A couple of weeks ago in Personal Evangelism, we chased a rabbit. Of course I do not mean a literal rabbit, but we went off on a tangent that had very little, if anything, to do with the subject matter of the class. This was "how to make yourself more hirable as a pastor." The context of this was that the Michigan Conference was here at SAU interviewing seniors to perhaps pastor in that conference. During the course of our discussion it was repeatedly mentioned that Michigan is a self-declared "conservative" conference. In other words, they have consciously decided to be conservative and look for conservative employees. This is, of course, their right and I cannot dispute that. Other conferences (Southern California Conference, I am looking at you) have purposely chosen to be "liberal" conferences. And again, they have that right.
Their right to do so is not my question. Rather I question the wisdom of that. You see, there are inherent problems with both conservative and liberal points of view. These musings led me to post an apparently intriguing comment on Facebook, "Conservatives do not use their brains. Liberals rely too much on them. Wise men use their brains with a grain of salt." That is an accurate assessment of both conservative and liberal viewpoints; however it piqued people's interest and led some to point out that it was a rather stereotypical judgment. Hence the blog post to clarify what I meant by that statement.
I would like to being by pointing out it was not an indictment of people per se, though people certainly are guilty in this. But even those that are, this does not mean they are bad people. Most of the declared liberals and conservatives I know are good, decent, and dedicated people. I merely think that they are wrong, not bad. It was rather a comment about the two opposite, but equally wrong, points of view that most people ascribe to. Indeed, I have met very few people who do not describe themselves as liberal or conservative. Most people consciously chose to fit themselves into one category or another. I simply think that they being foolish, not necessarily fools themselves. Neither do I consider myself particularly wise, for I am not; nor that am I even guiltless in this, because at times I have certainly vacillated between both ditches.
First, conservatives get my critique. Essentially what the conservative school teaches is that you do not question, you do not accept anything new or different, you do not explore ideas; in short, you do not think. Thinking belongs to the establishment. You do what they tell you to do. You say what they tell you to say. You teach what they tell you to teach. You believe what they tell you to believe. Rules are king in the conservative mind because rules tell you how to live your life. Thus the conservative tries to find out exactly how to follow every rule in the Bible. As such, the conservative has a rule for everything in life. For example from the Adventist point of view, one cannot go swimming on the Sabbath. However, you can wade up to your knees (this is not a made up example).
Conservatives preach right and moral living. But they preach their version of moral living. They teach applications and rules as universal, which they are not, instead of the principles that are. Of course the appeal of this is obvious; it is easy. Sure, the rules and regulations may be restrictive, but at least you know where you stand. You do not have to think about how to apply a principle, merely follow a rule and you will be alright. Everything from how to keep the Sabbath to what to wear is governed for you by the rules. Thinking is no longer necessary. In fact, it is discouraged because you might think of a different application than what the establishment has said. This, the conservative fears, will cause chaos.
Certainly you see the draw backs to this point of view. To begin with, what if the establishment is wrong? The establishment, whatever it is for you, is made up of people, flawed, sinful, people. This does not make it bad; indeed Jesus left an establishment when he left earth, merely flawed. But if we do not think for ourselves, we will never know that they are wrong. Incidentally, we will never really know if they are right.
As a result of this, when something new and different comes along, the conservative rejects, at least until the establishment accepts it. New is usually bad to the conservative. The way things are is the way things should always be. Whether or not the way things are is correct or not is basically irrelevant; it is simply the way things are done and that is the way it is. One could also say that conservatism considers its authority is tradition.
Think back to the Middle Ages. Back then, the Roman Catholic Church was the establishment and to be frank, they were wrong about a lot of things. But no bothered to contradict them for the longest time. No one questioned them. No one dared to. Instead people literally just did as they were told and they were led further and further down the wrong path.
But then someone did question the establishment. He started thinking outside of the establishment and discovered that it was wrong. This man's name was Martin Luther and we owe to him the Protestant Reformation. Without him, so many of the truths that we take for granted (sola scriptura for example) we would not have. But it required him not accepting the establishment and think and question. Luther was not a conservative. Had he been, the Protestant Reformation would never have taken place.
Does this not take place in our church today? Do we not see people going around telling others how to live and if they do not conform, they are anathematized? This is where conservatism heads, sooner or later. While not every, indeed even most, conservatives are nearly as extreme as I described above, that is the path they are on. And it is a path.
Lest you think the liberals are getting off the hook, it is their turn. As I said in the Facebook post, liberals rely too much on their brains. A conservative accepts what they are told unquestioningly; the liberal questions everything. The conservative denies reason; the liberal relies solely on it. Conservatism accepts that there are things that cannot be explained; liberalism does not. On the contrary, liberalism believes that everything can be, some way, somehow reasoned out.
However, for the liberal things are explained to make sense from their frame of reference. In other words, they rely on what they know to understand what they do not. The use of the scientific method, which is fine in its own field, is used here. Things are examined in terms of the tangible; what can be seen, felt, touched, smelled, experienced, and so on.
The problem with this is obvious; not everything can be reasoned out. There are things, many things, in fact that are beyond our ability to reason and out understand. What do you do when you come to things like the resurrection? Or the Red Sea crossing? Or water into wine? The liberal finds himself having to prove things that simply cannot be proved. They are beyond our experience. And so, because it cannot be "rationally" or "empirically" proved, it must be rejected as fact. The great realities recorded in Scripture are demoted to allegory or fantasy. The "intellectual" liberal has suddenly found herself with no legs to stand on.
We have seen this before. Think back the era after the reformation. People started having to "prove" things and explain what the Bible said. People started questioning its authority and validity because there were things that simply could not be empirically proven from it. God became regarded less and less as the involved person that he is, but more of a removed idea from this world. Eventually, philosophers like Voltaire declared the Bible would soon disappear from the earth. Historians erroneously call this era the Enlightenment.
Like conservatism, few liberals are at this point. But if anyone follows liberalism, this is where it leads. Like conservatism, it is a path that one follows further and further until this is where one ends up. And like conservatism, it leaves isolated from the God who so longs to be with us.
I am not going to bother with telling which is worse because that is a waste of time. Is it not enough to know that both are bad? If that is not enough of a deterrent, then telling you which is "worse" would be a waste of time. Indeed, we are not thinking in terms of bad and worse; just bad. Both are equally bad. As C.S. Lewis said in his book Mere Christianity (and I am paraphrasing), "One of the devils tricks is to get us thinking in terms of bad and worse, instead of good and bad." He cares little which ditch you end up in, so long as you are in one.
But there is a good in all of this. That is the way of sanity, which is really quite simple to explain and quite difficult to live. The sane man realizes that he has been given a brain for a reason. He realizes that God fully intends him to reason and think. Towards that end, he seeks to know the principles that God has revealed to us in his Word, understanding that principles are not applications. Those he will have to reason out moment by moment; situation by situation.
At the same time, the sane woman also realizes the limits of her powers of reasoning. She accepts what the Bible says, even if she cannot explain it. The resurrection happened, she says, not because I can explain it, but because I am told that it did and I trust the source that says so. When the Bible says the seventh day is the Sabbath, she follows that not because it makes rationale sense, but because it is what God is telling her to do.
Do you see the balance here? Sanity is using your brain, but not relying on it. It is seeking to understand what you can, but accepting what you cannot. This is what faith really is about: trusting that God will give you the wisdom to deal with life as it comes to you and trusting that he knows what he is doing.
There is a road moving forward amongst the ditches. May Yahveh stand with you as you walk the way of sanity, his way, to the Celestial City.
