

Jonathan Haidt begins The Righteous Mind reflecting on this incident, asking that very difficult question, and exploring why it is so hard for people to answer it. As a Christian, I ask that very same question, as I find it puzzling and frustrating that so many followers of Jesus, who know that love is the very hallmark of the Christian life, can find it so difficult to express that love. On the one hand, we do want unity, but Christians also want to be people of the truth. So, while unity is vitally important, we also know, that sometimes, the quest for unity can subtlety become a cloak for an imposition of uniformity, whereby truth is sacrificed. And conscientious Christians simply can not abide by a compromise of the truth.

Is “big tent” evangelicalism, the kind inspired by Billy Graham, fading away? Perhaps the scientific research and insights, counter-intuitively coming from a secular, atheistic moral psychologist, can help Christians figure this out.

Why Christians Should Read The Righteous Mind

I had The Righteous Mind on my “to-be-read” list for several years, but I was prompted to read it a few months ago, when I became aware of the anti-vaccine movement, that has picked up momentum in recent years, among some modestly-well educated evangelical Christians I know. It just seems like much of the reason why some Christians refuse to vaccinate their children is because they simply do not trust medical doctors, and the medical profession, and/or the government, and/or the pharmaceutical industry. Perhaps they have some justification for their lack of confidence in those institutions, due to some type of tragic vaccine injury encountered by a family member, or some other disappointment with medicine, or doctors.

This makes a reasonable amount of sense to me, but what has exasperated me the most is the strange, unfamiliar theological and/or ethical justification that some Christians then go onto rationalize why they think vaccines cause more harm than good. Such Christians see no problem in pulling verses of Scripture completely out of context. I really did not understand that type of thinking, and so I thought reading The Righteous Mind might help… and yes, it really is!

Then, there is the Flat Earth movement, popular among some Christians, that suffers from the same level of mistrust of science and scientists, and bizarre ways of reading the Bible, as we find with the anti-vaccine movement. The same type of moral justifications and rationalization strategies apply, as demonstrated by their so-called appeals to “science,” or whatever they think counts as “evidence.”

The Flat Earth movement runs in popularity with the belief that NASA faked the 1969 moon landing… and the interest in these sets of beliefs has been growing in the age of the Internet and social media. Twenty years ago, in 1999, a Gallup poll revealed that 6% of Americans believe that NASA faked the moon landing. A smaller, independent survey of 500 Americans, conducted this year, 2019, indicates that perhaps as many as 10% of Americans believe that the moon landing was actually filmed on some desert, Hollywood-style movie set. The same survey indicates that among younger people, between the ages of 18 and 34, up to 18% reject the moon landing, compared to only 3% of those over the age of 54. This is an astounding increase of conspiracy-style beliefs, in the Internet, social-media age.

Why do so many people, including a growing number of Christians, buy into this sort of nonsense? The Righteous Mind has helped me make sense of why so many, otherwise, well-meaning Christians (not to mention, a good number of non-believers as well!!),…. do not make much sense. Most of the crazy beliefs that others around us hold are post-ad-hoc constructions, designed to help them further their social agendas, to lessen the strain caused by living in a post-modern world, and justify their actions.

Conflicts in Beliefs Among Evangelical, “Bible-Believing” Christians

On less crazy matters, Christians struggle with division among themselves. It is no mystery to understand that even in Protestant evangelical Christianity, the efforts to maintain unity, among Christians, who hail from different denominational traditions, is exceedingly difficult. I remember twenty-five years ago when the theme of “unity in the midst of diversity,” was a welcome catchphrase, among many evangelicals, weary of denominational bickering and infighting, that inspired a generation of Christians, in the footsteps of a Christian leader, like a Billy Graham, to find an expression of Christian faith that majored on the majors, and minored in the minors.

This expression of evangelicalism, what historians typically classify as Neo-Evangelicalism, was a “big tent,” following an image from the great Billy Graham Crusade rallies, and classic revivalist tradition, whereby communities of churches, from different denominational backgrounds, would gather under one “big tent,” and preach a single, simple Gospel, that would encourage the listener to come forward down the aisle, and receive Christ as their Lord and Savior.

But those days appear to be fading behind us. Today, talk of “diversity” in more than a few evangelical churches, is an invitation to dissension and discontent. “Big tent” evangelicalism has become a victim of its own success. Instead of being an oasis that rose up from the chaos of a mainline Protestant liberalism, or the liberating alternative to a narrow-minded fundamentalism, today’s evangelicalism is fraught with claims of compromise from within the evangelical fold. The future of “big tent” evangelicalism is tenuous, as many Christians believe that the size of the tent has gotten too big and unmanageable, and stretched to the breaking point.

In The Righteous Mind, Haidt observes that the large chasm created by the culture wars, that have given Americans a dysfunctional society, divided by politics and religion, can be explained by studies done in the area of moral psychology. The scientific research done by Haidt, and others in this field, is immensely fascinating. Haidt draws upon such studies, that follow the framework of evolutionary psychology, to make conclusions that sound eerily familiar to what many Christians experience. More than a few Christians, who might be tempted to brace back a bit, whenever they hear the “E” word; that is, “evolution,” might be really surprised to discover what researchers like Haidt have actually learned, from their research.

The Primary Research Results Discussed in The Righteous Mind

Haidt’s first big idea is that intuitions come first, strategic reasoning comes second. Christians and non-Christians alike follow their intuitions at first, and only later apply reason in an attempt to justify those intuitions.

Haidt employs the image of the Rider and the Elephant. It may look like the Rider (reason) is in charge. But in reality, it is the Elephant (intuition) that mainly guides and orients. The Rider can do some important things, like explain what the Elephant is doing, and even trying to change the direction that the Elephant is moving, in small increments, though it can be a slow and awkward process to do that.

As book reviewer and British pastor Andrew Wilson summarizes, “People don’t reason their way to which things are right and wrong; they sense emotionally and intuitively that they are right or wrong, and then use their reason to explain why. In that sense, to switch metaphors, moral and ethical decision making is more like a politician looking for votes than a philosopher looking for truth.” This relationship between intuition and reasoning applies to believer and non-believer alike.

Haidt then argues that humans have a tongue with six moral taste buds. But for most people strongly influenced by a secular culture, whether they be Christian or not, they are primarily influenced by two of these moral taste buds, namely (1) Care vs. harm, and (2) Fairness vs. cheating. Haidt cleverly describes these people as W.E.I.R.D.:

  • W: Western.
  • E: Educated.
  • I: Industrialized.
  • R: Rich.
  • D: Democratic.

For such W.E.I.R.D. people then, the basis for making a moral decision comes down, almost exclusively, to two criteria:

  • (1) Care vs. harm: Is something not harmful to someone?
  • (2) Fairness vs. cheating: Is something not discriminatory or unfair?

However, not everyone is so W.E.I.R.D. Haidt’s studies show that among non-W.E.I.R.D. people there are four other moral foundations, or moral taste buds, that complement the two above. These six moral foundations together create a type of balanced, ethical reasoning system for the non-W.E.I.R.D.:

  • (3) Loyalty vs. betrayal: Is something loyal to the tradition or the leader?
  • (4) Authority vs. subversion: Is something submissive to the appropriate authority?
  • (5) Sanctity vs. degradation: Is something respectful to the sacred?
  • (6) Liberty vs. oppression: Is something promoting freedom?

The last moral foundation (6), the liberty vs. oppression foundation, is a bit slippery. Moral foundation (6) can still be found, at times, among W.E.I.R.D. people. But for most of the time, the other three moral foundations, (3), (4), and (5), can be difficult to find, among W.E.I.R.D. people. W.E.I.R.D. people are generally less concerned about loyalty, authority, and sanctity as are non-W.E.I.R.D people.

Case Study: How Conflicting Moral Matrices of the Righteous Mind Apply to Discussions Among Evangelical Christians about “Women in Ministry”

Here is a helpful example, of a case study, to see how this works out among evangelical Christians, when the topic of complementarianism vs. egalitarianism comes up; otherwise known, in general terms, as the topic of “women in ministry,” or more specifically, addressing this question: Should women be permitted to serve as elders and/or pastors in a local church, where both women and men are present?

Shortly put, egalitarians answer the above question in the affirmative. The complementarians, on the the other side of the debate, answer in the negative. But why do some Christians lean towards being egalitarian, whereas others lean towards being complementarian? Jonathan Haidt’s taxonomy of moral foundations explains the answer beautifully.

The egalitarian side of the debate, who argue that women should be permitted to serve as elders and/or pastors in a local church, are W.E.I.R.D. people. They focus almost exclusively on moral foundations (1) and (2), though it could be argued that in some cases, moral foundation (6) might apply as well.

W.E.I.R.D. people; that is, egalitarians, believe that prohibiting women from serving as elders and/or pastors would be harmful to women. Therefore, it is more caring, and therefore, more moral to have women serving as elders and/or pastors in a local church. This corresponds to moral foundation (1).

W.E.I.R.D. people; that is, egalitarians again, also believe that prohibiting women from serving as elders and/or pastors would be discriminatory, and therefore, unfair. This corresponds to moral foundation (2).

In some cases, W.E.I.R.D. people appeal to moral foundation (6), believing that a prohibition against women serving as elders and/or pastors is inherently oppressive. In defense of liberty, W.E.I.R.D. people would support having women as elders and/or pastors in a local church, if women were to choose to assume such responsibilities.

Non-W.E.I.R.D. people have a different moral matrix to work with. Non-W.E.I.R.D. people; that is, complementarians, would reject the idea of women serving as elders and/or pastors, because such a position would betray nearly 2,000 years of Christian tradition. Restricting the office of elder and/or pastor to men only would therefore emphasize loyalty. This is moral foundation (3) at work.

Non-W.E.I.R.D. people would oppose the idea of women serving as elders and/or pastors, as this would be an act of subversion, seeking to undermine what they see as the apparent authority of the Bible. The principle of spiritual “headship,” whereby man is the head of woman, would be an example of what might be defended here, an indicator that moral foundation (4) is active, having an emphasis on authority. This is in contrast with W.E.I.R.D. people, who are more generally concerned about “getting the job done,” as in “reaching more people for Jesus,” instead of having an emphasis on respecting the authority of a centuries-old tradition.

Non-W.E.I.R.D. would also oppose the idea of having women as elders and/or pastors, as it would degrade the sacred purposes of God, and thereby profaning God’s good order. This is grounded in moral foundation (5). W.E.I.R.D. Christians, on the other hand, are less likely to be concerned about the sanctity principle treasured by non-W.E.I.R.D. Christians.

Interestingly, non-W.E.I.R.D. people will also apply moral foundation (6), but they do so in a manner that is completely at odds with how W.E.I.R.D. appeal to moral foundation (6).

In contrast to the moral analysis done by W.E.I.R.D. people, non-W.E.I.R.D. people would oppose the idea of having women serve as elders and/or pastors, as it would be inherently oppressive, but in a completely different orientation. Having women serve as elders and/or pastors would force non-W.E.I.R.D. people to submit to an authority structure which would be contrary to the revealed purposes of God. To force someone, whether they be a man OR a woman, to submit to such authority, under the realm of a local church, is to try to compel a person to act contrary to God’s will; which for them would be an act of disobedience.

Nevertheless, non-W.E.I.R.D. people in the church still hold to the care vs. harm, and the fairness vs. cheating, moral foundations, numbers (1) and (2), in a more balanced way, with respect to the other moral foundations, than W.E.I.R.D. people in the church. Non-W.E.I.R.D. people, when evaluating complementarianism and egalitarianism from a moral psychological angle, are still concerned about making sure women are not being harmed, and that women are being fairly treated, that even if women are not permitted to serve as elders and/or pastors. In other words, women are still encouraged to use all of their God-given gifts for ministry, where they are indeed permitted to do so.

Of course, in the real world, the binary opposition of W.E.I.R.D. versus non-W.E.I.R.D. people is not absolute and clear cut. Moderates are those who are partly W.E.I.R.D and partly non-W.E.I.R.D.

My example above was not specifically tested by Jonathan Haidt, but it is consistent with similar forms of analysis that he studied. What is truly fascinating about Jonathan Haidt’s research in this area of the six moral tastebuds, and the differences between W.E.I.R.D and non-W.E.I.R.D. people, is backed up by study after scientific study. Truly remarkable.

More Research Results from The Righteous Mind

Haidt then goes onto describe what he calls “the Hive Switch.” Morality both binds and blinds. Haidt’s metaphor to describe this is that humans are 90% chimpanzee and 10% bee. We spend most of our time acting like chimpanzees, selfish individuals who seek to maximize our own chances for survival, comfort, legacy, and security. But in certain cases, the “hive switch” gets turned to “ON,” whereby we behave like bees, working together in community, in selfless and apparently irrational ways, and valuing the benefit of the group over our own.

The “hive switch” is triggered to go “ON” when we engage in team sport, commonly agreed-upon mission, tragedies (9/11, hurricanes, tornadoes, etc.), and especially, religion. Those religious traditions that make the most demands on their participants are the most successful, ironically, in  triggering that “hive switch” to flip to “ON.”

For example, churches that make less demands on their members are less likely to trigger the hive switch to go “ON,” for their members. In contrast, when a crisis comes, or a desire to engage in a common mission is embraced, churches that emphasize community and commitment are more likely to shed their chimpanzee-mode and enter into bee-mode, in order to address the crisis, or participate in the mission.

Haidt’s thesis suggests that the apparent conflict between W.E.I.R.D. people and non-W.E.I.R.D. people explains why American society is divided in the “culture wars,” why Republicans are at such odds with Democrats, and vice-versa, and conservatives (non-W.E.I.R.D.) and liberals (W.E.I.R.D.) in politics. The same paradigm follows in the area of religion, which would explain much of the tensions experienced in evangelical Christianity.

W.E.I.R.D. Christians tend to emphasize the moral foundations of care vs. harm, and fairness vs. cheating so much, that they do so at the neglect of the other four moral foundations (though the liberty vs. oppression moral foundation does play a role, but in a much different way, when compared to how non-W.E.I.R.D. Christians think of it).  Alternatively, non-W.E.I.R.D. Christians, while still considering the importance of both the care vs. harm, and fairness vs. cheating moral foundations, tend to mute the value of those two moral foundations, in an attempt to balance with the other four moral foundations.

The challenge in contemporary society, whether it be in the realm of politics, or in the realm of religion, including the life of evangelical churches, is that we all tend to live in chimpanzee-mode about 90% of the time. Our natural inclination, most of the time, is to act in our own personal interests, at the expense of the needs of the greater community. This leaves us with a chasm that separates W.E.I.R.D. and non-W.E.I.R.D. people from one another, in our normal, everyday lives.

The only way to heal this wound between W.E.I.R.D. and non-W.E.I.R.D. people, and bridge the gap, is to try to find ways to trigger this “hive switch” to flip “ON,” thus encouraging people to find ways to work together to behave more like bees, and foster community.

Therefore, Christians who are concerned about maintaining “unity in the midst of diversity,” in a local church context, would do well to consider what conditions might be required to trigger this “hive switch” to activate. The activation of the “hive switch,” in church communities, is essential to maintaining a sense of unity among believers, who often hold to such strong and conflicting opinions, that would otherwise drive such believers apart.

Christian critics of Jonathan Haidt’s work might contend that while such insights and conclusions are fascinating, there is a profound worldview conflict separating Haidt’s fundamental perspective and an orthodox Christian perspective. But it does bear noting that Haidt’s research did move him personally from being a stubborn atheist, strongly antagonistic towards religious faith, before he began his research, to becoming more positive and appreciative of the value of religious faith, including Christianity, by the time he concluded his research for this book. And that really says something about the power of scientific inquiry, as an ally for the Gospel, for those who believe that God has truly revealed himself in Creation, such that both believer and non-believer can study Creation together, and be both drawn towards the glory of God together, if their hearts and minds are open.

What Christians Can Learn From The Righteous Mind

British pastor Andrew Wilson again has some some “lessons learned” from reading The Righteous Mind that would indeed help evangelical Christians find ways to better minister to others more effectively, and build more community among fellow believers. First, we should learn to speak more to the Elephant, if not more, than the Rider.

For example, when doing evangelism, or when engaging other Christians, who do not share your theological perspective on important matters, it is important to first diagnose the intuitions of your partner in conversation, instead of focusing primarily on rational argumentation. You can have all of the apologetic arguments lined up neatly in your head (which really is not a bad idea, by the way), but you can still lose people, and lose friendships in the process. Wilson says that “if the people you’re speaking to have their intuitions and emotions against you, then it is almost impossible to win over their minds.” Following Pascal’s pithy logic in Pensees, we must “make good men wish it were true” before we “show that it is.” We should therefore endeavor to acknowledge emotional objections, make use of stories, use humor, and finding early points of agreement, in an effort to win our audience. Dick Woodward, the late pastor emeritus of my church, was simply a master at doing this.

Secondly, we must understand that differences in theological perspective may result from different moral foundations. Frustration often happens in conversation when we fail to clearly and carefully lay out the moral foundations that guide our thinking. If we merely assume that the other person shares our moral foundation, when in reality, they do not consider it, or only consider it in a token measure, then that can become a real discussion killer real quick.

For example, if a non-W.E.I.R.D. person is engaged with a W.E.I.R.D. person in conversation, then appealing to the Bible as God’s authoritative Word, first and foremost, without much explanation, will probably fall on deaf ears. Since a W.E.I.R.D. person may not value authority as much as a non-W.E.I.R.D. person, it will help to lay out the moral framework as to why authority is so important in the first place, before launching into “thus sayeth the Lord.”  Speaking of “thus sayeth the Lord” is much more effective if a person is willing to acknowledge the concept of spiritual authority.

I particularly appreciate how pastor Andrew Wilson considers this in another example: “It occurs to me that, in the abstract at least, one of the most important changes wrought by the sexual revolution is the profound weakening of three of these six moral foundations, to the extent that many WEIRD people no longer know how to use them. (Gay sex harms nobody, goes the argument, so it can’t be wrong; your appeals to authority, loyalty and sanctity, as vital as they are for you, do not have any purchase in the other person’s moral framework.) This doesn’t mean proving that all our moral imperatives are somehow about harm, because that would concede that WEIRD morality is all there is. But it probably does mean laying out these frameworks, and explaining where they come from, rather than assuming them.”

Wilson’s third point then follows from the second: “Go beyond telling people what the Bible says is right or wrong; explain why it is right or wrong.” It is difficult to speak of holiness to people in a world without temples. It is difficult to speak of the kingdom of God in a world without kings. The Bible lays out the building blocks for describing why something is true, good, or beautiful. The challenge for sharing the Christian faith in a post-modern age is trying to find ways for explaining why the Bible says something that it says, and not merely in saying the Bible says something is wrong. For example, it is important, not simply to say that gay sex is wrong, but to say why it is wrong.

Here is Wilson’s fourth point: “Continue to call people to lives of sacrifice and commitment.” Making demands on people seems counter-intuitive, whereas giving people an easy path seems more logical. But packaging the message along the easy path, is not only unbiblical, it really does not work. Following Jonathan Haidt’s terms, you need to place great demands upon people, because otherwise, it will not flip the “hive switch.”

Here is an added gem from Wilson’s application of Haidt’s research: ‘And don’t be fooled into thinking that lower commitment to the church, in time and money, will increase people’s activism outside it. As Haidt explains, “Common sense would tell you that the more time and money people give to their religious groups, the less they have left over for everything else. But common sense turns out to be wrong. Putnam and Campbell found that the more frequently people attend religious services, the more generous and charitable they become across the board.”’

Another way of putting it? The more demands you make upon people to invest in understanding and grappling with the truth of God’s Word, the more they will be inclined to engage in the mission of the church. Or to get “out of the Ark,” so to speak, to borrow a metaphor from Noah’s emergence from the Ark to repopulate and steward the earth, following the great flood taught in the Bible.

Wilson’s final point of application: Learn to disagree well. One of the insights gained from Haidt’s book, based on his analysis of peer-reviewed research, is that moderates are reasonably good at being able to explain what those they disagree with actually believe. Conservatives are less good at being able to do this, to accurately articulate what someone else really believes. Liberals are at the very worst of being able to accurately describe the beliefs of those, with whom they disagree.

In my mind, this fully explains why liberals are the most annoying in the things they say on social media, and why conservatives are only slightly less annoying, and why moderates hardly ever get heard, because they are not annoying enough.

As Tim Keller puts it, describe your opponent’s view in such a way that they would say, “that’s better than I could put it.” If you can not do that, then it is best not to critique the perspective of the other person.

There is an interestingly element in Roman Catholic thought, where a parallel can be found to Jonathan Haidt’s work, comparing the rider and the elephant. In his The Grammar of Assent, John Henry Newman argued that there is a difference between notional assent and real assent, when it comes to Christian conversion. Notional assent deals with the abstract, rational arguments that can be presented to someone, when presenting the Gospel, which is parallel to the Haidt’s rider. Real assent deals with concrete experience, the sacramental expression of notional assent, that appeals more to the senses and to human intuition, corresponding to Haidt’s elephant.

What does this look like in practice? Consider the phenomenon of revivalism, in evangelical faith, as best exemplified by the Billy Graham Crusades of the 20th century. Billy Graham was an expert communicator, able to effectively appeal to the mind of his listeners, with abstract, rational arguments, inviting notional assent to Graham’s message, targeted towards Haidt’s rider. But Graham’s abstract arguments were not enough to eventually trigger conversions. Graham was gifted in his oratory, along with his approach to giving an invitation to his listeners, to come forward to receive Christ, while “Just As I Am” was being played, all while “the buses will wait.” This does not downplay the work of the Holy Spirit. To the contrary, this was the mechanism the Holy Spirit used to appeal to Haidt’s elephant, thereby joining the notional to real assent, leading the evangelical conversion to Christ, in Graham’s Crusade meetings.

Earlier in this post, I observed that it appears that the idea of a “big tent” evangelicalism is slowly fading away into the past. After reading The Righteous Mind, I am a lot more optimistic that the current trend can be altered. Defining those specific boundaries that constitutes “evangelicalism” is still an extremely difficult, and yet necessary, task. The voices of moderates are still there, but they do not speak up much above the din of other voices. Haidt’s book reminds me that while the most conservative elements within evangelicalism appear to be the most dogmatic, they are also counter-intuitively, strangely more open to embracing a “big tent” approach to the evangelical church. The supposedly more open-minded, progressive elements of evangelicalism, that tend to push the boundaries to the breaking point, are actually the most dogmatic and resistant to fully realizing a vision of a robust, “big tent” evangelicalism.

A Caveat Regarding The Righteous Mind (Which Should Be Obvious)

Up to this point, it is quite easy to see that I have written a rather glowing review of Jonathan Haidt’s book. But there is a catch to his overall argument, and the catch is a most serious one.

While Haidt brilliantly explains how moral reasoning functions among humans, The Righteous Mind does not address the question as to why morality matters, or why be moral in the first place. Or to put it differently, does a moral standard genuinely exist, or is morality simply an evolutionary mechanism to advance the human species? Sure, Jonathan Haidt believes that such a moral standard exists. But nothing in The Righteous Mind clarifies how we as humans are supposed to know what this is. In contrast, Christians believe that God has truly revealed Himself in Jesus Christ, and that sets the standard for morality in our universe.

Christians can and certainly do debate what exactly constitutes God’s moral standard. But that such a moral standard actually exists is part and parcel of a Christian view of the world. An atheist has no actual recourse to ultimately address this question, apart from some existentialist appeal of some sort. So, for such a otherwise brilliant and immensely rewarding book, it ultimately falls short at trying to answer such fundamental questions.

Nevertheless, despite this caveat, I still walk away from reading The Righteous Mind as the most important and best book I read this year. For more blog articles, YouTube videos and other resources that engage with Jonathan Haidt’s most important book, from various Christian perspectives, check out Haidt’s website for the book here. If only more atheists were as irenic and evidenced-based as Jonathan Haidt!!

New York City evangelical pastor Tim Keller, and Jonathan Haidt, participated together in a Veritas Forum discussion, suggesting that Christians and atheists, despite their fundamental disagreements, can work together towards building a truly pluralistic society.

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December 20, 2019

2019: Clarke’s Year in Review

By Clarke Morledge

Notre Dame on Fire….. That pretty much describes how I felt about 2019.

I have done of few these retrospectives, over the years (2015, 2016, 2017, 2018), on Veracity. But here is my stab at looking at some of the top stories of the year that have had (or will have) an impact on the Christian movement, and evangelical Christianity in particular.

 

And now for perhaps the biggest story of the year….

…. Should President Donald Trump be removed from office, as a result of his impeachment? How should Christians respond to the current crisis in the American Presidency? Some, such as Franklin Graham, believe that Trump should remain in office, considering the fact that the President has done many things that many evangelical Christians wholeheartedly support, such as advocating for pro-life concerns, and defending religious freedom. Furthermore, many are concerned that the radical Left in America is completely opposed to nearly everything the President does. Other Christians, such as the editors at Christianity Today, believe that Donald Trump has demonstrated himself as being “morally lost and confused, ” and that out of “loyalty to the Creator of the Ten Commandments,” the current President should be removed from office. Christianity Today‘s editorial reflects the same sentiment leveraged against President Bill Clinton, some 20 years ago, approximates the same call to repentance for President Nixon, some 45 years ago, and repeats many of the same concerns published just prior to the 2016 election. As Christianity Today is still regarded by some as the flagship publication of American evangelicalism, this is guaranteed to be a highly contentious issue among evangelical Christians, for some time to come.

I have a few more book review blog posts coming out before the end of decade, but that pretty much tops me out for the rest of the year!  Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

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December 8, 2019

The Madness of Crowds

By Clarke Morledge

In the introduction to his brilliant book, The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity, British author Douglas Murray, begins by saying:

“We are going through a great crowd derangement. In public and in private, both online and off, people are behaving in ways that are increasingly irrational, feverish, herd-like and simply unpleasant….”
“[Yet] the origin of this condition is rarely acknowledged. This is the simple fact we have been living through a period of more than a quarter of a century in which all our grand narratives have collapsed.”

“One by one, the narratives we had were refuted, became unpopular to defend or impossible to sustain. The explanations for our existence that used to be provided by religion went first, falling away from the 19th century onwards.”

“Then over the past century the secular hopes held out by all political ideologies began to follow in its wake. In the latter part of the 20th century we entered the postmodern era. An era that defined itself, and was defined, by its suspicion towards all grand narratives. However, as all schoolchildren learn, nature abhors a vacuum, and into the postmodern vacuum new ideas began to creep, with the intention of providing explanations and meanings of their own.“

What makes Murray’s observations so strangely poignant, is that he is not a professing Christian. Rather, he is an openly practicing gay atheist. Yet Murray manages to highlight the following quote, by G. K. Chesterston, a Christian, who was also one of the most profound cultural critics of the modern world, back almost exactly 100 years ago:

“[The] special mark of the modern world is not that it is skeptical, but that it is dogmatic without knowing it.”

Chesterton had prophetic insight in his own day. Douglas Murray revives that same insight for where we are in the 21st century.

In The Madness of Crowds, Douglas Murray lays out what he sees is a new, post-modern religion, that has sought to supplant Christianity in the West. But it has only starting to emerge, with its full-throated dogmatism, somewhere within the past ten years or so.

I recall about ten years ago, when the controversial Mormon and conservative news commentator, Glenn Beck, cautioned Christians to beware of churches that promote diversity and social justice. “I beg you look for the words social justice or economic justice on your church Web site. If you find it, run as fast as you can. Social justice and economic justice, they are code words…”

My response to Mr. Beck’s critique then, just as it is now, is that Mr. Beck simply does not understand what the Bible is talking about, when it is talking about “social justice,” or specifically, “justice.” As I had learned years ago, the language of “intersectionality” and “identity,” as interpreted through the lens of Scripture, were simply intellectual tools, to help us to understand the fallen world in which we live, and make sense of the lived, life experiences of those who face oppression or misunderstanding, who have yet to experience the full reality of being made new creatures in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17). As I have outlined elsewhere, the concept of “social justice” actually has its roots in the Bible.

But times have changed, and the pace of that change is unrelentingly fast. In particular, I have been increasingly learning, that words can alter their meanings over time, and such words can be spun very differently, in different contexts. What were once merely helpful intellectual tools have morphed into becoming ideological markers, whereby rationality is sacrificed on the altar of sentimentality, and justified on the basis of Neo-Marxist philosophy. When the Biblical concept of social justice gets uprooted from its essentially Christian, Scriptural context, a new religiosity gets formed, promoting a form of dogmatism, just as bad, if not infinitely worse than the most wooden, legalistic forms of Christian fundamentalism.

What is so scary about this, is just how pervasive it is in all levels of society. Take for example, this easy experiment that Douglas Murray shows in his book, as to how Silicon Valley has embraced this new religiosity, and smuggled it into our iPads and iPhones, without most of us ever knowing it. Type into Google’s search engine, “straight couples,” and look for images, and you will immediately notice that a large number of the top hits will be either gay or lesbian couples, with relatively few heterosexual couples to be found. On the other hand, if you type in “gay couples” instead, you will get exactly what you are looking for, countless gay couples, and no straight couples anywhere to be found. Nevertheless, we all know that “straight couples” far outnumber “gay couples” throughout society. So, why are the Google search results so skewed in favor of “gay couples” over and against “straight couples?”

This is “intersectionality” as an ideological project at work, going way beyond the more helpful notion of “intersectionality” as a tool. In oh-so-subtle ways, the world of social media is forming our minds, with the new religion defining the new dogmatism. The supposedly unbiased nature of machine learning algorithms, that tech giants like Google (and they are not alone!!) use to sort their search results, are being employed to further this post-modern agenda.

One could suggest, as Douglas Murray does at times, that such language of “intersectionality” and “identity” has always been rooted in non-Christian, Marxist ideology. Yet this would be news to the writers of the Old and New Testament, such as when Christians make reference to the fact that Christians have a new “identity” found in Christ, as taught by the Apostle, in 2 Corinthians 5:17, mentioned above. But we now live in a world where the new forms of social media, driven by Silicon Valley, available 24/7 on our smart phones, are causing a whole new generation of young people to lose those long held connections to a Christian frame of mind.

Murray’s point is well taken, in that much of the talk of “intersectionality” and “critical race theory” today is decidedly not Christian today, but rather unashamedly Neo-Marxist. In his 1960s “I Have a Dream” speech, Martin Luther King Jr. argued for a Christian vision of a colorblind society. “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” But Murray’s central contention in The Madness of Crowds is that the contemporary, ideologically-driven “social justice” movement has flipped King’s colorblind vision upside down upon its head, and freedom of speech has suffered as a result.

The silencing and bullying that seeks to suppress free speech is horrifying enough. The fact that such promotion of this type of “intersectionality” rhetoric shows very little, if any shame, only heightens the analysis that Douglas Murray displays in his prose. But it is not merely shameless, it is frankly unbelievable, or as the title of Murray’s book suggests… it is madness.

Perhaps the most troubling message in The Madness of Crowds comes in Murray’s chapter on “On Forgiveness.” In this new, ideologically-driven “intersectionality” movement there is no opportunity for forgiveness. Once someone has been identified as being a person of privilege, due to their gender, race, etc., the only “moral” way forward is to ally with the identified non-privileged. If such a person of privilege “sins,” in this religious paradigm, not even an apology is acceptable.  Even “sins” of the past can never be forgiven. Unlike the Christian faith, there is no opportunity for redemption. There is only condemnation. This new religion is a view of the world without hope or forgiveness.

The Madness of Crowds is not for the most squeamish. There were moments, when reading The Madness of Crowds, where the author was very explicit in matters delicate and morally degrading, to the point where I felt uncomfortable. But there is a purpose here. Murray is not gratuitous, for he chooses his words carefully to make his points, which are sadly necessary.

As an aside, in the Audible version of the title, Douglas Murray reads his own book. Just listening to the cadence and his British accent adds to the effectiveness of driving Murray’s argument home.

While The Madness of Crowds was not the most profound book I read this year, it is surely the best book I read that was released this year. Concerned and thoughtful Christians need to push this book to the top of their reading list.

I have Douglas Murray to thank, to help expose the elephant in the room, regarding how the post-modern phenomenon of political correctness and identity politics gone viral has poisoned the hearts and minds of so many in our day. Unlike Murray, I have not given up on what Murray calls “religion,” which I find to be the Gospel of Jesus Christ, as the true antidote to our difficulties today. Yet many Christians seem to be blithely unaware of what is being propagated, in much of the social media in our post-modern age. Sometimes, when the Church finds it so hard to figure things out herself, God can even raise up a gay atheist, to tell us the truth.

Get this book, and read it.

 

 

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November 19, 2019

Do We Still Have Apostles Today, in the Church?

By Clarke Morledge

Did the gift of “apostleship” cease by the end 1st century? The answer is yes… and no. But I need to unpack this to explain.

We know that there were apostles running around the Roman Empire, during the 1st century, when the New Testament was written. Folks like the Apostle Paul, the Apostle Peter, and the Apostle James come to mind, right away. But what about today? Are there still apostles? Well, it all comes down to what the New Testament means by the term “apostle.”

“Apostles” versus “apostles”??

The Greek word apostolos is used a number of times within the New Testament. The term generally means “one sent as a messenger.”  This more generic sense of “messenger,” “representative,” or “envoy” is found in 2 Corinthians 8:23. But it also has a more specific sense, that of being one of the divinely appointed founders of the Christian church. That latter, more specific sense, most probably refers to those who had seen the Risen Christ, and who were charged by Jesus Himself to authoritatively articulate the message of the Gospel, to that first century world. Think of the original twelve disciples, minus Judas (Acts 1:2, 1:26), as well as Paul, based on his encounter with the Risen Jesus, on the road to Damascus.

A lot of Christians are very leery about acknowledging the presence of “apostles” in 21st century Christianity, and for a very good reason. The “big” apostles, like Paul, Peter, and James were accepted as being authorized to write the books of the New Testament. Only such apostles, or those who lived within that early apostolic circle, were recognized as legitimate writers of Holy Scripture. For example, Mark was not among the group of the named “big” apostles, but he knew Peter, who is the primary source for how we got the Gospel of Mark. Likewise, Luke moved around in that same, original apostolic circle, and thereby wrote the Gospel that bears his name, as well as Acts.

But we do not have writers of Scripture today. Contrary to what folks like the Mormons believe, there is no case to be made that there are to be any extra revealed books of the Bible, aside from what we already have in the Old and New Testaments. So, when you hear about movements like the New Apostolic Reformation, or other movements, commonly associated with some varieties of Pentecostalism, most evangelical Christians today are correct to cast a skeptical eye on such claims of apostleship. In this sense, there are no, capital “A” Apostles running around our churches today.

There are cases where Paul gives us some examples of capital “A” Apostles in the early church. For example, he includes himself in 1 Corinthians 15:9. There is also James, the brother of Jesus, who is called an apostle in Galatians 1:19, who was also the leader of the church in Jerusalem, and the author of one our books in the New Testament.

However, the New Testament does indicate that there were others in New Testament, who were described as apostles, but who lack that special sense of designated authority. For example, the Apostle Paul had several traveling companions or co-workers who were called “apostles,” either explicitly, or perhaps implied. Barnabas is explicitly mentioned as being one (Acts 14:14). Then there is Epaphroditus, who is called a “messenger” in Philippians 2:25, which is the same Greek word for “apostle.” Likewise, there are those like Apollos, Silas, and Timothy who served right alongside Paul in his ministry.

Yet we have no reason to believe any of these Christians ever had a post-Resurrection encounter with Jesus, in the same manner like Paul or Peter did. Then we have the case of a notable woman, Junia, who was considered “outstanding among the apostles” (Romans 16:7 NIV), according to Paul. Paul even names two other women Euodia and Syntyche, as co-workers, contending along Paul’s side, “in the cause of the Gospel” (Philippians 4:2-3). So, were all of these people, men and women alike, apostles?

At the very least, you could say that all of these co-workers of Paul, male and female, were what we would call today “church-planters,” which is consistent with the practice continued today, by many churches, to “send out” missionaries to go plant churches, as “messengers” of the Gospel, which is consistent with how the New Testament uses that Greek term, apostolos. In other words, they were little-a “apostles,” as opposed to being big-A “Apostles,” like Paul.

The argument from Scripture, therefore, indicates that we no longer have big-A “Apostles” today in the church. However, this should not be construed to rule out the existence of small-a “apostles.”

Surely, some will be concerned that the line between Apostle and apostle could become blurred, some twenty centuries after the New Testament was written. No one can write Scripture today. No one can supersede folks like the Apostle Paul, and claim the mantle of their authority. But most Christians I know surely acknowledge the presence of many, many gifted church planters today, who have been sent out as messengers, for the sake of spreading the Gospel, just as you read about them in the New Testament.

Simply put, you can not plant churches without church planters. Church planters exercise the gift of being “apostles,” in that they are sent out by Christian communities as messengers of the Gospel.

Therefore, some might feel more comfortable with speaking of such “lower case a” apostles as being “church planters” instead, in order to avoid confusion. In my mind, that is just quibbling with words, but I get the point. A distinction needs to be made. So be it. If refusing to call anyone today an “apostle” causes you grief, then go right ahead and come up with your own word. But the principle should be clear. In addition to the heavyweights, like Paul and Peter, the church of the New Testament had “lower case a” apostles, who were sent out to plant churches, built on the message of the Gospel. We still have those in that second category of “apostles” today.

Insight Into Yet Another, Thorny Issue That Divides the Church?

As a parallel, this distinction might help those who struggle with the whole question of having women preach or teach, in the local church. Many understand the Apostle Paul to say that women should not serve as teachers in the church, particularly where there are men present, according to 1 Timothy 2:12. Paul goes on to explain what he means by this in 1 Timothy 3, in describing the qualification for “overseers,” whom Paul calls “elders” in Acts 20.

But this directive of Paul’s should also be considered along with yet another directive of Paul, whereby men and women are to teach and admonish one another, in the local church, according to Colossians 3:16. In Colossians, Paul is specifically addressing his message to both men and women, and there is nothing that indicates that this message was limited to that particular church, in that particular time (Colossians 3:15-19). That all believers, including men and women, are encouraged to teach one another, is an idea that has universal scope and application.

The first type of “Teaching,” commonly associated with the authority of elders, or overseers, refers to the work of guarding against the infiltration of false doctrine, into the local church. This ties into the concept of “big-A” Apostleship, as the primary task of “big-T” Teachers ; that is, the elders of the church, is to make sure that the doctrine being propagated in the local church is in alignment with what was laid down by those first century “big-A” Apostles, who are responsible for our New Testament. As I have argued elsewhere, I would call this big-T “Teaching.”

The second type of “teaching,” such as is in the leading of Bible studies, giving an exhortation in a corporate worship service, under the supervision of the elders of the church, does not necessarily bear with it the sense of authority, generally attributed to elders. But it does recognize that there are specific gifts of teaching, that the Holy Spirit can give to men and women, that can be used under the oversight function of local church elders.

Some may object to the language of calling women as “teachers,” preferring other language such as calling women as “preachers.” But even the notion of women “preaching” might be too much for some. Others would prefer the terminology of the “passing on of information,” just as the Lord Jesus gave Mary Magdalene information to pass onto the male disciples, after the Resurrection. But despite whatever terminology is preferred, the principle remains the same, that both big-T “Teaching” and little-t “teaching” are part of every growing community of believers today.

Granted, this is a controversial idea for many in our #MeToo era, who bristle at even the thought of discrimination against women, when it comes to the office of elder and/or pastor in a local church. On the other side, many other Christians believe such little-t “teaching” can only be appropriate in an occasional or informal setting, and rarely, if ever, from a pulpit, or even an ongoing, adult Sunday school class, where men and women are both present.

Many evangelical Christians are divided over such issues.1  I would be hopelessly foolish to insist on being dogmatic. At the same time, it grieves me to think how we are quickly dividing the Body of Christ, when there is a modest, moderating alternative to the crisis of how churches should be governed, in evangelical circles.

Here I am suggesting a possible third-way through this impasse. It might be helpful to draw this parallel together, as I have done here, of contrasting big-A “Apostles” and little-a “apostles,” along with big-T “teaching” and little-t “teaching,” to give us a more thoughtful understanding of how we can see the gifts of apostleship and teaching at work today, in the contemporary church.2

Notes:

1. Southern California pastor John MacArthur set off a firestorm of criticism in October, 2019, at a conference, where he was asked to give a one or two word response to the name “Beth Moore,” a popular women’s Bible study teacher, in the Southern Baptist convention. He recommended that Beth Moore “go home,” which lit up the world of evangelical Twitter on fire. Pastor MacArthur explains his views here, in a sermon delivered shortly after the flair up.  MacArthur’s biggest exegetical error in this sermon, starting at the 54:23 mark, is by treating the topic of women praying and prophesying, 1 Corinthians 11:2-16, as NOT applicable to the context public, corporate worship, whereas Paul’s teaching later in the same letter, that “women are to remain silent,” in 1 Corinthians 14:34-35, is clearly applicable to the context of public corporate worship. The problem is that BOTH passages refer to the corporate worship life of the church, whether we like that or not, and we must deal with this tension accordingly. In 1 Corinthians 11:16, Paul declares that the orderly praying and prophesying by women IS within the context of public, corporate worship. To go against this is contrary to church practice. “If anyone is inclined to be contentious, we have no such practice, nor do the churches of God.”  The “churches” here, is from the Greek ekklesia, which specifically means the “assembly.” Nevertheless, like the perennial topic that persists and persists, and never goes away, there have been those on the other side of this, like on egalitarian theologian Scot McKnight’s Jesus Creed blog, who are greatly aggravated by MacArthur’s statements. Equally, on the more rigid complementarian side, bloggers like Grayson Gilbert have come to MacArthur’s defense.  A more, measured video response by International House of Prayer leader, Mike Bickle, can be found here. (For a slightly different view, that suggests that a complementarian can affirm women as a “pastor,” and not an “elder,” read Sam Storms here). On the other hand, I appreciate the more thoughtful, irenic dialogue between two different complementarian voices, Kevin DeYoung and John Dickson, regarding the topic of “women preaching.” The practice of those, like Tim Challies, who only allows men to read Scripture publicly in church, seems really over the top to me, and without sufficient grounding in the Bible. But other areas are more dicey, and less certain. My own response to those like Kevin DeYoung, who would not allow for women to lead adult Sunday school classes, on a regular basis, where men and women are present, even operating under the oversight of an all-male eldership, is for those who might be troubled by such practice can simply refrain from attending that particular Sunday school class, and attend a different class, assuming one is available. My main concern is that Christians should not interfere with the consciences with other believers, who hold to “disputable matters” that have brought about unnecessary division within our churches. The last thing we need is for yet another reason for churches to needlessly split, with egalitarian Christians on one side, and complementarian Christians on the other, or even a third-split, with yet moderate complementarians dividing from more extreme complementarians. Enough already!! We need to balance out the concerns of those who fear the increase of worldly feminism into our churches, while acknowledging the giftedness of women, as also taught in Scripture. For those interested in a more in-depth look at the “women in ministry” issue, see my 19-part blog post series, beginning with this post. ↩

2. I greatly appreciate the measured, irenic work of London-based pastor Andrew Wilson on the topic of “Apostles” versus “apostles”(see here and here). Wilson is thoughtfully consistent, principled, without being needlessly rigid, and fully rooted in God’s Word.  ↩

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November 2, 2019

When A Theologian Goes Rogue: David Bentley Hart’s Universalism

By Clarke Morledge

David Bentley Hart is one those theological minds that I have hesitated to dive into deeply.

It is not as though he is not erudite (which he is), nor that he is not polemical in the most insightful way (which he also is). It is because he is so well knowledgeable and so marvelously incisive that I think it almost impossible to explain the penetrating power of his intellect to the average evangelical lay person. Why waste all of the effort? Let the academics have at him, and leave the rest of us mere mortals alone. But alas, Hart’s latest book is extremely difficult to ignore. So this is fair warning that this blog post will sound quite dense and geeky. Here we go….

An Eastern Orthodox theologian, currently teaching at Notre Dame, after having picked up a doctorate of philosophy from the University of Virginia, along the way, David Bentley Hart is probably best known for his devastating critique of the New Atheism, of Dawkins, Harris, Bennett, and Hitchens, in his Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies. 

David Bentley Hart. Astute critic of the New Atheism, who has now tasted the confusing allure of universalism, and amazingly finds it satisfying.

Long time Veracity readers will know that I greatly benefit from the pithy, enjoyable, and learned blogs posts by Reformed charismatic pastor, Andrew Wilson, of Kings Church of London, England, at the Think blog. Just about anything Andrew writes about, I try to read. He is that good. Andrew got his blogging start working his way through Hart’s Atheist Delusions back in 2011, which offers an excellent summary of the high points of Hart’s argument (#1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8, #9, plus a follow up essay, #10). Andrew’s blogs are a good place to start to get a taste of what David Bentley Hart is like.

But while Hart has served as a masterful champion of demolishing the New Atheism, in service to the greater Christian tradition, Hart has also applied his rhetorical, polemical skills against fellow Christian thinkers he finds to be petty and annoying. He can be over the top in some respects, but his criticisms deserve thoughtful responses. For example, he dismisses the greater classic evangelical Reformed tradition, embodied most broadly by the folks at The Gospel Coalition, as hopelessly fundamentalist, who are most likely guilty as “moral cretins.” That is a bit harsh, but for some on the far side of hyper-Reformed thinking, Hart may not be too far off.

Hart’s bristling does not end there. I am convinced that David Bentley Hart utterly despises N.T. Wright. While Wright, a British Anglican, who is perhaps the most well known New Testament scholar living today, may have captivated an entire generation of millennials, in seminaries, over the past twenty years, Hart will have none of Wright’s “idiosyncratic” style of New Testament translation methodology. Along with other critics, Hart believes that N.T. Wright’s enthusiastic embrace of the so-called “New Perspective on Paul” has led Wright down the path of injecting a false dichotomy into Paul’s doctrine of justification, a core doctrine in New Testament thought. Sample just this biting, scathing sentence from Hart’s rejoinder to an earlier critique by Wright, regarding one another’s work in doing New Testament Bible translation:

Regarding, for example, [Wright’s] insistence on rendering “dikaiosyne” by the cumber­some phrase “covenant righteousness” (a special hobby-horse of Wright’s, which he takes out for a gallop around the paddock whenever he can), I would be only one among legions in pointing out that this arbitrarily isolates a single dimension of a term [within] a far larger range of possible meaning in the text.

Wright’s translation of the New Testament could hardly be any more different from D. B. Hart’s version of the same (which is why the committee approach to how the English Standard Version, the New International Version, and the Christian Standard Bible were able to produce such excellent work, inviting millions of Christians to feast on their presentations of God’s Word, is far superior than any translation done by a solitary scholar…. but I digress).

Nevertheless, it is Hart’s latest volume That All Shall Be Saved: Heaven, Hell and Universalism that has caused the greatest amount of controversy. Here, Hart has moved away from the very center of Christian tradition, causing shockwaves among today’s theological intelligentsia.

Hart’s thesis here is built on the speculative work of the 4th century Cappadocian, early church father, Gregory of Nyssa, who advocated for a type of Christian universalism, that the doctrine of hell actually serves a more redemptive purpose, suggesting that, in the end, all humans will be saved. Unlike popular forms of universalism, that blithely claim that all humans bypass hell, Hart channels Gregory of Nyssa to say that, yes, there is indeed a hell, but its purpose is more like that of purgatory, a process after death whereby all sin is to be purged from every human, thereby ultimately resulting in everyone’s final reconciliation with God.

Now, before anyone gets too suspicious about Gregory of Nyssa, it should be noted that Gregory of Nyssa was mostly known for other teachings, that most Christians take for granted today. For example, among the early church fathers, Gregory of Nyssa was singularly outspoken in his belief that Christianity and the practice of slavery were incompatible with one another, in an age when slavery was an established norm in Greco-Roman society. Gregory of Nyssa was also one of the greatest champions of the doctrine of the Trinity. But when it came to universalism, Gregory of Nyssa speculated on certain ideas that later writers, such as David Bentley Hart, have taken and run with.

Contrary to a type of “hopeful universalism” of the 20th century Swiss theological, Karl Barth, that maintains that God’s ultimate purpose of saving “everyone” be held out as a theological possibility, with a number of caveats, David Bentley Hart takes a bolder approach. As St. Louis University theologian, and historical scholar of universalism, Michael McClymond, put it, Hart’s latest work casts aside the tentativeness of a “hopeful universalism” in favor of assertiveness. To think that God “might” save everyone in the end, as a type of optimism, while at the same time soberly recognizing an utterly just and final punishment of a hell, that can not be ignored, is something too weak for Hart to counsel.

Alas, defenders of Hart believe that Hart continues to be greatly misunderstood. Yet McGill University’s Douglas Farrow believes he understands Hart all too well, laying out his concerns in the pages of First Things, a (mostly) Roman Catholic think-tank journal:

David Bentley Hart, familiar to readers of these pages as an intellectual pugilist who floats like a butterfly and stings like a bee, has entered the ring for the Big Fight. Armed with his recent translation of the New Testament, he is ready to prove that no one suffers eternal damnation. Almost the entire Western tradition, backed by much of the East, is in the other corner. In his corner are fellow followers of Origen, the evangelical universalists, and a motley crew of sparring partners from the gyms where he has trained. As he approaches the ring, he strikes a Luther-like pose. Of course he wants nothing whatever to do with Luther, or any other product of the Augustinian stable. But he will stand where he must stand; he can do no other. The Church has backed the wrong man. She is about to be taught a lesson.

The man in question is Augustine, the bête noire of universalists everywhere. He wears the black trunks. Hart is in the white trunks, standing in for Gregory of Nyssa, the man the Church ought to have backed and didn’t…..

Other theologians have taken notice, and have weighed in. Peter Leithart, a featured blogger at First Things, wrote a partial review of That All Shall Be Saved, that Hart considered to be at least faithful to critiquing what Hart actually wrote. Nevertheless, Hart still found Leithart’s critique to be wholly lacking. Leithart, in return, offers a rejoinder to Hart’s response. Fellow Eastern Orthodox theologian, John Mark Reynolds, wishes to disown Hart from Eastern Orthodoxy. Others, acknowledging the puzzling depth of Hart’s thought, like Nicholas Frankovich, at the National Review, watches the sparks fly. Quirky-evangelical contrarian and blogger, Andrew Perriman, is intrigued by Hart’s argument, though not entirely convinced. The debate goes on. If you like spirited dialogue among academic theologians, it does not get any more exciting than this.

Pastor Andrew Wilson, mentioned above, who has greatly appreciated Hart’s previous works, regrettably describes Hart’s latest book as “Trump with a thesaurus.”

It is as though David Bentley Hart completely slept through the controversy a few years ago, surrounding former megachurch pastor Rob Bell, when he wrote Love Wins. In Love Wins, Bell hinted at but never came out and explicitly endorsed universalism, as much as Hart does in That All Shall Be Saved. But Bell pretty much had to quit his megachurch pastor job in Michigan, to take up his surfboard in Southern California, and occasionally traveling across country for various book tours. Preaching universalism in an evangelical church can not pay the bills, for any pastor. Evangelical pastors who flirt too much with universalism should consider a new career. Hart admits that he is not a pastor, which makes me wonder how in the world anyone could ever preach his message, in any evangelical church, and survive past a single sermon!

The once brilliant theologian Hart has now gone rogue, reframing a theological argument that got the early church father Origen, for all practical purposes, branded as a heretic, at least regarding his views on the doctrine of hell. The conscious eternal torment view, embraced by a majority of Christians (though not all), through Christian history, is to be rejected by Hart, as being ultimately “unChristian.” Apparently, according to Hart, this great majority of Christian believers, across the centuries, never got the memo.

Furthermore, though viewed by many as suspect, in a less obtrusive manner, the conditional immortality, or annihilationalist, approach to hell, as offered by thinkers like John R.W. Stott and Edward Fudge, is left off the table as a viable alternative to either the traditional conscious eternal torment view, or a universalist view, for Hart. No, David Bentley Hart will have none of that. Hart has planted his flag firmly in this universalist camp. Hart is now placed in the column marked “beware.” A theologian of David Bentley Hart’s stature and intellectual talents can not be ignored. But his thesis in That All Shall Be Saved makes him highly suspect, a good example of what NOT to do, when doing theology.

What is most disturbing about Hart’s thesis is that he pretty much accepts the New Atheist complaint about the Old Testament at face value. For the New Atheist, the God of the Old Testament is capricious, unjust, and vindictive, and therefore, not morally worthy of being God. This is not an aberrant view, but rather an all-too-common criticism among learned, skeptical readers of the Bible today. A quick glance at EvilBible.com shows just how pervasive this New Atheist complaint has reached into our culture.

Consider the great flood of Noah. As much of traditional interpretation indicates, Genesis would have us to think that the vast majority of humans perished in that catastrophic event, a sign indicating that God takes judgment against human rebellion quite seriously. Ah, but observers will point out, this would presumably include small children, and mothers, pregnant with child, who were among those who drowned in the rising sea of God’s judgment. To critics, this would be genocide, with divinely sanctioned abortion built-in.

Other Christian thinkers offer nuanced responses, to this interpretive quandary, looking at the story of Noah within a broader Scriptural context (for example, consider this brilliant alternative, more theologically modest and centrist perspective, advocated by Eastern Orthodox theologian, Father Stephen De Young). But it would appear that in Hart’s estimation, the matter is more black and white. Hart rejects the historicity of the Noah story, but he does so on a basis that concedes this New Atheist critique of Christianity: An Old Testament God who inflicts such vindictive violence must be a caricature of the one true God (if there is a such a God). If God does not save everyone, then God can save no one.

But the New Atheist secularizes Hart’s argument, agreeing with Hart, and concluding that, yes, God can save no one, as such a God can not be ultimately trusted. Dawkins, Hitchens, and others, can easily respond: Why even bother with universalism? Just get rid of the whole concept of hell altogether, and the whole notion of final judgment, and be done with the whole problem…. while you are it, save yourself the trouble and deny the existence of God.

David Bentley Hart has touched a nerve, and his thesis deserves a thoughtful response. Yet Hart’s critics rightly pin him into a corner. Hart’s fellow Eastern Orthodox theological colleagues are not impressed by Hart’s theological innovations. Sure, I would love to think that in the end, even the most hardened sinner will embrace Jesus as their Savior. But to embrace such a view, as Hart has done so wholeheartedly, is sadly merely wishful thinking.

Even Douglas Farrow concludes his review of Hart thus, “Hart makes clear in conclusion that if Christianity requires belief in eternal punishment, then Christianity is false. Which prompts from this reporter an unhappy observation. If he really believes that, then the New Atheists, to whom he gave a thorough thrashing in earlier books, should demand a rematch. This time they might well win, and that by default. ”

 

 

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