Chapter 12: Rejecting the Packages...Clarifying the Labels

Kimberly: We’re not leaving the beach until you explain how you aren’t ‘liberal.’
AT: When we use labels like ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative,’ we are usually referring to what our society calls ‘politics’ or ‘religion.’ There wasn’t a difference between the two back in Jesus’ day and that creates confusion for how we engage the Bible. What’s interesting is that these realms seem to be meshing in our own time as well, so that we can make pretty accurate generalizations about where a ‘conservative’ evangelical Christian stands both politically and theologically. In the 21st century, a conservative evangelical is someone who has a ‘high’ doctrine of Scripture [usually called infallibility or inerrancy], is passionately pro-life when it comes to the legislating the abortion issue, thinks homosexuality in all forms is a sin and should be legislated as thus, and has a highly individualized view of the world [personal piety, personal relationship with Jesus, saving my soul for eternity]. A ‘liberal,’ on the other hand, tends to view the Bible much more mythically—its more of a ‘fiction’ book that teaches moral principles and metaphorically teaches us about God, the world and evil. A liberal doesn’t necessarily believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus, nor a virgin birth, but does believe that Jesus should be taken seriously as a prophet or teacher to imitate. The liberal also tends to focus more on social issues like anti-war and relieving the impoverished, and fighting for individual rights like abortion and same-sex marriage. These are the two extremes that have been fighting for the heart of North American Christianity for the past 150 years during the modern period. Some theologians like Murphy and McClendon have proposed that a new ‘postmodern’ era is upon us where these labels aren’t as helpful as they used to be. This is where I would place myself…and, of course, Yoder. Way back in 1972, Yoder published his Politics of Jesus and it drew a crowd of readers, both liberal and conservative due to his intense dedication to both the authority of the Bible [conservative!] and to nonviolent resistance [liberal!]. Or put another way, the good folks in the heartland had to respect his whole-hearted demand to follow the Word of God and the anti-war protestors from Berkeley to Boston had to love the outcome of his reading. In one of the few times Yoder used the label ‘postmodern,’ he wrote about his

‘post-modern acceptance of the particularity of the Christian story without subjecting it either to the claimed objectivity of general consensus or to that of some specific ‘scientific method.’

This is a great example of where Yoder isn’t easy to read. What does he mean by these big words? Well, he is arguing for the Christian story being the true story, but he doesn’t believe in objectivity or any proposed method that will bring the world absolute truth. Yoder was adamant that every individual or community that sits down to read the Bible is reading from somewhere, a unique perspective formed by all sorts of things ranging from experience to denominational distinctives to family upbringing to psychological factors to vocational agendas [and trust me, the list doesn’t stop here]. We all read and re-read and tell the Christian story from a point of view. There is no such thing as objectivity or absolute truth. This drives conservatives crazy. But Yoder did argue for the Christian story. He refused to just shrug his shoulders and accept just any old reading of the text or just any old story about the world. He was not only passionately and critically ‘Christian,’ but he advocated a severely life-altering radical discipleship, taking hard stances on a lot of issues…and this drives the ‘liberals’ crazy.
Kimberly: I see how these packages, liberal and conservative, are transforming and how you don’t really fit into either category. I guess it’s just easy to get caught up in the culture war, you know, ‘Do you watch FOX news or MSNBC or CNN?’ ‘Do you believe in absolute truth?’ ‘Do you think the bible is inerrant?’ It sounds like your answer for all of these is ‘none-of-the-above?’
AT: Yeah, I’m finding that I’m just not interested in these questions at all. But I know many Americans, Christians and non-Christians, most certainly are. I think a big draw is that they provide simple answers and supposed certainty, joining a large audience that agrees with you. Our culture provides TV news shows, blogs and radio talk shows that cater to millions who are morphing into the same uncritical packages. This is why one of the last essays Yoder ever wrote was outlining 19 different forms of patience that were vital for communicating his ideas, which obviously transcended any available package.
RW: Let me get this right. He came up with 29 different brands of pacifism and 19 different brands of patience? Yoder would have made a lot more money as one of those creative geniuses that work for corporations, coming up with new brands of everything to sell the American public! As a father and a husband and a pastor, I’m working on patience all the time. What is that: 3 brands of patience? How am I supposed to work on 19 brands of patience?
AT: My favorite was what he called ‘the collegial patience of the outvoted theologian.’ In one of the Yoder’s ‘greatest hits,’ he wrote, ‘Coming to terms with being hopelessly outvoted is quite different from being convinced.’ Yoder was an ecumenical genius, an Anabaptist at a mostly Catholic University for 30 years, consistently being invited to speak at conferences all over the world. He was always in the minority, but just wasn’t compelled by the theological choices that were in the majority. That was one kind of patience that he seemed to be consistently honing.
Kimmy: So would you consider yourself an Evangelical?
AT: Honestly, it depends on the day of the week. Evangelical scholars like Stanley Grenz and Mark Noll cite David Bebbington’s four-fold description of what it means to be an Evangelical: (1) biblical authority, (2) importance of the cross, (3) the call to evangelize and (4) emphasis on conversion. All four of these evangelical pillars are very important to me, but, of course, Yoder has thrown a curve ball at all four of them and I’ve swung away. And, of course, I’m ‘evangelical’ from the Greek root euangelion—we Christians are supposed to be ‘good news’ people for the world. But evangelism means something quite different than it did 20 years ago in high school when we were trying to get everyone to make a decision to receive Christ as their personal Lord and Savior.
RW: I can see that, but clarify what you mean by saying that your being an evangelical depends on what day of the week it is. That seems a bit wishy-washy.
AT: On rare days like yesterday and today, when I’m in vibrant conversation with evangelicals like you two who think differently than I do about these four things, but who listen and question and object and share, then I feel like I want to be a part of this movement for the rest of my life. On other days, the theological convictions, heavily influenced by Yoder, that my wife and I believe passionately about, are so different from evangelicals-at-large, and either me or my conversation partner or both just aren’t listening and empathizing very well, then it gets to be just little too defeating.
RW: Yep, makes perfect sense. I hope we can be conversation partners like this for the rest of our lives. Kimmy and I need Christians like you, good friends, who will listen and understand and care, but also present a different perspective that will more faithfully shape our lives into the image of Christ. Last question about labels before we get in the water: you mentioned the label ‘Anabaptist’—what in the world is that?
AT: If we go back 500 years ago, when Luther was doing his thing in Germany and Calvin was doing his thing in Switzerland, a small community on the border of those two countries, in a little town called Schleitheim, was outlining a vision for what’s now called the ‘Radical Reformation,’ neither Protestant nor Catholic, neither Lutheran nor Reformed. The radical reformers were adamantly pacifist, lived simply, took the teachings of Jesus—especially the Sermon on the Mount—at face value and believed that the church and state should not be married—citizens of the kingdom should always have the non-coerced decision to join God’s ranks. That’s how the Anabaptists got their name. Their enemies, mostly Protestants who were none too happy about their anti-Constantinian beliefs and their demanding vision of discipleship, gave them their name mockingly because these radical reformers demanded that Christians who were baptized as infants get re-baptized in adulthood, when they chose voluntarily to follow the way of Jesus in community.
Kimberly: So Anabaptists believe you need to be baptized to be saved?
AT: Well, Anabaptists in the line of Yoder just would never put it that way. They would claim that the real significance of baptism was a clear-cut-count-the-costs decision to follow Jesus, to be a part of what God was doing in a specific community who were committed to the practices I talked about before. Baptism had deep meaning for the original Anabaptists, and still does today, because it signaled a change in the believer’s identity and mission by being a part of the enemy-loving-and-serving-and-forgiving messianic team. It was an act that sealed the deal—those baptized into the messiah would not be primarily identified any longer by ethnicity, race, socio-economic status or national patriotism, but instead by being part of the messianic people.