Are Americans Suspicious of Intellectuals?

Are Americans suspicious of intellectuals? I watched a good part of the Biden/Palin debate, and thought I had a good sense of who came out on top, but the next day my sense was undermined when I was listening to various political commentators who presented the debate as a toss up, or worse, that Palin actually fared better. Really!?! Maybe I live in an alternate universe that exposes me to different realities, but I could have sworn that Biden had a greater mastery of political and economic concepts and details, expressed more experience regarding the economy and foreign relations, and correctly named various political figures and geographic places. And yet, according to one poll Palin was favored by 49% and Biden by only 35%. Huh!?!

I remember having the same reaction during the bebates between Al Gore and George W. Bush. Al Gore, much like Biden, expressed a greater mind for facts, concepts, and political nuances, and Bush, much like Palin, expressed a kind of homespun, down-to-earth sensibility that the bulk of Americans apparently appreciate. Being a teacher of written communication, I certainly acknowledge the importance of emotional appeal in communication, but it cannot be a substitute for sound reasoning, nor a substitute for mastery of subject matter.

In looking at the response of Americans to recent debate performances I come to one basic conclusion: many Americans must have a simplistic view of the world, and therefore view people who demonstrate sophistication and an awareness of complexity regarding culture and politics as a bunch of elite circumlocuters. I don’t know about y’all, but when it comes to picking people to make tough political decisions, though I do want someone who will be sympathetic to the plight of the common person, I don’t want someone who is a common person. Very simply, I want someone smarter than me.

A Recurring Vision

I have a vision that has been creeping up and recurring in my imagination. It happened again the other day when I was at the store, either looking at some of the headlines about the economy, or processing soundbites from recent political conventions. Either way, I was thinking about potential hard times ahead, and it struck me that the Church does not need to be victim to whatever circumstances lay before us. Jesus took two fish and five loaves and fed five thousand, and he said that we, his body, would do greater things than him. Out of this, I imagined the Church being a place where common boundaries are broken, and people are reaching across family lines, and they are genuinely providing for one another’s needs, each giving as he is able, and everyone is covered.

How does this work? I have two guesses. First, I imagine that God has established a principle of synergy into the very fabric of the Church’s being, so that when people share things in common, when they move beyond the boundary of their immediate family toward caring about the whole family of God, they find that the total provision is more than the sum of its parts, that in the Kingdom of God 1+1 does not equal 2, but instead it equals 3 or 4 or 5. As good as this idea is, however, I prefer my second guess, which is the miracle of God’s presence. This kind of miracle is not the product of a distant God intervening in natural human affairs, but rather the work of God’s Spirit who both inspires people to move beyond their norms and who blesses the fruit of their labor with a hundredfold return. This is where the provision that normally covers one family multiplies beyond all natural boundaries and explanations toward the covering of thousands. This is a supernatural witness that boldly proclaims that Jesus is resurrected and living among his people in the power of the Holy Spirit.

So, this is the vision. I don’t know it experientially and I am not sure if it is orthodox. What I do know is that it is frightening. What if God doesn’t show up to multiply our provisions, what if my brother or sister in Christ doesn’t throw into the pot as I have. What will God require of me to make this vision a reality. Does this imply some kind of communal existence? I am not sure. I am just thinking that it’s not cool when middle class Xians, for all their moralizing, look and live like every other middle class family. I am just wondering how my present manner of living is keeping me from the fullness of life that God intends to give all who claim Jesus’ name.

Do Not Go Gentle

My body is determined to let me know that forty is just around the corner, and to process this, I thought I would make like an elderly person and share my physical ailments.

Lately I have been experiencing considerable discomfort and some pain at the part of my foot where my arch borders on my heels. In response to this, I jumped on the web and googled “heel pain” and after wading through a couple of pages I came across a malady known as a “bone spur” that is related to another malady called “plantar fasciitis”. A bone spur is a little growth on the heel bone and plantar fasciitis is when the soft tissue that surrounds this spur becomes inflamed. It is this inflammation that causes the pain. Although I cannot say for sure that I am afflicted by these two maladies, when the various sites I consulted said that middle aged people are most susceptible, and that often there is pain after a night’s sleep due to the soft tissue becoming contracted, which is when I typically experience this pain, I think I have good reason to believe that I am indeed the victim of bone spurs.

I always thought that when I got older I would likely be dealing with my fair share of physical issues as my parents had their fair share, but I thought older wasn’t till my mid-fifties. Along with this, I still view myself in many ways as one who is just out of college. Over the past couple of years, however, in the face of receding gums, mildly thinning hair, periodic back pain, unintentional grunts when getting up from low chairs, occasional random popping sounds, and some digestive issues, the fact of my getting older is undeniable. My body is schooling my mind telling it to recalibrate my sense of self to match my demographic category: middle age.

And yet, there is a part of me, a strong part of me, that refuses to give in. Along with Dylan Thomas, I will “not go gentle into that good night”. Consequently I am working on a plan to make changes in my life so that I will be kickin some ass into my eighties, and perhaps beyond. Of course, the mere fact that I have to make these changes just to maintain my previous level of functionality is an indication of getting older. My younger body had the resilience to withstand all the abuse that I put it through. By contrast, nowadays even the slightest abuse results in significant consequences: too much coffee equals too much toilet time, too much food equals to much gut, too little sleep equals grossly bloodshot eyes framed by dark circles, and too little exercise results in slow but persistently advancing aches and pains upon my body.

Having said all of this, I want to be careful to balance the fight with the kind of wise acceptance that generally comes with age. Indeed aging is a natural part of life and on some level it needs to be graciously affirmed. As I see it, however, I have at least another twenty years to work on establishing this kind of balance. In the mean time, I am going to pop a few vitamins, some probiotics, and an occasional antacid to help buttress my resolve to follow through on my plan to keep the symptoms of aging at bay.

Dead Words

Nietzsche once said, “That for which we find words is something already dead in our hearts.” So, here are a few words: God, justice, love, truth, salvation, holiness, faith, and goodness, which according to Nietzsche are all signs that point to empty and dead realities. Being a Christian, I, of course, resist his assertion and yet I also affirm the truth of what he is saying. How is this so?…

When I first heard this aphorism, what initially came to mind is that throughout Church history people—mystics particularly—have had experiences of the divine that were beyond words to convey. Then I thought about the apophatic tradition within the larger Christian tradition, which basically asserts that God is beyond words and that we finite creatures would do best by acknowledging the limits of our understanding and language. Drawing upon my own experience I remember instances of becoming frustrated by the baggage of language when trying to express a shift in my understanding of God that came as a result of some kind of experience. It seems that this frustration arose because of the tension between the new and the old. I had a new experience, and yet I only had the same old words to express it, words that were bound by a tradition of usage that I feared would inevitably distort what I was trying to communicate. In light of all this, I find sufficient reason to affirm Nietzsche’ assertion. Words like “God”, “love”, “salvation”, etc, are all too often the empty husks of cultural decay that inevitably lull the soul into numbness. Likewise, I have too often read through books that gave descriptions of God, or the work he has done, only to get a sense that the reading gave me some kind of mastery regarding these things. This should never happen when talking about God. And yet, in spite of all this, even as this post demonstrates, I have an impulse (as do many others) to speak about God.

I find some resolution to this tension in the words of the apostle Paul, who when writing to the Christians at Corinth stated, “My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’ power, so that your faith may not rest on men’ wisdom, but on God’ power.” For Paul, when it comes to speaking theological truth, the Spirit must make present the divine realities the words point to, and thereby give new life to words that are in bondage to decay and death. This new life, however, is not just given to words; it is also given to those who respond in faith to the words that are spoken about what God has done in Jesus Christ. In fact, it is probably most proper to say that words come to life for those who are coming alive. In this manner, Paul would very likely respond to Nietzsche by saying, “You only find words for something already dead in your heart because you are dying.” This leaves me with a final question for myself and for any others who might care. If words like “God” and “love” and “faith” are dead is it because they are no longer vital, or is it because we, in some very real sense, are dead?

Gallery Of Truth

I realize that this sounds naïve in our postmodern world, but I believe in the pursuit of truth with a capital “T”. I think I have a pretty decent grasp of the epistemological and linguistic problems that humanity faces in this pursuit, but nevertheless I think we must not abandon this enterprise. As I see it, the end result of this pursuit is not to construct a blueprint for reality, as I do not think that is how God has constituted us in relation to the Truth. Articulations about truth are analogical in nature and thus there is some similarity between the concepts of our mind and the reality they refer to. Through our articulations we are not holding up a mirror to reality, rather we are rendering paintings, which reveal as much about our perception, and our mastery of the tools we use, as it does the subject we seek to represent. The fact that this approach affirms a plurality of possibilities for representing the Truth, however, should not be seen as epistemologically nihilistic. The nature of analogy is one of resemblance, which implies a boundary within which all possibilities of representation must operate. To go beyond the boundary is to go into a place where resemblance ceases.

What all this implies is that we must be constantly open to how others are representing the Truth, not in a pluralistic free-for-all where all representations are considered equally valid, but rather in the awareness that there exists a variety of acceptable possibilities. To use an analogy, the medium of the mind is not light and reflected glass, but rather paint and an incredibly diverse palette. When you bring together multiple paintings on one subject, you have multiple interpretations, not fragments of a mirror. Thus the paintings give multiple options in approaching the same subject, but they can never work together to construct a mirror. In saying this I realize that some might object that my epistemology is to relativistic, but I want to point out that the interpretive element of representation does not undermine a genuine connection between the mind and Truth or Reality. In being open to others we must be critical to see if their representation, as differently interpreted as it may be, is within the proper boundary of the subject we seek to represent. Just as there are a variety of possibilities for interpreting the same reality, so it is possible that a person is interpreting a different reality. Discerning the difference is not easy as the boundaries are not always clear, but this does not mean they don’t exist. In the end, the pursuit of Truth requires humility, patience and a lot of hard work, but if we pursue it just think about the incredible gallery we would have.