Christian Academic Coping Mechanisms, Part 2: Cynicism

While compartmentalisation is bad, it is, perhaps, not as bad as cynicism, the topic to which I devote this post. Cynicism develops in the following manner: Because we live in a fallen world, we necessarily encounter evil, pain, and suffering; for us humans, the question is not "Will we suffer?" but rather "How do we deal with the suffering that will be a part of our lives?" People answer the latter question in a variety of ways. Some attempt to mask suffering by hiding behind wealth or pleasure. Others hide behind popularity. Still others hide behind the intellect (I often fall into this category). Some isolate themselves, and simply hide.

These attempts to mask suffering work up to a point; however, if someone is hurt one too many times, their defense mechanisms begin to erode. In the face of such an erosion, the victim cannot mend his/her broken cover by sheer willpower, for suffering often evokes in us animal responses that are beyond our control (note: I do not, however, believe that these responses are beyond God's control). In this plight, the sufferer usually feels compelled to make suffering a part of his/her identity; because the victim cannot hide the suffering, they assume that it is an integral part of themselves, and often actually seeks to inflict further pain on themselves in order to enhance their identity (consider the opening lyrics of Johnny Cash's remake of NIN's "Hurt"). Moreover, they (correctly) perceive the suffering that lies behind other people's masks, but (incorrectly) seek to render their own broken state in others. Put another way, sufferers who can no longer hide their suffering not only seek to reveal it in others, but to cause it in others. Cynicism is the act of simultaneously tearing apart not only oneself, but everything else around oneself.

The connection between cynicism and Christian academics should, at this point, be relatively obvious. Christian academics very often find themselves hurt, misunderstood, rejected, and lonely. Moreover, the academy seems to have a tendency to attract people with a propensity for melancholy, and, given this propensity, the aforementioned emotional states become intensified for many academics. To a certain point (depending on one's threshhold of endurance), Christian academics can patiently endure their the tension created by their vocation. However, this tension often builds up until it is too much to bear, and then the Christian academic is broken by the slightest anti-Christian comment on campus, or by the most insignificant comment about the dangers that the intellect poses to the life of faith. At this point, cynicism sets in, and the academic Christian begins to tear apart both his/her church (or, more unfortunately, his faith) and his/her academy. Of course, such cynicsm may very cleverly mask itself under the titles "Christian critique," or "academic criticism," but, at its very core, it stems from the tragic story of a human, beaten senseless by suffering, stabbing blindly at whatever lies closest to him/her.

My next post will explore the Christian response to cynicism.

Christian Academic Coping Mechanisms, Part 1

Recently, I have been thinking about the two adverse reactions that I have observed in Christian academics; either they compartmentalise their two worlds in order to keep both from ravaging the other, or they become extremely cynical about both Christianity and academics. I will begin this blog by confessing that I have been guilty of both responses.

Compartmentalisation, as defined by myself, is an unhealthy method of navigating the differences between two social spheres which we inhabit. The compartmentalised person ensures that certain elements of him/herself are only evident around people who appreciate these elements, and that other elements are hidden when they could potentially disrupt a given social sphere. To a certain degree all people are compartmentalised, and balanced compartmentalisation is a necessary ingredient for properly functioning society; for example, it would be ludicrous to treat our spouses, children, colleagues, and friends with the same sort of affection, and thus we properly compartmentalise these affections, keeping marital, parental, collegial, and companional affection in their proper spheres. However, compartmentalisation becomes distorted when it forces us to sacrifice integral truths in order to preserve the "peace" of any given sphere.

I will begin with the academy. In many ways, the academy feels (perhaps correctly, in some cases) threatened by the gospel, for its claim to explain the purpose of the universe and human life appears to directly compete with that of the academy. Academics are often uneasy about the gospel, not because the disbelieve in absolute truth (as they speciously claim), but rather because it challenges the absolute truths that they base their lives on; asserting that truth is fully revealed in Christ means that one must scrutinise one's area of study through the scathing light of the gospel, and academics fear that such intense scrutiny would utterly incinerate and overwhelm their areas of study. In response to this fear, I have two things to say. When we follow Christ, we must follow him unconditionally, otherwise we are not following him at all; thus, in following Christ, we are always risking the loss of our acadmic status, just as we risk the loss of wives, children, parents, dead fathers, and unplowed fields. The second point is that, for Christians, academics is always a secondary concern, because Christ must always be their first concern. Basically, I am saying that the academic fears are legitimate; Christ will alter our lives, and this alteration is not predictable - there are any number of things that he could do with our academic careers. The recompense for such uncertainty is the knowledge that God will always change our lives for the better; even when God seems to be tearing up all the things that we hold most dear, we may still behold his goodness and say, with Job, "Though he slay me, yet will I trust him."

But I return to compartmentalisation. In the face of the academic fear of Christianity, many Christians simply "shut off" their Christianity when they approach academic issues; since progress in one's field often appears to require full submission to the System (I say "appears," because in reality it is often the "rebels" who are both most original and most successful), such Christians supress their Christianity, assuming that suppression is necessary for advancement in a university setting. While this situation does avoid the naive response of Christians who simplistically articulate a wholesale condemnation of the university (more about this later), it produces an equally tragic scenario, for a failure to bring Christianity to one's area of study is a failure to proclaim Christ as lord of that area.

Conversely, evangelical churches do not often allow the academic's God-given inquisitiveness into their midst. They accept all people, provided those people are sportsy, television oriented men, and emotionally oriented women; when someone attempts to scrutinise and examine the world that God made, and the theological complexities that he has revealed to us, they are told that God deals in simple truths and a gnostic hatred of the world, and that they should therefore humble themselves and submit to this simple, gnostic gospel.

Academics are thus afraid to use their God given spiritual gifts (yes, I consider the academic mind a spiritual gift), and they therefore hide them, just as they hide their Christianity at the university. Not only does this situation rob the church of an integral part of Christ's mystical body - the mind of Christ - but it produces Christians who are aliens among their own people. These Christians are usually very guarded, and difficult to get to know, but if you do take the time (and it will take time) to actually care about their pain and loneliness, you will be showing showing them the Christian compassion that they rarely receive.

I believe that the integration of the academy and the church begins in the church. Christians often blame Christian scholars for compromising or abandoning their faith, but I think that the church needs to recognise its own immense role in such compromise. When a country refuses to train its soldiers in combat and provide them with proper equipment, we blame the country, and not the soldiers, when they surrender to the enemy; similarly, I submit that it is not fair for a church to discourage its academics from developing Christian scholarship, and then to blame its scholars when they abandon the church. Academic Christians begin the integration of faith and academics when they find a Christian community that will allow them to be open and honest about all things Christian and academic (even if these Christians do not understand the academic niceties involved, they can still help by exercising compassionate listening skills). Christian scholars need such a community for support, otherwise they will never have the immense stamina needed to exist as a Christian "going against the grain" of a secular university.

Watch for part 2 of this post, which will discuss the second coping device of academic Christians, cynicism.

An Alien in the Church

I have considered the topic of Christians in an academic setting; as promised, I will now attempt to analyse the experience of academics in a Christian setting. Since I have experienced both evangelical and Anglo-Catholic approaches to academics, I will attempt to write about both.

Growing up in an Evangelical church, I often felt isolated by my propensity for asking questions. Theological questions were considered a threat to "simple faith," and were therefore discouraged. Other sorts of questions (usually complex academic questions) were usually discouraged because they did not fulfil the allegedly utilitarian purpose of the gospel; if our primary purpose consists of compelling people to pray the so-called prayer of salvation, why should we ask questions about, and read books about, topics that are irrelevant to this purpose? This ecclesiastical discouragement of question was, of course, never overtly stated (the governing principalities and powers never openly reveal their natures and names), and I was unaware of its influence during the time that I was under its power; I simply assumed that most people felt lonely and isolated because it is part of the human condition.

Because of the influence of this unspoken antiquerianism (my own name for this particular heresy), I could not justify a "frivolous" degree when I entered university, and therefore sought the most "practical" degree I could think of, pre-Medicine. However, I gradually began to discover that human "practicality" and God's plan are not always synonymous, and that God often uses human "impracticality" in unpredictable ways; as the Ecclesiast puts it, "the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all" (Eccl. 9:11). During this time, I was especially nourished by the Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship group on my university campus. After seeing God use people through their supposedly "useless" degress, I realised that I needed to study what God designed me to study, rather than that which was most "practical." I therefore converted to a Bachelor of Arts program, with a focus on English.

When my fiance and I began dating, we decided to find an Anglican church together. I cannot speak for her, but my motivations were fairly clear; I was looking for an escape from the anti-intellectualism of the mainstream evangelical church, and the Anglican church, with its rich history of thinkers ranging from John Donne to C. S. Lewis, seemed like an attractive alternative. Interestingly enough, however, I have found that, while anti-intellectualism is not the particular bane of the Canadian Anglican church, it has other intellect related problems.

Perhaps the most pressing intellectual problem in the Canadian Anglican Church is its promotion of "reason" over biblical revelation and tradition. Typically, liberal Anglicans argue that the bible and tradition are difficult to interpret, and they thereby render these sources of God's voice mute. They then unquestioningly espouse the most trendy forms of secular thought (usually a sentimentalised version of multicultural and gender studies), and claim that God endorses this espousal because such espousals are "reasonable." I am frustrated by this syncretistic adoption of values fostered and incubated in a secular hothouse that is itself already imploding, as most secular proponents of these values would admit (the feminist course I took basically treated the collapse and current impasse of feminism).

The other problem involves the lack of dynamic zeal on the part of many Anglicans; whereas Anglicans are "allowed" to be academic in a way that evangelicals are not, they lack the evangelical zeal that is necessary for establishing the dynamic, thriving life of the Christian academic. Put another way, Anglicans have all the necessary ingredients for making Christian academics - they have all the riches of the bible and a biblically informed dialogue with the past - but no one exhorts and urges them to combine these ingredients. As an Anglican, I glean truth from the rich Anglican liturgy, but usually rely on extra-Anglican sources to enhance my zeal.

Currently, my pseudonym reflects my occupation; Koheleth, the author of Ecclesiastes, means "the gatherer." Acting out of a biblically informed worldview, I seek to salvage fragments of truth from the ruins of the world. Sometimes I find these fragments in the medieval and early modern period. Sometimes I find them in Romantic poems and Victorian novels. Sometimes I find them in contemporary videos and songs. Sometimes I find them in highly institutionalised churches. Sometimes I find them in informal gatherings "where two or three are gathered together" in Christ's name. As I search, I seek to bring what I find under the judgement of Christ; when he condemns, I condemn, but, when he praises, I am thrilled by an Edenic moment in which God, perceiving the prelapsarian world buried deep beneath the crimes of this groaning world, says, "It is good."