Hothouse Flowers
The conversations at Elrod’s blog yesterday and Greg Kendall-Ball’s today about Harding’s “Core Values” have reminded me of my exit from the hothouse almost ten years ago. The exchange has prompted me to revisit the reasons behind a spiritual tail-spin that I experienced when I left Harding for the “real world” of Vanderbilt Law School. Why do so many Harding alumni resent and regret the transition from the bubble? What idea caused my hard and almost destructive move? What does Harding teach, or fail to teach, that hamstrings so many alumni and that continues to marginalize the school?
For me, it was the promotion of an idea which I was taught throughout my childhood and adolescence in the Church of Christ. It is the notion that “sinners,” unbelievers (and maybe Christians of other brands) were miserable, or were just a step away from misery. We were taught that sin, especially the Big Sins, led straight to temporal misery, sooner or later, and that the people brazenly engaged in the Big Sins were really just masking their misery with fun. This is a corollary to the cop-out notion that, “even if the Bible isn’t true and all this Christian stuff is wrong, this is still the best way to live a happy life.”
These are lies.
I did not learn they were lies until I actually met some unbelieving sinners, and it took me until I was 21 to do it. I grew up in the Bible Belt, fourth generation Church of Christ, active in the youth group, exclusively Christian friends and environment, even in public schools, then onto the Harding hothouse. Not until I moved to Vanderbilt did I engage with truly diverse people, of non-Christian faith, or no faith, who had a conscious understanding of their spiritual decisions and direction. Much to my dismay and bafflement, I made friends with many folks who drank, a lot, slept around, cussed and generally had a lot of fun doing things I never would have contemplated. The problem was that they were not miserable, not a step away from ruin. They were well balanced, pleasant, nice, even honorable and loyal.
Observing sinners in their natural environment threw me for a loop. In retrospect, one of my primary reasons for not experimenting with the Big Sins was a fear that it would screw up my pleasant life. What a shock to find plenty of folks whom I liked and admired who were not screwed up at all, despite the Big Sins. Their mental health and social experiences rocked a significant joist in my foundation. Since I lost one of the primary guardrails for my own life, I slipped into those Big Sins, wondering if there any reason not to, since even the consequences seemed right pleasant themselves.
The lie, described about, gives us some false comfort that the “righteous,” the church-going, abstinent, temperate Bible majors were superior and somehow exalted from the masses of sinners. We never, ever would say it aloud, but the unspoken motivation is that God surely must be glad that we’re on His side while those other schlubs skate near the line of self-destruction.
The prevailing spirit and message at Harding not only enforced this idea but magnified and expanded it to focus on those lonely hearts living the heart of darkness at state or secular schools.
At Vanderbilt, I finally learned the truth. The truth is not that they are on the verge of misery because of their sin, but that we all are. I wondered why I should not engage in the Big Sins if the consequences had been falsely advertised. The truth is that there is no Big Sin, just sin, no others wallowing in sin, just sinners, and I’m one of them. Despite my righteous resume and blessed pedigree, I was not different, not exalted, not better than the sinners.
The truth, though, is that my Christian community and I know Jesus. We are not better because we don’t sin, and we should not avoid sin to avoid the unpleasant consequences. We are saved because of Jesus, and we seek to obey because we know Jesus and know that we are saved by Him. We are not the museum of righteousness with the world banging on the hothouse doors. We are sinners who know the way home.
Harding would do well by its students to extinguish the pervasive spirit of righteous superiority and to affirm the truth of sin and grace. This deceptive spirit almost crippled this young graduate when he got outside the bubble.
For me, it was the promotion of an idea which I was taught throughout my childhood and adolescence in the Church of Christ. It is the notion that “sinners,” unbelievers (and maybe Christians of other brands) were miserable, or were just a step away from misery. We were taught that sin, especially the Big Sins, led straight to temporal misery, sooner or later, and that the people brazenly engaged in the Big Sins were really just masking their misery with fun. This is a corollary to the cop-out notion that, “even if the Bible isn’t true and all this Christian stuff is wrong, this is still the best way to live a happy life.”
These are lies.
I did not learn they were lies until I actually met some unbelieving sinners, and it took me until I was 21 to do it. I grew up in the Bible Belt, fourth generation Church of Christ, active in the youth group, exclusively Christian friends and environment, even in public schools, then onto the Harding hothouse. Not until I moved to Vanderbilt did I engage with truly diverse people, of non-Christian faith, or no faith, who had a conscious understanding of their spiritual decisions and direction. Much to my dismay and bafflement, I made friends with many folks who drank, a lot, slept around, cussed and generally had a lot of fun doing things I never would have contemplated. The problem was that they were not miserable, not a step away from ruin. They were well balanced, pleasant, nice, even honorable and loyal.
Observing sinners in their natural environment threw me for a loop. In retrospect, one of my primary reasons for not experimenting with the Big Sins was a fear that it would screw up my pleasant life. What a shock to find plenty of folks whom I liked and admired who were not screwed up at all, despite the Big Sins. Their mental health and social experiences rocked a significant joist in my foundation. Since I lost one of the primary guardrails for my own life, I slipped into those Big Sins, wondering if there any reason not to, since even the consequences seemed right pleasant themselves.
The lie, described about, gives us some false comfort that the “righteous,” the church-going, abstinent, temperate Bible majors were superior and somehow exalted from the masses of sinners. We never, ever would say it aloud, but the unspoken motivation is that God surely must be glad that we’re on His side while those other schlubs skate near the line of self-destruction.
The prevailing spirit and message at Harding not only enforced this idea but magnified and expanded it to focus on those lonely hearts living the heart of darkness at state or secular schools.
At Vanderbilt, I finally learned the truth. The truth is not that they are on the verge of misery because of their sin, but that we all are. I wondered why I should not engage in the Big Sins if the consequences had been falsely advertised. The truth is that there is no Big Sin, just sin, no others wallowing in sin, just sinners, and I’m one of them. Despite my righteous resume and blessed pedigree, I was not different, not exalted, not better than the sinners.
The truth, though, is that my Christian community and I know Jesus. We are not better because we don’t sin, and we should not avoid sin to avoid the unpleasant consequences. We are saved because of Jesus, and we seek to obey because we know Jesus and know that we are saved by Him. We are not the museum of righteousness with the world banging on the hothouse doors. We are sinners who know the way home.
Harding would do well by its students to extinguish the pervasive spirit of righteous superiority and to affirm the truth of sin and grace. This deceptive spirit almost crippled this young graduate when he got outside the bubble.
posted by JRB at 1:04 PM
16 Comments:
Valid point, and well said. I think our primary difference is perspective.
I don't want to hijack your blog, but basically I had the opposite life experience. I had the "real world" experience, but not the biblical knowledge or community of believers. I didn't need more freedom in college, I needed structure.
The point that Harding doesn't articulate very well is that we all sin, but not all repent and recognize the struggle to attain the ultimate goal of heaven.
here! here! JRB, well-said!
my experience was quite similar to yours, Harding from first grade through college. then i got my first job with people in "the world." it took me quite a while to learn to deal with thoughts that i was responsible for somehow turning all these people away from their path to hell.
what a different vision of christianity i've experienced away from the CoC. no more trying to figure out who out there is going to heaven and who isn't and making sure that we keep ourselves away from the latter group.
HARDING - THE EASY TARGET
Hothouse - "a greenhouse in which plants are arranged in a pleasing manner"
Lie - "a statement made by someone who believes or suspects it to be false, in the expectation that the hearers may believe it"
Truth - "a fact that has been verified"
Jeff-
Wow. Where should I start? Man, don't take this the wrong way, but it sounds like you have lived a very confused life. I agree with some of your points, but I disagree with you on where you are placing blame.
When I went to Harding I had experienced a lot of the Big Sins and I thought I was in heaven when I landed in Searcy. The four years I spent at Harding were the best of my life to that point. I was very involved in many activities and academically I performed well.
I guess what I didn't pick up on were the "lies" (see definition above). Harding is obviously an easy target in hindsight for you and many others. It seems like you are having no trouble blaming Harding for your post-graduate "spiritual tail spin". Maybe this was just you working out your salvation with fear and trembling when you were on your own in a secular setting for the first time? I have MANY friends, who are Harding alumni, and I've got to tell you that we don't sit around and talk about how we "resent" what Harding did to us or that we "regret the transition from the bubble". I received no sense of “false comfort that” I was “righteous” because I was a “church-going, abstinent, temperate Bible major”.
For me, Harding in no way “…enforced this idea but magnified and expanded it to focus on those lonely hearts living the heart of darkness at state or secular schools.” Did you really hear this taught? If so – please state your source.
Maybe you could write a focus piece about how each of the other Christian institutions in your life (your parents, the Churches of Christ that you grew up attending, your youth ministers, and your Christian adolescent friends) deceived you and lied to you. What did these institutions teach, or fail to teach, that hamstrung you and marginalized you? I've got to tell you that I believe most of this comes back to your parents. As I raise my kids, I feel a very deep sense of responsibility to prepare them for every stage of life. I am not going to expect any youth minister, preacher or Christian institution to do this. It is on me.
Regarding your experiences at Vandy Law School and where you found "truth" (see definition above). I'm afraid you have lumped in Christian sinners with those who are not pursuing God at all. As a Christian I don’t believe that there are BIG Sins and small sins. Sin is sin. However, I do believe that there is a difference between Christians who are seeking to serve God with their lives and hate the sin in their lives and those who don’t acknowledge God. From your post you don’t seem to acknowledge this difference, or at least you didn’t while you were at VU.
The secular friends you made were decent well balance, pleasant, nice, even honorable and loyal. And in terms of their earthly existence everything on the surface seemed to be going as well or better for them, than it was for you! These were your first super cool (and undoubtedly super smart) secular friends! What you couldn’t see at the time was how life and eternity is going to play out for these acquaintances. God’s laws are real, perfect and serve a purpose here on earth and on into eternity. Their decisions to drink a lot, sleep around, cuss and do a lot of things you never would have contemplated will have real consequences. If this life is just about having fun, without eternal consequences, then I had better get started living it up. Your friends were screwed up and you didn’t know it. You call this truth.
We should move on from focusing on Big Sins vs. small sins and have a discussion on this blog about how we can get more secular sinners to at least acknowledge God and hate the sin in their lives. When this happens and we quit beating ourselves (and our institutions) up for teaching righteousness and God’s laws, then we can ALL fall on our faces and beg for forgiveness from our sins.
Peace.
Nathan Randolph
(HU 1991 – 1995)
Nathan,
Thanks for dropping by and thanks for the comments. I'll ask you to re-read my post more carefully, especially the end, where I state many of the points you make here. I think you'll see that I do not believe in Big Sins, that I do draw a distinction between my Christian friends and secular colleagues in law school, that I did not say these "lies" where TAUGHT at Harding. Of course, their sins, and mine, have consequences, and I did not say otherwise.
Also, please understand that I'm not blaming Harding for my spiritual seeking and troubles in that brief season, and I whole-heartedly believe that the VLS experience and every other experience was "working out my salvation," as you rightly point out. If I've lived a confused life, which I question, it's no more confused that Paul, Peter, C.S. Lewis, Moses, David, Bonhoeffer, or you. We are given hard lessons to learn and hard questions to ask. This piece is about one of mine, and HU had a role to play.
I do not blame Harding alone, but my comments here, in particular, are part of on on-going, blog-spanning conversation ABOUT HARDING. I do not ingore my parents, the church of my youth, my wife, the church of my present, my friends, my books, my teachers or myself. As I stated in the first sentence, however, this piece is about Harding, not about the others. I was expounding on other comments elsewhere where I didn't have space or time to make a long explanation.
Absolutely, and of course, everyone has different experiences at a large school like Harding. When you and I were there, I made the deepest friends and learned more about Christ and His church in a shorter span than at any other time of my life. Harding is an immense and precious blessing in my life, but it is not immune from criticism or the need to improve and sanctify. I criticize myself, the South, the Church of Christ, the federal government and lots of things that I love but who are not yet made perfect. You should, too.
"We should move on from focusing on Big Sins vs. small sins and have a discussion on this blog about how we can get more secular sinners to at least acknowledge God and hate the sin in their lives. When this happens and we quit beating ourselves (and our institutions) up for teaching righteousness and God’s laws, then we can ALL fall on our faces and beg for forgiveness from our sins."
Nathan,
Wow. Where should I start. Don't take this the wrong way but you seem to be very confused. Jeff's point in his blog was certainly not about the difference between Big Sins and small sins. His point was that the conservative church of Christ view point, of which Harding is a purveyor, did not prepare him for interacting with the rest of the world. He was led to believe that all those outside of Christ were living miserable existences. If you didn't hear this growing up in the c of C and didn't hear it at Harding then good for you. I heard it all the time growing up and I had it reinforced at HU. I, however, had already learned that this notion was false since I had very few Christian friends prior to coming to Harding and had already jumped into Big Sin territory with both feet.
You and I had different experiences than Jeff. That, however, does not make his point any less valid. Most people in this world who are living without Christ don't know it and don't care, yet we are again and again taught that when you find an unrepentant sinner that he/she will be miserable. We are taught that the unrepentant sinner's life wont be as good as the life of the righteous Christian. Again, if you had never been taught this then good for you but I would imagine that this "truth" was taught in most churches of Christ around the nation and I know for sure that I heard it at Harding.
I think we as Christians need to learn how to tell people they need Jesus even when they don't think they do. Harding has a great opportunity to do this but I think they oftentimes dont take it. Jeff said it very well in his closing comment.
"Harding would do well by its students to extinguish the pervasive spirit of righteous superiority and to affirm the truth of sin and grace."
I will strongly disagree with one point Jeff makes. He states in his blog that "I did not learn they were lies until I actually met some unbelieving sinners, and it took me until I was 21 to do it." I know for a fact that this is patently false. Jeff met an unbelieving sinner when he just 18. He met me. Jeff and his love for God just so happens to be one of the reasons that this former unbelieving sinner is now a repentent sinner who is everyday thankful for God's grace.
The easiest thing to find is fault.
"The easiest thing to find is fault."
True. But fault is also necessary to find, especially if in our reflection, we first turn our eyes on ourselves. One of the struggles that I had at HU during my days was that I felt as though there were many who stood over Scripture and used it to condemn others. (Harding had no corner on that market. Lots of Churches of Christ and other COC schools do it, as well as lots from other denominations (not to mentions those of other religious stripes and non-theists).
What I try to do myself (and what I know Jeff and Kile attempt to do) is to first allow the text to critique and scrutinize my own life before I ever use it to chastise others. That puts me in a very different position when I come to the point of having a spiritual discussion with someone who is not yet Christian.
I guess that part of my struggle is with the type of idea that I see at the end of Nathan's post. He concludes that our discussion should first be "how we can get more secular sinners to at least acknowledge God and hate the sin in their lives. When this happens and we quit beating ourselves (and our institutions) up for teaching righteousness and God’s laws, then we can ALL fall on our faces and beg for forgiveness from our sins."
I am sure that it did not come out quite the way he intended, but I see here the type of thinking that puts the cart before the horse. Maybe our first step should be to fall on our faces as those who have come to realize the darkness of our own lives when we step into the presence of God's glorious light. Then, and only then, should we try to convince secular sinners of their need to acknowledge God.
Why should I ask them to accept my story, my metanarrative (story that explains all stories), if I do not first fully accept its power to challenge and critique my own life and inadequacies?
Alright, I have much to say, but it is of little value, so I will stop here.
Nathan, and others, just so you don't think I'm going soft on sin and "the world." Please read my piece called "Gospel." It's the first post in the July archive on this site. I was trying to stretch my prophetic muscles a little bit.
I'd love to get your thoughts.
By the way, Nathan, where are you these days?
JRB--
I just wanted to say thanks for taking time to write that. It paints a vivid picture and was fascinating to read.
Reading through the comments here and related discussions on other sites, I was struck by the very real differences between people's experiences at a particular place (HU) during a particular time. It seems sometimes easy for us to forget that there were 4,000 or so students and however many different faculty and staff that populate HU and that it was possible to have any of a range of experiences there, depending upon your personality, your courses of study, and the friends you had. (And I, for what it's worth, think your parents should quit blaming themselves that you didn't necessarily experience a lot of spiritual growth at HU.)
Probably like most people do, I pretty much remember an HU at which there were people that fanatically loathed the place and people that totally drank the Kool-Aid...but that 99% of people fell somewhere in between. I found a lot of people who seemed hypocritical, shallow, and harsh, but I found a lot of people who seemed more selfless and kind than almost any people I'd met before.
All that to say, people who care about HU would do well not to dismiss JRB--there are thousands who may have similar sentiments--or those students who felt like HU met a gaping need--there are surely thousands of these, too.
So, thanks!
hermit chris
Jeff-
I am the pulpit minister at a church of Christ in Tucson, Arizona.
Peace.
Nathan
Hermit Chris -
Good to hear from you over here. I am friends with once-Hermit Dave and appreciate your comments and your blog.
I'm amused about how my parents got dragged into this. I called my mom this afternoon just to let her know that I thought they did a pretty good job. I promise they were not disappointed in my spiritual growth at Harding.
Neither was I, by the way. I feel bad about beating this poor dead horse, but I'll keep saying that I do love Harding indeed and was blessed beyond imagination by my experience there, my brotherhood Fellas, my incredible friends, teachers, lessons and experience. I did not drink the Kool-Aid or fanatically loathe it. Chris, I like your dichotomy, and I will say that I was among the thousands for whom Harding filled some gaping needs in some seasons and disappointed me violently in others. As it turns out, that's because it's an organization of humans living on the earth.
Thanks for your kind words and reading over here.
Sorry, I meant that my parents did a "very good job," not a "pretty good job." My bad.
That's debatable.
See what I go through for you, mom?
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anon,
I am not sure if you really think that the derogatory comments are winning you friends and influencing people, but please try to use some kind of wisdom and restraint when you post. I have am very frustrated with the ignorant and unkind statements that you are making.
Jeff's parents did a fabulous job raising him. His faith and his love for people challenge me daily to live the way of discipleship.
Your comments have been off base and asinine, nearly slanderous. Instead of critiquing the way Baker's parents raised him, maybe you should consider whether you are living up to the virtues and values your parent(s) tried to instill in you. I have a feeling you will discover that you are falling short.
Post a Comment
<< Home