Combating Uncritical Christianity (Postchristian Culture Post #2)

In my last post, I raised two key questions for the church. Today, I will be continuing with question 2, but turning the inquiry inward:

Where has the church perpetrated indoctrination inside the church?

I really wanted to find a way to make,”Christical” or “Let’s put the Christ back in critical” work… but alas…they only serves as an admission of brainstorm failure. Although I wouldn’t be opposed to starting #christical

Moving on.

When it comes to training children and adults alike about the danger of “uncritical belief”, we are extremely wise to remember that such discernment is required not only for secular or other faith worldviews, but also for the teaching that is received (implicitly or explicitly) through the church. The most alarming of ironies is that a critical view of everyone BUT ourselves is the quickest route to indoctrination.

Some may counter that we cannot be perpetrators of indoctrination or forcing religion on someone, because we are offering Truth. Surely Truth passed down to the next generation is not indoctrination.

Yet the enemy is best known not for bold-faced lies, but for taking Truth and poisoning it with a subtle lie. Much like the witches poisoned apple in the Snow White tale- the truth looks good, but we don’t realize the bitterness of the lie until we’ve already swallowed the bite.

Satan does this with Jesus, tempting him in the desert, using even Scripture to try to undermine His divine mission. (See Matthew 4:6)

If he would so boldly attack the Author of our faith, how much more those of us who live in the light of His story? We must be on guard in our lives to see where the enemy has distorted truth to fit his agenda.

Why does this happen? How do unhealthy patterns and beliefs become interwoven in the church?

One of my theories is that the enemy takes our very fear of false doctrine and twists it into a Pharisaical, tight-fisted hold on the idea of “correct doctrine”. When we do so we fall into three traps:

1. We associate questioning with lack of faith instead of discernment.
2. We cut ourselves off from those with whom we differ.
3. We elevate doctrine (and our understanding) above God and His understanding.

To combat indoctrination and false belief, we must first learn to embrace questions and challenge assumptions.

My children are notorious for asking questions. (Most are.) These questions arise as they are fitting what they learn into the framework of their experience.

Some of their questions arise because of the current culture and time we live in: For instance, my son recently asked, “Why couldn’t women vote?” He was genuinely incredulous as to why this former inequality existed. Yet a hundred years ago, 9 year old boys wouldn’t be wondering why women couldn’t vote; they’d be growing up in a culture that (even more than at present) affirmed their exclusive rights and roles over the girls they grew up alongside. His question is based in an understanding of the truth of equality- but his question is also shaped by his culture.

My children also ask questions about God when I teach them: “Why do you keep praying when God hasn’t answered your prayer?” “Who made God or where did He come from?”

For all my biblical knowledge, I do not have all these answers for them. I cannot experience God FOR my children- they must encounter Him themselves. When I don’t feel I have adequate answers for my kids, I tell them so. This open-ended answer doesn’t squelch faith- I believe it offers them a door through which to encounter God for themselves.

In fact, I encourage my kids not to take Christian answers at face value, because there is often unrecognized bias. Recently I showed my kids a Bible story picture of Pentecost. I asked them if they noticed anything about the picture (it was an all male group). I asked if something was missing? We looked up verses in Acts (1:14/16,/2:17-18) that showed that women were included in the early prayer and gathering of Christians waiting on the Holy Spirit. I want to train them to have eyes to see bias or blind spots- yet even I will be biased in the biased details I point out. (Based on my own identity/culture.)

I grew up with plenty of bias as well: when I was a child, all the pictures of Jesus that I encountered were as a white male with blue eyes. I didn’t realize until much later how much white, American Christian culture had infiltrated my understanding of Jesus. Indoctrination isn’t as simple as passing on verses to our kids; it is the refusal to see how outside influences inform our understanding of such verses.

The need to question our assumptions and bias is never something we outgrow. And it is especially crucial if we intend to interact with an increasingly postchristian culture that is already asking these questions.

In the same way, when Jesus walked with and discipled people, he allowed them to ask questions and spoke Truth that superseded their cultural expectations. When Jesus met the Samaritan woman at the well, he first crossed her culturally imposed barrier to Himself: She said, “‘You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?’ (For Jews do not associate with Samaritan.)” (John 4:9) Jesus encouraged the conversation and she said, “I can see that you area prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”

Jesus gently counters by saying, “…a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem…God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” (John 4:19-21/24)

She had grown up in a culture that designated her value, her position to God, and the way she should interact with Him. The division between Jews and Samaritans only increased that divide. Jesus came to reshape her worldview and cultural understanding with His eternal Truth.

Jesus frequently spoke such counter-cultural Truths to His followers and critics. Consider how often he used the phrase, “You have heard that it was said…but I tell you…” He listened to questions and often answered or taught with a question. “Who do you say I am?” (Matthew 16:15) “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” (Luke 10:36)”

God constantly wants to challenge our false beliefs and understanding of who He is. This is a part of the daily cross we carry, and it requires a vast humility before Him and before those we lead.

We will certainly pass on our beliefs to our children in one form or another. A friend recently reminded me that whether a person professes to have faith or not, we each carry a worldview that dictates our understanding of morality, justice, purpose and meaning. We couldn’t avoid passing on belief if we tried.

As Christians we are even commanded to train our children up in the way they should go, to discipline them, and to speak God’s heart to them in our everyday lives. I do not wish to suggest we should avoid teaching our kids just because we may be partly wrong.

But a critical piece of training our children in Truth is to show them how to think critically. This kind of parenting must encourage questions, not diminish them.

But questioning, of course, can be messy.

We are afraid of messy; we are nervous when our acceptable theology doesn’t seem to hold water with our experience; we are anxious when our kids seem to be too skeptical of God; we shake our heads when some other popular Christian “goes off the deep end” and denounces his belief or presents a theology that makes us squirm. Tsk Tsk. We’ll have to shore up our values and pull our kids in tighter.

But does that help?

When we are too afraid of “slippery slopes” and potential false teachings, our tendency is to both silence questions and withdraw from those who believe differently than we do. Often we act as though our Christian response not just to the world but to other Christians we disagree with, is to draw lines as deep as trenches and make sure we don’t put a pinky toe across.

The problem here is that as the more we isolate, our view of Truth exists in a narrower and narrower window of our own curated culture.

How do we know where our culture, ethnicity, language, or historical context are creating blind spots to God’s full Truth? How do we know whether the Truth that maybe our pastor or parent or friend is preaching is missing part of God’s heart? We don’t know if we don’t look outside our church, our culture, our race, and our time. We don’t know without the nuances and shadows that only show up through the context of contrast.

Truth does not change, but our understanding of the Truth is not always accurate, and therefore must change at times. Culture and time (in history) do not change Truth, but they are the lens through which we experience Truth. We have the dual challenge of neither imposing cultural norms represented in the Bible onto God’s unchanging truth nor extrapolating Biblical Truth based on our culture.

It takes a whole lot of Spirit to reside in that tension.

But the alternative to trusting the Spirit of God is to trust solely in doctrine itself. People make arguments such as, “This is sound doctrine we’ve believed for hundreds of years, why do people think they know better now?”

Possibly because we have a long history of misunderstanding God’s word and its applications. From Martin Luther to Martin Luther King Jr. we are always in need of those who will ask the boat rocking questions and challenge status quo. Neither of those men were perfect or held perfect theology. But they dared to push against uncritical belief, and rightly so.

They chose to see outside of the view that was handed down to them.

In her book “Raise Your Voice“, Author Kathy Khang offers a powerful antidote to indoctrination:

“Walk away from the screen. Commit to reading books by authors of color, particularly theologians and Christian leaders of color (like this one). Commit to reading books by authors who have a different viewpoint on issues than you do or come from a different racial, ethnic, or socioeconomic experience than you do. Think about the podcasts and subjects you are most interested in and then add a few from the “least interested’ pile. If you are a man, listen to women preach. If you are a woman, listen to women preach. And don’t limit your consumption to Western voices. There is an entire world out there. Take a hard look at your circle of friends and be honest about the diversity reflected in your relationships. And then take your questions, along with what you are learning, back to the spaces you can influence and use your voice.“

Khang, Kathy. (2018). Raise Your Voice: Why We Stay Silent and How to Speak Up. Downers Grove Illinois: IVP Books

In closing, I would ask you to wrestle with some questions.

Start out by writing out YOUR culture and beliefs. Include your gender, race, time period, ethnicity, geography, church demographics and culture, etc. Take a minute to recognize how vastly different your cultural experience is from millions and millions of other people. Then respond to the following:

1. How do you think such differences may shape our belief, even within the body of Christ?
2. How does the above description of you/your culture shape the way you read the Bible? Do you think you have any biases? Perhaps there are things you notice more readily than others? (For instance, author Kathy Khang also says in her book “Raise Your Voice” that she resonates strongly with Esther’s dual identity because she is a Korean American torn between two cultures.)
3. What messages have you absorbed about God based on the church you go to or the leaders you follow?
4. Have you ever been to a different church denomination or other faith service? How did that experience make you feel? Was there anything that surprised you or taught you something about yourself?
5. Which of Kathy Khang’s ideas could you act on this week to broaden your understanding of God’s kingdom and heart? Where can you seek out a different perspective?
6. How can you increase discussions of what you are learning with your kids, friends, fellow church members and beyond?

Do you have authors and podcasts to share that might give myself and others a launching point? Please share and let’s keep talking!