Idealistic Cynicism

One of my good friends here in Perth is named Jim.  Jim is mentally handicapped.  He has paranoid schizophrenia and is bi-polar.  For most of the time I’ve lived here, Jim has been homeless, and has required my help and others’ to find places to live.  There are many places here that will help people like Jim, but the problem is that they all have rules, and eventually, Jim runs afoul of them and has to find a new place to live.

Many of the people that have tried to help Jim, self included, get frustrated very quickly with him and his self-destructive behavior.  One of my friends, however, seems nearly immune to this.  I asked him recently why that is, and he responded with a question, ‘Why do you get frustrated working with Jim?’.  I considered it and said, ‘I guess because I just want him to settle into a stable situation.’  My friend replied, ‘That will never happen. You cannot solve Jim.  There is no easy solution.  He will always have problems, and he will always need help.  When you understand that, you will find your frustration eases a bit.’  Wise words.

Let’s pull back a bit and consider this concept on a larger scale.  To do so, allow a brief history lesson.  Enlightenment thinking centered on the concept that man can figure things out.  Through the application of hard work, scientific method, and critical thinking, any problem could be overcome.  Modernism embraced the concept that man could solve things.

Consider, WWI, ‘the war to end all wars’, and yet a scant 20 years late, we had another war that was even bigger!  Even today, modernist rhetoric dominates our thinking.  Politicians claim that various actions they are putting forward will end war, crime, poverty, and anything else that you’ve got!  Science has long promised to do away with disease, hunger, pain, and suffering.  All of the above continue to be problems.

So along comes Postmodernism.  Postmodernism throws down the simplistic, concrete thinking of modernity, and stands over it in sneering derision!  Postmodernism cynically rejects the idealism of modernity, while offering little in the way of positive answers.  Modernism promised to fix things and it didn’t, so it and it’s ideals have been roundly rejected.

So I can hear the few of you who have bothered to read this far asking, ‘Ed, what in the world does any of this have to do with your last post!?’  My answer is, ‘Quite a bit, actually.’

You see, whether we care to admit it or not, much of the thinking and approach to scripture of the church of Christ, comes from Modernist thinking.  Though some try to do so, it is foolhardy to pretend that we are unaffected by the culture we are immersed in.  The Restoration Movement began and grew during a time of ever increasing optimism in the greater culture, that through thinking hard and using good ol’ fashioned elbow grease, we could solve anything!  It embraced this mentality, and strove to solve many of the spiritual problems it saw.  This approach assumes that if we all can just agree to see things the same way, and work real hard, everything will be fine.

But everything isn’t fine.  And finally, we come to the disenchantment I discussed in my last post.  This frustration I feel is with what I see in the church as a whole, as well as the limitations and hypocrisy of my own life and thoughts.  I am not overly surprised by the popularity of my last post, because I think many feel this frustration that the idealism of our fore fathers has not produced the goods.  At issue is the fact that, though many of us have identified the problem, I’m not sure any of us have much of a solution.

We can’t all agree on everything.  The logical conclusion of unity based on agreement, is a church of one.  The church of Christ has almost destroyed itself with this logic.  A hypothetical congregation of 100 people worships together.  We are ‘The Church’, and anyone who thinks differently is forsaken! Soon we have a disagreement and split 50/50.  Now our 50 is ‘The Church’!  Either the other 50 were never right, or they ‘fell away’ from the Truth!  Problem is, now our 50 disagree on something, and we have to split 25/25.   Now our 25 is ‘The Church’!  and so it goes…

The answer to the above, for many who see it as a problem, is the total rejection of concepts like ‘doctrine’, ‘truth’, and ‘church’.  Consider the ‘Emerging church’ movement, which is rising out of the ashes of Pentecostal idealism and infighting(surprisingly similar to our problems in the church of Christ).  It is going to be the ‘real church’.  and so it goes…

So what is the answer?  I must admit that I don’t know, though I am reminded of my friend’s wise words that I started with.  Part of the answer must be the humility that comes with understanding that I can’t solve all of this, because, to a certain degree, it’s not solvable.  This side of heaven, there will always be disagreements, doctrinal issues, and pride issues.  These will lead to fights and divisions if we let them.  It’s up to us whether or not we let our own failings and the failings of our brothers and sisters lead to division, or do we overcome these failings with the love of Christ and achieve unity.

The only real answer is the Cross.  ‘But what does that mean, Ed?  That’s how you finished your last stupid post!’  I think I’m going to need one more post, before we can get to the Cross, and for that I apologize.  I am feeling a strong urge to rush to the answer, but I think that would be a mistake.

I thank you for reading this in patience.  I am very much ‘thinking aloud’ here, which I know is a dangerous practice.  I am far from having all of this ‘worked out’ in my own mind.

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