Gentle Reader,
Earlier today I posted this on my Facebook page:
Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote that “cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our church… Cheap grace means the justification of sin without the justification of the sinner.” He was right. Cheap grace stabs you right in the heart and drains you of love for God and others. Then all you’re left with is selfishness.
I think we can add to this. Anti-intellectualism is also a deadly enemy of our church. It stabs you right in the brain and drains you of curiosity and humility. Then all you’re left with is fear.
Holy hearts and holy brains, folks. We need both.
Bonhoeffer is a hero of mine. I’ve been a pacifist since age 13, when I listened to a radio drama about his life; God used that work of art to convict me of my temper and the consequences of violence that begins in the heart, a conviction from which I have never been released. In the intervening years, I’ve turned to Bonhoeffer again and again. I recommend reading his books Life Together and The Cost of Discipleship, keeping in mind that he was doing this theological work in the midst of Nazi Germany.
This man literally and genuinely had to choose Christ in ways most of us can’t imagine. He didn’t have the luxury of allowing anyone or anything else to occupy his attention. And his choice led to his martyrdom.
Several denominations, including my own, are conducting their global meetings this week. As I watch the proceedings from afar, I think of Bonhoeffer. He encouraged, pushed, cajoled, pleaded for the people of God to devote themselves entirely to God. Even at the cost of position, power, and life itself. There can be no compromise. There is no partially devoting yourself to God. Blessedly, there is grace aplenty for us when we try to do just this, but we must always be cooperating with God. Learning to trust God more and more. Diving ever-deeper into the love of God.
But Bonhoeffer never tells us that devotion equals checking our brains at the door.
Theological scholars are not the enemy of the people in the pews (and, for the record, the people in the pews are not lesser than the theological scholars). Someone possessing more knowledge or having had the benefit of more education than you isn’t grounds for you to be immediately suspicious of them. Without exception, all of the scholars with whom I have personally interacted are full of love for God and the Church. They have specifically devoted themselves to the education of God’s people.
And make no mistake: God’s people need to be educated.
All of us.
Throughout the whole of our lives.
Those of us who have cast ourselves upon the mercy of Christ have the Holy Spirit within us individually and corporately, and I firmly believe that the Spirit is faithful to guide us into knowledge and wisdom (and, Lord, may we listen and obey). But this doesn’t mean that we don’t need education. This doesn’t mean that we ignore the words and teaching of those who have spent their lives in study, the majority of whom can’t help but get excited about sharing what it is that they have learned.
The academy is not the enemy of the Church. The Church must not be in the enemy of the academy.
Look, I am a redneck from North Idaho. I am descended from farmers, loggers, and cattle rustlers. I grew up poor. I use slang when I speak. I have just about zero tolerance for pretentiousness. I am driven to learn and study because I have to teach. I have to share with God’s people. I need to be as well equipped as I possibly can be, and I need to spend the rest of my life learning, because it is incredibly serious business to open up Scripture and tell people what it means. And this is what I have to do. This is what God made me to do.
And I’m not your enemy.
I am desperate to communicate the love and truth of God to you with the best language, the most information, and all the context that I can.
Please, friends. Don’t stop learning. Don’t check your brain at the door. Don’t demonize the teachers of the Church.
My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge!
– Hosea 4:6a
GRACE AND PEACE ALONG THE WAY,
MARIE
Image Courtesy of Kyle Gregory Devaras