Intellectual and Spiritual Independence Redux
James McGrath has posted a Challenge to Anti-Intellectual Christian Fundamentalists. I think it’s a good one. I posted on this before, though from a different angle.
I want to highlight here an important question. Where in scripture or Christian tradition do we get a high value for intellectual independence? Certainly there is a value for independence in thought, but that is a reasonably balanced idea, in which independence helps with creation of new ideas and the testing of old ones, but in which one is free to recognize dependence. I simply cannot count the myriads of ways in which I, at this very moment, am dependent on the intellectual and physical product of others.
But the Christian ideal is often expressed as a body with many parts, or as a family. Neither of these metaphors suggests some sort of absolute intellectual independence as a value.
I like to know. I like to check things for myself. But at the same time, I must acknowledge dependence, and I should be very grateful to those who have done the hard work on which I base what I write and teach.
Most Christians I know are poster-children for the stupid. It’s sad, but my experience is that “faith” consists of “that’s how I was raised.” The same woman that told me Santa, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy existed told me about Jesus and Christianity. Am I supposed to have faith in Christ based on that evidence? No. You have to read the Bible and exegesis after exegesis and think for yourself. It helps me to write down questions, answers, discuss questionable passages (it’s hard to find someone who’s not an atheist who is both intellectually willing and able to discuss these issues).
You have to read the text (the Bible), compare translations, look for discrepancies, see if the differences are significant or just differences, read what intellectuals have written about it (Jewish and Christian are helpful to me), study the times and places, read comparative mythology, etc.
It’s a lifelong journey and a lonely one.