Life of the Mind - Part 1
Over the next few days I want to put some thoughts out here on my blog about the life of the mind. And yes, I like to think and read books so this will in many ways be a defense of intellectualism. I’ve just encountered various accusations recently that attempt to ridicule or at least make one feel guilty for being intellectual, so I feel the need to address some of those ideas.
The first topic came up as part of our conversation at up/rooted last night. The accusation what that emerging church leaders are all too intellectual and focused on cognitive ideas. They try to change people’s hearts by presenting ideas instead of helping people have a relationship with with Jesus. It was mentioned that the books and the blogs are heavy on theology and ideas and not on worship and contemplation. These books give theological reasons for why we should say help the poor instead of encouraging us to pray for conviction or just go out and serve. Someone also mentioned that they were really disappointed in how at the Midwest Emergent Gathering last summer all the big name leaders skipped out on every worship session to blog or hang out. In essence, the charge was that the EC is just about ideas and not about being in a relationship with God.
I personally saw some underlying truth in that argument, but disagreed with some of its assumptions. The basic flaw in the argument, in my opinion, is the assumption that people can’t worship or connect with God through books, discussion, and theology. Those things apparently teach one about God, but only prayer, contemplation, and worship can help one actually get to know God. This is an argument that I’ve heard many times before and one I strongly disagree with. I do connect to God through things like books and theology and I find things like singing and contemplation forced and hollow. I’ve been told my whole life that the only real way to connect with God is through those acts and that there must be something wrong with me if it wasn’t working for me. And when I did draw closer to God through intellectual pursuits I was informed that I wasn’t really engaged in worship or true relationship. It all served to make me feel rather inadequate as a Christian. But those assumptions just aren’t true. My experience and the experiences of others I know demonstrate that intellectual paths are just as meaningful and valid ways of relating to God as the more emotional and mystical. Discovering things about God and what he has done does connect us to him. I won’t deny that basic reality any longer and I refuse to let others invalidate my spirituality just because it doesn’t look the same as theirs.
That said, I think there are a lot fewer people who connect to God intellectually than emotionally or mystically. And most of us who do connect intellectually have ended up in positions where our voices are the ones that get heard - pastors, speakers, bloggers, writers… When people hear emerging church leaders, the life of the mind is generally the primary option presented. Add to that the voices accusing us then of not being truly spiritual and problems arise. Unless we want to be utterly ineffective in our message or scare away those with different spirituality languages, more of a balanced perspective needs to be presented. I don’t like the false accusation that I am not spiritual, but I also can’t assume that everyone should connect to God intellectually (although intellectually learning about God is necessary, but that’s another day’s topic).
So what does this mean on a practical level? I think it will take some willingness to accept others by everyone. It might take some leaders affirming practices they might personally find trivial (praise choruses and prayer journals spring to my mind), but it will also take the majority of Christians being willing to expand their conceptions of spirituality as well. Continuing to dichotomize the life of the mind and spirituality is not healthy for the church or the emerging movement. Affirming these different paths to God so to speak may be the only thing that will lead to mutual understanding and appreciation. At least it will acknowledge that God is God and isn’t limited in how he connects with each of us.
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Julie Clawson
Topics: Worship, Theology, Emerging Church |
February 19th, 2008 at 6:40 pm
julie: been a reader for a few months but first time commenter. been enjoying your thoughts and look forward to the upcoming posts.
it’s amazing how folks [including myself] can be threatened by stuff that doesn’t look, feel, sound, and smell like us.
surely, God must be bigger.
February 19th, 2008 at 9:11 pm
[…] Life of the Mind - Part 1 […]
February 19th, 2008 at 9:33 pm
I have to admit I find myself wondering if the whole Emerging conversation (including my involvement in it from the sidelines) is really just a head trip. But then I do see people who have real ministries and are involved in real communities serving real people, and many of them are thinking deeply about the issues they are confronting. There is a lot of talk and writing and a lot of it rather intellectual. One reason I see for this is the real need to work out what it is the Spirit is calling us into in this season — where we have to think hard about what we’re leaving behind, what the heart of the Gospel is, how to live it out in our contexts. There are some who will move into those things quite spontaneously out of their worship and response to God’s promptings. There are others, I believe, who have a place of leadership in a wider arena (formal or informal), whose clear thinking about the issues of living faithfully in our changing culture will empower many people to take the vision and run with it.
February 20th, 2008 at 9:15 am
I love Yeshua’s words in:
Matthew 22:36-38 (New American Standard Bible)
New American Standard Bible (NASB, His version of the Shema Israel:
36″Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37And He said to him, ” ‘YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.’ 38″This is the great and foremost commandment.
I mean, this is a brilliant statement, despite not dimmed by its familiarity. We’re all wired differently. I have friends, who relate primarily with their emotions. Me, I relate to G-d primarily with my mind I believe. I find glimpses of the Creator in works of literature, in great books, and thoughts.
I do think that to have a well rounded relationship with G-d, I should give some thought to relating to him emotionally as well as mystically. It’s one of the things I really like about Foster’s Streams of Living Water books, there is much to learn from paying attention to teh mystics, the peace and justice advocates, the scholars of the Word.
Good thoughts.
February 20th, 2008 at 10:13 am
Yet another good post Julie. It sparks a bunch of thoughts that I will try to offer as bullet points, without fleshing them out too much. Each could be a lengthy post of its own.
- I have similar intellectually-inclined tendencies. I can’t just check my mind at the door of the church, and don’t relate well to a church that asks me to do so.
- You’re in good company in the broader, historical Christian tradition, even if you’re in the minority within American Christianity. I expect you’ve read at least some of Mark Noll’s “Scandal of the Evangelical Mind.” That book stemmed from a paper Noll presented at the ETS in the early 90’s. My senior seminar PoliSci class reviewed and critiqued the paper prior to Noll presenting it. It kind of crystallized a bunch of thoughts that had been building in me during my time at Wheaton and helped validate some of my own experience and thinking.
- Still, the whole heart/head thing is a false dichotomy. I need to have both an engaged mind and a warm heart. My strength can also be a weakness, with a tendency to keep God intellectualized and at arm’s length.
- The ”head” people need more of the “heart” stuff, and the “heart” people need more of the “head” stuff. Not in order that they all end up in exactly the same place or that their worship be homogenized – no, they’ll still have different strengths and primary emphases. But nobody is meant to be all of one or the other.
- There is too much in the historic witness and experience of the Church, and in the life of Jesus recorded in the Gospels, demonstrating the experience of being in an intimate, personal relationship with “Abba” God, for me to just dismiss mysticism, contemplation and heart-driven worship as “not for me.” If the expressions of it I have encountered really leave me cold maybe I need to find another way of experiencing it (i.e. I don’t have to feel guilty for not liking most contemporary praise music or not wanting to raise my hands), but I still need it. But if the whole category leaves me cold, maybe there IS something lacking or wounded or shut down in me that I need to prayerfully ask God to address.
- Acceptance of others and their differences is a great starting point. But the willingness and humility to learn from others and change a bit myself might be a part of it also. It has been for me.
- It’s interesting that over-intellectualism is a critique you often hear regarding the Emerging Church. I see how that could be, now that I’ve thought about it. The criticism that has stuck in my mind since hearing it a few years ago is kind of the opposite. An author and PhD whose name you’d probably recognize (and who I’ve seen quoted a few times on emerging-friendly blogs) told me that he saw potential in the emerging church but he felt the movement suffered from “the peril of the master’s degree.” That is, many in leadership had master’s degree-level learning (either formal or informal) but they confused that with having a thorough, in-depth knowledge of their subject. The fact that they knew significantly more than the typical high school or college educated church member had led them to believe they knew a given subject more thoroughly than they actually did. From the perspective of a PhD, he saw the emerging church as intellectually a bit shallow and lacking sufficient historical awareness and theological sophistication. He pointed out that the holder of a master’s degree is actually closer to the holder of a bachelor’s, than she is to a PhD, even if her learning is sufficient to disabuse her of notions she naively held when in high school or college.
February 20th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
Also long time reader, first time commenter.
I am really excited where you are going with this series on life of the mind, Julie. As a woman who is a pastor I am often critiqued for thinking instead of feeling. I do not cry at Bible study and am seen as someone who is not in touch with God. Often I have been told that my faith is cold when it is not at all. I worship God frequently through reading and writing. And it is frustrating to deal with.
In some senses, this has also been a gender issue in my life. Since I am more intellectual in my worship and thought about God, I am seen as too ‘male’ and women often get frustrated with me. I find this oddly unsettling - can’t anyone have the gift of intellect?
Anyway, thanks for putting some thoughts into words for me.
February 20th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
Eugene and Alaina - thanks for reading and commenting!
Maria - I agree, there is a place for words that empower and inspire even if they may be perceived differently by different personalities.
bill - I too like the Foster book for helping understand these different paths.
Karl - wow a lot of good comments. I’ll address a couple of your points here, but I think my other posts may address some of the others.
I have to disagree with how you do support the dichotomy of head and heart. In saying that “head” people need more “heart” you assume the same thing that the person at up/rooted did - that “head” engagement cannot be a valid “heart” relationship. My point was that for some people intellectual engagement with words and theology is what functions as our emotional relationship with God. We are not rejecting the entire category of “worship” and are not lacking or wounded as you suggest. I am just requesting that the box of what is considered appropriate/acceptable “worship” be expanded to include intellectual acts. We are not looking for an excuse to keep God at arm’s length or to avoid the “christian life”, but just asking that others allow us to be who we are in how we interact with God. Yes, I do see the need to be stretched and try to things as we learn from others. That is part of growth. But I would like to stop being accussed of being unspiritual just because I don’t fit certain boxes.
February 20th, 2008 at 4:37 pm
Julie, thanks for the reply. I agree wholeheartedly that intellectual engagement can be (and should be) counted as worship. Again there is rich writing, thought and experience to this effect throughout the Christian tradition. Maybe I was too sloppy in talking about heart and head as a kind of shorthand and added confusion to what I was trying to say.
At the same time, I agree with you that we disagree in at least some places.
I’m not suggesting that intellecual-activity-as-worship is invalid - quite the opposite. But yes, I’m saying that those of us with a strong bent in that direction need to add to that bent - just as those with a strong bent toward singing, poetry and mysticism would benefit by adding to their experience a little bit more intellectual exercise.
For me it comes back at least partly to the fact that in addition to the societal and other-focused aspects of my relationship with God, this relationship is also supposed to be an intimate love relationship - a bosom friendship, a brother/Daddy/spouse relationship, and much more, all rolled into one. If a person can relate to his/her spouse on an intimate, emotional level that includes but goes beyond the intellectual examination of their relationship and all it means and can be . . . then they can/should relate to God that way also. I don’t know you and Mike but I bet that you wouldn’t say “intellectual engagement with words and [ideas] is what functions as [my] emotional relationship with [Mike]. It is part of it, probably a significant part of it. But probably not all of it. At least, I know that’s not how I would talk of a loving relationship with my wife or my parents.
February 20th, 2008 at 9:33 pm
This is an excellent post.
I love music and find that I connect to God through music, not necessarily the designated “worship” music, but good music in general. However, I find that I primarily connect with God through people and their “stories” (the tales of their experiences with God and their thoughts on God). Listening to others recount their unique journeys of faith or their particular take on theological matters absolutely enhances my own spirituality. It seems obvious to me that an intellectual connection to God is completely valid and a major aspect of knowing God (although God transcends all methods of connection: prayer, reading, singing, thinking etc.). Geesh, Jesus said to love God with all our hearts, souls, MINDS, and strength.
February 22nd, 2008 at 8:09 am
You are right to defend the practice of offering our whole minds (as well as hearts) to God as worship.
I am troubled, however, by the comment you made about big name leaders at a conference skipping worship. I had a professor in seminary who never attended chapel worship, even holding it in disdain in some of his lectures. Though he was brilliant, I found him to be more than a little spiritually arrogant.
By contrast, my favorite seminary professor was a man named Al Winn, who was a brilliant teacher, writer, and adminstrator. At the same time, he was in chapel every morning clearly offering his heart to the Lord, seeking strength and guidance.
We need Christian scholars who offer their hearts as well as their minds to the Lord.
April 16th, 2008 at 10:16 pm
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