Christianity: This Is a Thinking Thing

Written by Brian McLaren

This article is courtesy of Christian Single magazine.

A Sunday school teacher asked his students, “What has four legs, is furry, climbs trees, and eats nuts?” One student hesitantly raised his hand and replied, “I think it’s a squirrel, but I’m going to go ahead and say Jesus.”

To Erwin McManus, author of An Unstoppable Force (Group Publishing), this joke implies how “in the church, we’re not allowed to think. We’re forced to swallow simplistic answers to complex issues.”

LifeWay Recommends Os Guinness' Fit Bodies, Fat Minds helps us to understand why modern evangelical Christians have stopped thinking and what we can do about it.

Have you ever felt that you were not allowed to think? Maybe you identify with McManus when he says, “It came as both a great joy and surprise when I discovered that a thinking Christian was not an oxymoron.”

How did it happen that as Christians we are seen as – or feel pressure within the church to be – nonthinkers? Didn’t Jesus speak in parables, a form of communication that yields its insights to thinkers? Isn’t Proverbs a book that praises the pursuit of wisdom? And isn’t that book complemented (and complicated) by Job and Ecclesiastes, which probe the ironies and agonies of life, challenging your thinking to go deeper still? And yet, we struggle.

Group-Unthink

Group-think is alive and well among many Christians today. When it comes to controversial issues, many of us tend to go on autopilot. We don’t want to rock the boat or be seen as divisive. Besides, the majority of our views may have been formed by our church or denomination to the point that we seldom find ourselves in conflict with accepted beliefs. For us, orthodoxy is what “we” think, and bad doctrine is what “they” think; as long as we’re in agreement with “us,” we achieve orthodoxy by proxy.

But what if we begin to call a squirrel a squirrel? What if we begin to question a belief held by “us?” How do we cope with differing beliefs in one community of faith?

There are plenty of issues about which committed Christians may be tempted to yield to group-think: homosexuality, the death penalty, the role of women in the church, worship styles, genetic engineering, et cetera. Have you ever felt a desire to give a second thought to these issues while, at the same time, you felt that subtle but real pressure to conform?

And what if we begin to suspect that our whole “us” is wrong about some issues and “they” may be right? The ease with which any group can be sincerely wrong without a clue becomes more obvious when one looks back in history. How many of us would have had the courage to stand up for racial equality and reconciliation in the 1950s, when so many churches unquestioningly supported segregation on biblical grounds, or in the 1850s, when slavery was similarly supported? Which of our current blind spots will our grandchildren be talking about?

Smart Questions

If we start thinking about these kinds of things – and it’s hard to think we shouldn’t – we realize that two questions present a dynamic tension:

1. How can we have honest diversity and dialogue about differences without having the diversity turn into division that unravels and even destroys the community?
2. How can we have genuine unity in our churches without creating a group-think pressure to conform that inhibits people from questioning, thinking, and differing?

Could it be that holding these two questions in dynamic tension is a key to health in any Christian community? Think about it: If we fear diversity of opinion and push for unity of conviction, at any cost, how are we different from a mind-controlling cult, or from the church at its worst moments in history when it launched horrible inquisitions in God’s name? Won’t that kind of unity-by-control elicit insurrection among courageous “freedom fighters” – thus intensifying the very tension we’re trying to prevent?

On the other hand, if we launch angry insurrections whenever we feel we’re being pressured to conform to a belief, how quickly will we destroy the very group we were trying to protect from group-think? Won’t the fragmentation and conflict we stir up serve to elicit the kinds of clamp-down reactions – as a matter of self-preservation for our community – that we most feared?

Beyond Insurrections and Inquisitions

If you’re wondering how we manage this apparent paradox, there’s good news: Much of the New Testament illustrates Spirit-guided Christians managing this same struggle. Unity and harmony were essential values, but honesty and freedom to think were also precious values for the early church leaders as for us.

Take passages like 1 Corinthians 8–10 and Romans 14–15. Instead of giving a simple black-and-white rule about whose opinion is right in the controversy illustrated by these verses, Paul challenges people to think by offering two perceptive insights.

First, people can hold a wrong position, Paul suggests, but do so for apparently good reasons. What’s more, Christian maturity and love enjoin us to look sympathetically at the good reasons for the bad opinion. People are often against something worth being against, and in the process back themselves into being for something not worth being for. By asking them what they’re against – what they fear or are trying to avoid – we can often find common ground and affirm that we join them in what they’re against, even if we don’t agree with them.

Second, Paul implies that people can be so eager to be right in their opinion that they become wrong in their attitude. Paul writes, “If I have…all knowledge…but have not love, I am nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:2). So we can be spiritually right in the way we are technically wrong, and spiritually wrong in the way we are technically right. Got it?

Paul assures us we’re not required to surrender like lemmings to group-think, conforming to what “everyone” thinks in our church, denomination, or class. But neither are we permitted to hold and spout our differing opinions in ways that needlessly disturb the peace and thus distract the church from its mission. It seems the friction of differing opinions expressed in gentle and respectful dialogue can sharpen all participants, “as iron sharpens iron,” as the Proverb says (27:17). But we also need to be careful that our dialogues don’t turn into destructive clashes (Galatians 5:15).

Seen this way, the Christian church is an amazing experience. It’s about bringing diverse people together – not for personal gain, not just when it’s easy to agree and get along – but to co-labor in love in the work of the Lord, even when it’s tough.

Think Again

How can you avoid the lemming mentality and re-learn the art of calling a squirrel a squirrel, even when it’s tough?

• Gently question group-think. Don’t be rude or bombastic, but when you feel group-think is at play, say something like, “I wonder if we need to give people room to think this through. Perhaps we could use this as an opportunity to help people learn how to think biblically, rather than dictating to them what to think.”
• Read or listen to the best spokespeople from the other side of an issue; try to discern what the other side is for and against. Find common ground wherever possible.
• Listen to your heart’s questions. If there are questions lying dormant, prayerfully consider that they might be doorways to greater spiritual growth.
• Find some thoughtful friends. Maybe you need new mentors and peers who will encourage you to explore.
• Stay awake. Beware of drifting into group-unthink. Every once in a while, wake yourself up – and wake your friends up, too – by asking a question you’ve never asked before.

If God is the God of truth, when all ideas are laid on the table, it’s hard to imagine that the humble, sincere, and honest pursuit of truth can be a bad idea. What do you think?

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