THOUGHTFULLY DRIVING THE PORCELAIN BUS

A Column by John S Schroeder

January 11,2003

There was an article I read this week somewhere. I did not keep track of it because it did not seem significant at the time, but it has kept gnawing at my brain. In that article, the author was drawing a comparison between modern liberals and conservatives. One of the distinctions drawn was that conservatives, if necessary, want to change people’s behavior, while liberals want to change people’s emotions. The reason this gnawed at me so is that with all my talk about transformation, I started wondering if I was a closet liberal, which might in turn require some drastic reaction like seppuku.

After much consideration I think I have found what was missing from the authors analysis. The author does not consider the spiritual aspects of a person. The author completely ignores that aspect of being. When I speak of transformation, I am speaking of spiritual transformation, something different than either behavior, or emotion. Having made that discovery, I think I have really hit on something here.

The author’s analysis was not so far off. Old-line conservative churches did seek merely to change people’s behavior. Thus there were rules and requirements. Contemporary churches on the other hand seek to manipulate emotion. Music, usually such a heavy component of contemporary churches, is a very useful tool in emotional manipulation. I should know – I was master of it when I worked for Young Life. Through the right use of music I could take a bunch of rowdy, hyperactive kids and within 30 minutes have them calm and eating out of my hand.

Both of these aspects of a person are; however, worldly. I think C.S. Lewis represents some of the problems with either approach pretty well. In Mere Christianity Lewis describes belief in rather emotional terms, stating that it is "subject to the state of one’s digestion." One can argue whether belief is an emotion or not, but Lewis obviously thinks so, and his statement is instructive. Emotions are transient things. They are easily manipulated and volatile. We live in a world of increasing emphasis on emotion. Movies portray marriage as the ultimate emotional expression, rather than the commitment that it is. We watch media, TV and Movies that manipulate our emotions, often making us "feel good" when we are otherwise miserable. I note that when my knee hurts really bad I get angrier a lot faster than when it does not. Emotions are powerful, but they are fleeting. They are unreliable and are certainly nothing to rely upon. Lewis was right, building Christians on emotion is like building house on sand, the foundation will wash out from under you.

But Lewis, at least in Mere Christianity, was also wrong. Lewis believed that his Christianity could be based on reason and behavior. Lewis’ most read books are his apologetic works in which he attempt to reason logically to a Christian faith. Ultimately however, Lewis fails, both logically and experientially. I college, I took a class in which the professor took the five main apologetic works of Lewis and blew their logic apart. The professor’s logic was correct – he did find problems with Lewis’ arguments. Far more instructive though is in A Grief Observed. Lewis himself, after the death of his wife, states that there must be more to his Christianity than his behavior and logic because at a time of such grief he could find no reason to believe, and yet he still did.

Both emotion and logic/behavior are worldly and ultimately will disappoint. So what is the spiritual anyway? How do we tap it? I do not know how to discuss this in objective terms. The Greeks spoke of the soul. Christians have talked about that a lot over time too, but I really think discussing a soul is grafting that Greek concept onto Christian thinking. The spiritual aspect of my being is, simply, that part of me that is designed to live with God in heaven. I do not think that being in a state of sin has robbed me of that, but that state has made it so that the noise of the world overwhelms my ability to find it.

Now, here is the hard part. In my experience, really seeking God will take us through phases where we experiment with our emotions and where we experiment with logic/behavior. But it is all transient until such time as we discover our spiritual aspects. If I am starting to sound real Zen here, bear with me. Eastern mysticism with all its emphasis of shutting out the world and finding the "inner self" is headed in the right direction, but based on some wrong assumptions.

I have talked about confession; I have talked about repentance. All of this is about denying the self, about stripping away the worldly to find the spiritual. I think that for most of us this is a remarkably painful experience. Everyone I know that can really understand what I am writing about here has been through some experience in their life where they have been, through circumstances left utter devoid of anything, or at least they thought so. They have arrived at some point where nothing seemed valuable and nothing made sense.

I think Christianity is affirming only after self-denial. Christianity does not build-up. Christianity demolishes, and demolishes – not to destroy, but to reveal. You know how sometimes they X-Ray paintings and find other painting underneath? Sometimes there are long debates about whether to strip away a multi-million dollar painting to reveal an even more valuable painting. That’s what being a Christian is like. Somehow we have to strip away all that we think is so valuable to reveal something that makes what we removed look valueless.

One thing I know for sure. The more we sit around in the church and talk about how to attract build and build them up, the farther we move from this reality. We are not in the condemnation business, but we are in the revelation business. That revelation will involve demolition.

Maybe before we save the world, we need to work on ourselves some more. Maybe that’s the problem.

With Love,