Beating Back the Creeping Absolute

Jabbermocky

'Twas Service, and the Blessing Truth
Did writhe and Wimber in the Saved;
Encouraged were the Sharing Youth,
And the Just Reallies prayed.

"Beware the False Dichotomy,
The Y-shaped branch, the tempting fruit;
Eschew the Jargon Word, and flee
The Creeping Absolute."

He took his Spiritual Sword in hand,
Long time the Real Anointing sought;
So rested he by the Baptistry,
And stood at last in thought.

And, lest too deep in Thought he slip
The Absolute, with cries of "Shame!"
Came sharing through the Fellowship
And burbled as it came.

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The 'Word of God' went past his brain;
It left him dead, with fuzzy head,
Deep guilt, and hidden pain.

"And hast thou felt the Blessing, then?
Lift up your arms, and praise the Lord!
And clap your hands as he commands,"
They waffled in their joy.

'Twas Service, and the Blessing Truth
Did writhe and Wimber in the Saved;
Encouraged were the Sharing Youth,
And the Just Reallies prayed.

The Creeping Absolute

I'll get myself in trouble one of these days.

Seriously, though, what's a creeping absolute? What particular foolishness of the Church am I ripping into this time?

A Creeping Absolute is when a group (eg, us) who believe, in contrast to the rest of their society, that there is absolute truth begin to extend that belief to areas of life where properly it doesn't belong.

I have studied a fair amount of history, one way and another, and one thing that studying history teaches you (if you let it) is that there are some things which change and some things (such as the depravity of man) which don't. This may not seem spectacularly deep; but look at the average person's concept of history. W.S. Gilbert wrote in The Mikado about

The idiot who praises, in enthusiastic tone
Every century but this, and every country but his own,

but there are plenty of people in such an anti-intellectual a society as New Zealand and such an anti-intellectual subculture as the church who don't recognize that centuries and countries other than this are actually that different (which leads to problems when they try to understand Scriptures written long ago and far away). After all, we need to feel comfortably ordinary and not get too alienated from our own identities, and we naturally feel (and I use the word 'feel' advisedly - it is not something we consciously reason out) that the way we do things is the right, the best way. This is drummed into us from childhood - 'No, not like that. This is the way to do it' - until we do not think there is any other way. When we discover one - for instance, when Americans discover that New Zealanders push food onto their forks, which they hold upside down in their left hands throughout, rather than cutting up the food and then switching the fork to the right hand to scoop with - we are amazed and amused that anyone would do it differently, and start making value judgements on the two methods which generally boil down to, 'I like this way' or 'I feel more comfortable with this way' but are expressed as 'This way is better'.

It is realizing the foolishness of this kind of thing, without the balance of belief in an unchanging God - the same yesterday, today and forever- that leads to relativism, of course. I've heard some interesting things from atheists on this; it is one of the irrational dogmas that they feel obliged to defend, although it is logically indefensible. I once heard a self-styled 'Rationalist' assert in public debate that there were no absolutes for all times and places. A heckler from the audience made the inevitable (and quite correct) response: 'That's an absolute statement!' The 'Rationalist' replied, 'Only for this time and place' - which, if you follow it through logically, means that at other times and places there were things which were absolute for all times and places, but there aren't here and now. Which is very rational. That convinces me to give up Christianity, yes.

No, relativism - absolute relativism - will, like a puppy, neither wash nor hold water. That's not to say, though, that everything is absolute. Yet Christians especially tend to absolutize their own prejudices, giving support to the stereotype of the unreasoning fascist fundamentalist who believes unshakeably that he is right about everything. Personally, I define Christian maturity as becoming more and more sure about less and less, until you are utterly convinced of the real essentials - but maybe that's just how it's happening with me. I shouldn't absolutize it. One advantage of my approach, though, is that it is university-proof; it doesn't collapse all at once like the rigid structures, made all in one unquestionable piece, with which many young Christians are equipped by way of a faith and which, when they discover that some things are relative, must be either shattered by or shuttered from this inconvenient truth. (I discuss this idea further elsewhere.)

Reasons for the Creeping Absolute

There are, I think, two main reasons or sets of reasons for the Creeping Absolute. The first is ignorance, deliberate or otherwise, and we have already discussed this a little. The second is arrogance; and it affects both those who do and those who don't believe in absolutes.

After all, relativists are in fact the most arrogant people on earth, because in their own terms they can't be wrong. I believe in truth external to myself; I am not the one to define what is right and wrong, and so I can admit that I may be wrong about any given topic, especially since I also believe in my own fallenness and fallibility. But these are hard lessons to learn. As an atheist I could only acknowledge the intellectual possibility that I was wrong (and I wasn't even a strict relativist; I hadn't thought the issue through). But now I am constrained by an external reality; I must always be prepared to find that what I believe doesn't match the actual condition of the objective universe. Which, I have no doubt, has made me a more pleasant person to know and to discuss things with. And which also means that I am at least on the path to wisdom: 'The way of a fool seems right to him, but a wise man listens to advice'. (Prov 12:15.) In other words, my theology allows me to change my mind, given sound reasons, to believe something I don't like, while also giving me a reason for belief in such things as the Resurrection on the basis of objective evidence.

Relativists can change their minds, of course; but they don't need (or want) sound reasons, quite often, and they are not obliged to believe anything that they don't like, since the logical extension of their position is that there is no such thing as objective evidence. This is one of the weaknesses of relativism; another is that, as Peter Moore says, 'Those who continually change their minds will never change their world.' (Peter C. Moore, Disarming the Secular Gods, IVP, 1989, p 67.) We have a moral imperative - we believe some things ought not to be as they are, something a relativist cannot logically say, since there is no ought where there are no absolutes.

But the very fact that some things are ought for us opens the way for the Creeping Absolute, where everything takes on an aspect of ought. This easily becomes legalism, a performance-oriented faith full of things I must do, that are part of what defines me as 'spiritual'; and this kind of legalism can arise even when there is theoretically a theology of grace operating - even in organizations whose avowed purpose is to spread a theology of grace. We can rule out ignorance here; the problem stems, rather, from arrogance.

The arrogance of the relativist asserts that any view can be true but extends a practical exception to the view of Christians: that only one view can be true. This is as much as to say, 'You can believe what you like, as long as you believe that people can believe what they like.' Intolerance becomes the only thing which cannot by any means be tolerated.

Yet there is also a strong element of arrogance in the Creeping Absolute. It is the old human wolf of self-centredness in a religious sheep-cloak. Even those circles of Christianity which put most stress on 'openness' and 'honesty' are often only disguising this tendency, as Andrew M. Greeley's novel Virgin and Matyr, about a young nun struggling with the changes in the post-Vatican II church, brings out. The attitude is something like that expressed in a text seen on the wall of a monastery in the USA:

Should a sojourner come this way, he will be received gladly.
Should he raise a contentious issue, he will be heard - for he may indeed be the voice of the Holy Spirit.
After due thought and action by the Chapter he shall be asked to be silent on the matter.
If he is not silent he will be asked to leave.
If he refuses to leave, two stout monks shall explain the matter diligently.

I read a wonderful illustration of self-centredness once, I think by a French theologian, who compared it to standing on a long, straight road lined with telephone poles. The nearest pole looks largest, and as they get further away, they look smaller and smaller until they vanish from sight. Yet each is really the same size. Similarly, we, being closest to ourselves, look most important; the people we are close to and know a lot about and have a lot in common with, next most; and the furthest and most different, least important - yet everyone is equally important if we could gain an objective view (such as God has).

This is essentially what Paul is talking about for much of 1 Corinthians, though it is in Chapter 12 and following that he sets it out most clearly. Let's spend some time getting to grips with some of his statements.

There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but the same God works all of them in all men. (12:4-6)

All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he gives them to each one, just as he determines. (v 11)

This is essentially a reminder that there is no cause to boast about what God has made you, since what he has made everyone else is equally his work.

Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. (v 5)

These workings, further, are not for ourselves but for all; so much less reason to boast.

Now the body is not made up of one part, but of many. If the foot should say, "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. And if the ear should say, "Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has arranged the parts of the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be?

Paul is insisting on individuality even as he is condemning individualism; but we confuse the two and follow the pattern of the Johnson cartoon in which a pastor is operating a machine labelled 'leadership training'. Individuals enter at one side of the machine, and carbon copies of the pastor exit at the other.

This Scripture insists that I cannot put myself down because of what I am or am not equipped by God to do. There is a place for me which others cannot fill, and which needs to be filled. Death occurs when all the parts are not functioning in support of one another.

The eye cannot say to the hand, "I don't need you!" And the head cannot say to the feet, "I don't need you!"

Even more importantly, the Word of God tells me that other Christians have no right to put me down because of what I am or am not equipped by God to do. And this is crucial, because that very often happens.

A Case in Point

Let me introduce you to Jane (not, needless to say, her real name). Jane is a very effective and dedicated Christian worker in a particular kind of ministry. Patrick (again, a pseudonym and the person from whom I have this story, so it is inevitably biased in his favour) entered the same kind of ministry and was being trained under Jane's overall direction. He was a diligent Christian who wanted to be godly and to do the right thing, including submitting to the leaders placed over him.

Over time, Patrick (who was struggling with other problems at the same time) became less and less effective at dealing with the demands of his ministry. Eventually, Patrick concluded, along with his immediate superiors, that he would be best to leave that type of ministry and do something else. Indeed, thinking about it, he realized that his personality made him unsuitable for such work and that he had tried to do it for other, invalid reasons unrelated to the gifts God had given him.

Jane did not agree. She thought he should remain in that ministry, even though it was partly her comments on his performance which had led both him and the leadership to decide on his leaving. She wrote a letter to his pastor, expressing her concern that Patrick had been 'frightened' into retreating into an area which would not challenge him and was not where his gifts really lay. (This last startled the pastor, Patrick, and Patrick's closest friend very much, as they all thought his gifts did lie in the new ministry area and in fact had all along.)

During the time he was training under her supervision, Jane had often expressed concern about the way Patrick communicated with others, which was different from hers and which she thought ungodly. She liked to become very deep with everyone she spoke to, digging in beneath the surface in order to 'minister' to them. Patrick was severely uncomfortable with this, and told me that he would have felt more ministered to if she had felt free to simply be superficial with him occasionally. He enjoyed talking seriously and deeply with some people sometimes, but didn't feel capable of (or happy about) doing it all the time, partly on the principle of doing to others as he would have them do to him. He insisted that this was a personality issue; she, that it was a spiritual issue. Since she was in authority and he was eager to please, he tried to communicate her way and was frustrated when he failed and guilty because, according to Jane, it meant he wasn't interested in people. He believed that he was, but was willing to admit he might be wrong. Thinking about it after he was out of her influence, it seemed to him that she had not been interested in him as a person, but only as someone to minister to - by which she meant, mold into her model of a Christian. So he had never really seen her as a person to be interested in - she was hidden behind the layers of all the 'good communication' skills she practiced and taught, and the only way to find her authentic self was to do to her as she had done to him - pry. But, intimidated by her, he never had.

The key to Jane's personality, and the problems Patrick had with it, can be found in a small incident before one of their talks when he mentioned the untidy state of his desk. She always kept her desk in beautiful order, and said something to the effect that she had sometimes wondered if there was a correlation between how people kept their desks and their spirituality. It was not said in a nasty, spiteful way, merely as a speculation, and Patrick (I can't work out quite why; perhaps because she had mentioned the untidy desks of others, including her much-loved husband) was not offended, but it gives the clue to their other difficulties. Jane was a victim of the Creeping Absolute. It was saying to her, 'You are spiritual. All the other spiritual people you know think and act like you and have similar personalities. [This by the very nature of the ministry in which she was almost wholly immersed.] So other people who are like you are spiritual. People who are not like you - who have a different personality and a different way of relating that fits them for a different kind of ministry - are unspiritual.' And so she was the eye saying to the hand, 'I don't need you'; and because Patrick put a lot of importance on the opinions of others, especially those in authority, he began to say to himself, 'Because I am not an eye, I do not belong . . .' And because he had less confidence in his own opinions than did Jane (not only because he was less influenced by the Creeping Absolute, but because his repeated failures were eroding his self-confidence), and yet was willing to take on unscriptural oughts in the guise of scriptural ones, he fell into a descending spiral of guilt which ended only when he left that ministry and was able to get a perspective on the issue.

The unfortunate thing is, this sort of thing happens all the time in our churches, to Christians who are less mature and less resistant and less able to leave than Patrick, and who consequently are badly damaged with no place to go (as in my facetious but rather bitter poem at the beginning of this article).

Law and Grace

Clearly, though, interpretations of gifting were not the only difficulty between Jane and Patrick. Although the organization they worked for officially has a theology of grace, it also has, like many Christian organizations and churches, rigid rules and standards for its members, to which they are expected to conform- otherwise they are 'unspiritual' and 'rebellious'. There seems to be a lack of practical awareness that the age of law has now been past for almost two thousand years.

The rabbis had over six hundred commands which were supposed to cover every circumstance of life. But, because (as the creators of bureaucratic forms have never managed to realize) people and situations are unique, these laws often came into conflict with each other and with justice and mercy. Aware of this, a Pharisee came to Jesus and asked, 'Of all the commandments, which is the most important?' Jesus' reply is one of his most famous and least regarded sayings: '"The most important one is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'Love your neighbour as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these.'"' (Mark 12:28-31.)

At a single stroke Jesus reduced the six-hundred-plus laws to their underlying principles, because frankly, rules are for wimps. Any well-trained two-year-old, and for that matter most dogs, can make a decision based on the relative strength of I want to do this vs I'm scared of what will happen when I break the rule. Principles cover all situations for all people and do so justly and mercifully. But they are very much harder to work out; and so we want the six hundred laws back so that we don't have to think so much.

It would be easy to put the blame on what I agree is an excessive American influence in our New Zealand churches and Christian organizations, pointing to things like the trouble Disney are having with the French employees at their new European theme park, who aren't used to being told what their personal appearance must be like. The Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave can be very authoritarian at times. But let's face it; if we didn't want, at some level, other people to make the hard decisions or the routine decisions or just the decisions for us, we wouldn't voluntarily submit ourselves to them in such numbers.

Being able to make your own decisions, based on principles rather than a list of rules, is a sign of maturity; but mature Christians are few and far between. So we make rules for people as a safety net. The trouble is, we are applying them to mature Christians too, to people like Patrick, and taking from them part of God's created image - the ability to choose, to make significant decisions and take the responsibility for them. Unfortunately, while we don't trust them to decide, we trust ourselves to decide for them; and often our own maturity is less than we imagine. (More on the importance of decision-making elsewhere.)

At the very best, we are not all-wise; we are not all-knowing; we are not perfectly loving; and we are not sovereignly able to turn other people's bad decisions into good. Only God has these qualities, and so only God should have the right to make major decisions for mature believers - and he has communicated his decisions to us already in his inspired Word. (See further discussion on this elsewhere). Outside the provisions of this Word, believers have freedom, and the Scripture warns explicitly against re-instating rules to limit this freedom to conform to our own prejudices:

'Formerly, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods. But now that you know God - or rather are known by God - how is it that you are turning back to those weak and miserable principles? Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again?' (Gal 4:8-9)

Paul knows human nature; the way he phrases his second question allows for the answer 'yes'. Even more scathingly, he asks elsewhere:

'Who are you to judge someone else's servant? To his own master he stands or falls. And he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand.' (Romans 14:4)

Yet we judge another's servants. We give them to understand with pious concern - that the way they naturally act is not 'spiritual' like the way we naturally act. (In fact, we are sinning against them in doing this, as Romans 14 makes clear.) Perhaps it is because we think of ourselves not as their fellow servants, much less as servants of them, but as their masters - usurping the right which God has by creation and redemption to be the one who tells them how to live. Sometimes the only difference between someone under the 'spiritual authority' of a victim (individual or corporate) of the Creeping Absolute and a slave is that a slave can't leave. And it's often wise to take advantage of that advantage.

Any culture prizes conformity, especially when it is a minority subculture trying to maintain its identity against that of the main culture, as the Christian subculture is. The tragedy of it is that the Christian subculture is responding to the main culture in either imitation or reaction, rather than responding to the Scriptures - which it doesn't know as well, because after all they're so hard to understand (being 2000 years old or more). (See "A Bigger Ghetto or a Brighter Bride".) So the Creeping Absolute comes 'sharing through the Fellowship' and the young Christian is mauled by it without anyone even perceiving past the masks they have taught him or her to wear. 'You must have these experiences in this way,' it says, 'feel those emotions in that way, live in that kind of situation, marry this kind of person, and talk, move, smile, vote, dress, cut your hair and choose your music in the same way I do, because that is what spiritual people do.'

I like the way the book Telling Yourself the Truth sums up the solution.

Love says, "It's all right with me if you be you. It's all right with me if I be me, too. That means I set you free from the obligations and expectations I might contrive. I set myself free from your unrealistic obligations and expectations, too." (William Backus and Marie Chapian, Telling Yourself the Truth, Bethany House, 1980, p 141.)

"And hast thou slain the Jabbermock?" No; but it might be wounded a little. I hope.