The Great Narrowing
Narrowing Rather Than Growing
Phyllis Tickle was a layperson, but she understood the trajectory of Christianity better than many clergy when she wrote The Great Emergence. It is too bad we do not have her voice today as we see the very thing she prophesied coming to pass. The Church is in the throes of a type of new birth much like the Reformation and the changes which happen about every five hundred years. As we experience these growth pangs many in the church feel fear. Rather than seek to understand what God is up to in the world, the instinct is to hide, retreat to a past that never was, or simply give up.
The Emergence of Narrowing
I call this phenomenon the Great Narrowing. Rather than see the experience of God’s mercy as ever widening, there is a move to forget the lessons of scripture about God and try to narrow the mercy of God and the very definition of the Church. Fundamentalism is a well known example of this move by Christians. But the Great Narrowing is even more insidious. I don’t blame those whose experience is lacking in believing that the narrowing is a thing to be desired. But, for those who know better, I feel an immense sadness.
In the Lord of the Rings the wizard Gandalf goes to the leader of his order Saruman seeking to discuss and determine how to address the coming evil. Gandalf rightly assumes that Saruman would be ready to meet the challenge which Gandalf recognized. Instead, Gandalf realizes too late that Saruman has already given himself over to Sauron’s desire to make the world in his image. Saruman believes this is inevitable and the only way to survive is to work within the narrowing control of Middle Earth. Saruman should know better, but the lure of power seduces him well.
Of course this analogy is not perfect, but I often feel Gandalf’s grief at Saruman’s choice when engaging with those who engage in narrowing. Especially those who should know better. But I also cannot completely blame them for the choices they make. Change can be frightening. Growth can be scary. But growth is the move of disciples. A disciple has never arrived. Even a mature disciple can still learn and grow. If we learn anything from sacred scripture, it is the fact that growth is the way of discipleship and God is constantly working with creation for growth. Cultures, nations, and people all change. It is the inevitable roll of history that change comes for us all. Not in a fated way, but in surprisingly subtle or spectacular ways both.
We waste so much time fighting the wrong battles. Or worse, creating false battles to keep from growing. Manufactured outrage, parroted talking points, and sheer arrogance in the face of ignorance is writ large in the Church today. We somehow think we need some great crisis looming rather than a reach toward the move of God. It is just so predictably sad the way things are going. I’ll warn you that I am going to be both general and specific here and I may even trod across your toes. But, know that this comes from a desire for Christians to be a people of faithful hope rather than a people of fear. You may even accuse me of being a pot stirrer. But better a pot stirrer than the frog getting boiled alive because I cannot face the truth.
The Narrowing Groups
I find two approaches to our current state from those who wish to narrow the Christian faith into neat little boxes. The first is those who know better, but want to retain a sense of control. They are the most frustrating. But they also remind me of the disciples throughout the Gospel of Mark who repeat the same missing the point over and over. Take some time to read the Gospel of Mark and watch for the repeated pattern. Jesus teaches, the disciples don’t get it, Jesus performs a miracle often involving an “outsider” and there’s an aha moment. But in the next scene, the disciples become clueless again and the cycle repeats. The writer of Mark had a point and it was wake up believers and see what God is doing. “Quit being clueless.”
The second group is frustrating in a very different way. They are so very confidently wrong about things. This group is an example of the Dunning-Kruger effect*. As sad as the first group is, this group hurts more. Rather than showing a willingness to learn, this group confidently makes bold claims about subjects they usually have a definite ignorance of. I’ll be clear, this group is not stupid, but their lack of knowledge is dangerous. They are easy to spot because they repeat claims made by those they think are informed (often just as ignorant, but they sound good). Those claims are usually easy to expose as lacking, but the confidence is so strong that any evidence to the contrary is dismissed as obviously wrong.
The way both merge is in their desire to narrow things like faith to make it easier to hold. Of course the thing about faith is that it is not an easy thing to narrow. Faith is not about belief, precepts, or easily reproduced knowledge. No faith, is so much more and it is expansive like all things related to the divine. This expansive nature is why I really like my friend Aaron’s definition of faith as “risk with direction.”(Simmons) Possibility and embrace rather than dry and static facts.
Recently I was in two different online conversations in which the narrowing phenomenon was present. One was a private group of Nazarene clergy, the other a public post that was an example of missing the point and trying to narrow Christianity itself. I acknowledge that my closeness to these examples may make me an unreliable narrator, but I hope to explain this as a way to show there are better ways. After all, growth is what we should be about.
The Rejection of Held Doctrine
I’ll start with the clergy discussion. I shared a Substack article by Jill Waltz about how the Church of the Nazarene (COTN) is an egalitarian denomination (we always have been). I’ll link that article below. But amongst the responses to the article a male ordained Elder entered the thread and chastised us.
Throughout this entire article and comment section, I noticed that not once did anyone truly seek to examine what Scripture says in its proper context. There was little effort to search the Word of God for truth. Instead, the focus seemed to be primarily on defending “our theology” as a denomination. That should concern us.
As expected, fellow clergy responded with surprise and concern. The COTN has a well documented doctrine of ordination and our belief that women and men are called to lead is a part of that. We support that with scripture and it has always been the case in our over 100 year existence. In fact, this was one doctrine that inited me in to the COTN. This is who we are, yet here’s an ordained elder who was examined by a local District, went through our process of ordination and education and yet believes we are wrong.
To be clear, this member of clergy who leads a church was given the scriptures he demanded yet he still believes us to be wrong. How does someone with that strong of disagreement receive ordination? Beats me. I wish I had an answer, but I suspect we really don’t care about many of our essentials as long as you have sexuality down. It is sad and infuriating that clergy are allowed to disagree with this and, as he demonstrated, our view of scripture without consequences or teachable moments. But he also showed that incredibly arrogance of being unable to be taught. This is why messages from our leaders on being who we are feel empty. We don’t appear to care to actually make sure we are who we claim to be. Credibility gaps become our definition.
There are ways to officially deal with these disagreements, but they are soul-sucking and start at the district level where the problem may have originated. I obviously have no answer for how to handle this, but the idea that we are in defiance of scripture on women’s ordination is a creeping disease infecting many of our male clergy as they teach this contrary doctrine. This was not the first interaction like this in the current month for example.
The Tyranny of the Ignorant
The second example is more public, but has a mix of both those who should know better and those whose ignorance is on display. Look, I don’t think I have all knowledge or even a competent knowledge about many things, but I understand how to engage ideas in context and in a spirit of honesty and respect. Unfortunately, those who wish to narrow Christianity appear to be unwilling or unable to do the same.
I’ll summarize the post in question. Father Richard Rohr who is a Roman Catholic mystic is described in the post as a false teacher and his teaching is ascribed all sort of claims that are false if you engage Rohr’s work directly rather than through the lens of those who miss his points. Words like heresy get thrown around. But, the Roman Catholic Church has not labelled Rohr as false. He is a priest and orthodox. The real issue here is that so many American Evangelicals define Christianity by their narrow and often recent beliefs historically.
Rather than engage Rohr honestly, they repeat claims by people like Mike Winger, Alisa Childers, Allie Beth Stuckey, etc. All influencers who often present arguments so easy to refute it is shocking that people believe what they say. But they are influencers for a reason. they sound good, cite sources, and appear to be honestly engaging. The problem is that citing sources means nothing if those citations are misrepresented. Dunning-Kruger helps explain this. I’ll trust the source’s definition over an online influencer any day.
But here are the archetypes within that conversation.
The pastor who shared it originally who knows better based on his background, education, and experience. But I suspect he has made the calculation that sharing this to spark outrage will increase his standing amongst the others who want to narrow things. I also cant get over the fact that people still fear the emergent church which hasn’t been a thing for over a decade. Fighting yesterday’s perceived problems tomorrow.
Then you have the fellow clergy who trust the original to tell them the truth. They are followers and their fear has been stoked by the original material. If told the truth about Rohr they won’t believe it. Evidence presented is rejected and in some cases they just don’t understand the evidence. They are why I bother to comment at all. Maybe some will take the time to learn the truth. They may still not like Rohr, but hopefully they can understand that Christianity is not defined by a particular denomination, movement, or pastor.
The most frustrating is the minister in training who appears unable to learn. This is usually the one who is most frustrating. The COTN, like many Methodist children has a path for ministers to learn about ministry, doctrines, polity, and other things through a non degree course of study. This is helpful for those who have degrees in something other than religion, cannot afford traditional schools, or came from another tradition. I went through the course of study to satisfy requirements not met by my Bible degree at a Church of Christ liberal arts university for example.
The course of study can be a tremendous opportunity to learn and grow. But like any study, it is only as good as the participants willingness to learn. In our discussion above a minister in training entered and very confidently spoke of how poor the materials in the course of study are because he disagrees with the doctrines as presented. The arrogant ignorance of thinking when the study conflicts with your thinking then the study must be wrong is astounding. This should be a red flag for licensing in the COTN, but I suspect it isn’t even a consideration if we consider the ordained elder in the first example who rejects our doctrine of humanity.
Even more frustrating is the pastor who should know better cheering on the idea that we should purge the study of any books whose content contains writing by those who have left our denomination willingly or unwillingly. Yes, let’s repeat the stupidity of the Southern Baptist Church purge of solid doctrine because of who wrote it. You see it is not enough that people leave, we must erase all remembrances of them from the record like Pharaoh of old. Sound doctrine does not cease being sound doctrine simply because of who wrote or of their subsequent actions.
Is There Hope???
I am afraid that the efforts of those who want to narrow us are working in the COTN. Just look at the conversations above. But I see evidence in ideas shared from our denominational USA/Canada Region and in our flagship magazine like the promotion of a self-published book (ArtWork) that not only disagrees with our doctrine of scripture but also utilizes pseudo science deemed junk by groups like Answers in Genesis and Creation.com (groups that would be sympathetic to the argument given). When you start seeing blatant refutation of our doctrines, you know the issue runs deep. It may be too late for us (I pray and hope not). But it is not too late for Christianity itself. As much as those who wish to narrow exert effort, the Church is much larger and wider than they imagine. I believe that if the gates of Hell cannot prevail, then the wideness of God’s mercy can also withstand the attempts by human beings to narrow the Church.
God’s grace, love, and mercy are always moving and widening. We either embrace them or get run over by the tide. The Church is in the birth pangs of our next rebirth, maybe we just need to hang on and see what God is up to.
Dunning-Kruger effect, in psychology, a cognitive bias whereby people with limited knowledge or competence in a given intellectual or social domain greatly overestimate their own knowledge or competence in that domain relative to objective criteria or to the performance of their peers or of people in general.
Simmons, Aaron, PhD. Camping with Kierkegaard