VENTURES IN FREEDOM
DAVID REAGAN

I have just finished reading the remarkable and thought provoking book edited by Robert Meyers, Voices of Concern. It is a book that should stimulate a spiritual revolution within our brotherhood. Unfortunately, however, I am pessimistic about its prospects. My pessimism is dictated by my intimate acquaintance with certain basic attitudes which characterize my brethren within the Church of Christ. Because of these attitudes, I am convinced that few of my brethren will ever even bother to look at the book. After all, isn’t public self-criticism shameful and heretical? Doesn’t it bring reproach upon “the” Church? Doesn’t it undermine “the Faith?”

Even most of those who take the time to read the book will probably remain totally unimpressed. Their minds will be closed and defensive, and they will undoubtedly react to the penetrating criticisms of the essays either by dismissing them flippantly without thought or by bombarding them in emotion-charged sermons equally devoid of thought. And the rationalization for doing so will be the classic one that has prevailed among the leaders of our brotherhood for decades: “What more can you expect from ‘educated fools?’”

This quip will be motivated by the impressive academic credentials of those who have contributed essays to the book. Of the seventeen authors represented, five have earned doctorates, three are doctoral candidates, and five have received the Bachelor of Divinity degree.

It would seem that such statistics would serve to inspire an unusual intensity of interest in the book. But such will not be the case. I’m ashamed to admit it, but the book would probably have stood a better chance of exerting some real influence if the academic credentials of the contributing authors had been deleted entirely.

The reason is simple. Ever since I can remember, our brethren have been infused with a sort of fundamentalist anti-intellectualism.

This attitude first became apparent to me when I was still a child. Every-time some young person in the church would elect to attend a college other than a Church of Christ related “Christian school,” I noticed that the brethren would always shake their heads in consternation and mutter about the influence of atheists and evolutionists. The only thing worse was when a graduate of a “Christian” college decided to do graduate work at a “non-Christian” school. Graduate study itself was suspicion ed, but graduate work at a “non-Christian” school was next to unthinkable. What was absolutely unthinkable was an education in the East. Harvard was Hell, and its professors were the Princes of the Devil. I could not begin to count the times that I have heard my brethren dismiss with disdain an unorthodox sermon with the words “he was educated in the East, you know,” or “he’s just another educated fool!”

Fortunately, my parents were never carried away by this anti-intellectualism—this fear that a true education would undermine “the Faith.” I was given the freedom to choose my own college, and I shall be eternally grateful for it. I wanted to major in Government, and so I decided to attend the regional school that could offer me the finest education in this subject —The University of Texas. I’m sure that many of my brethren were upset by this decision. I shall never forget the family friend who made a point of telling my folks that if either of his sons went to a “non-Christian” school he would “cut them off.” Later, when I won a fellowship to a Harvard related graduate school, several of my brethren felt compelled to call me aside and warn of the dangers that lie ahead. I appreciated their concern, but I became increasingly appalled over the fact that so many of my brethren were so terribly anxious over the stability of my faith. As a matter of fact, I felt insulted. After all, hadn’t I been one of the star pupils of “the Faith?” Hadn’t I laboriously memorized all the Bible verses and technical arguments in support of our basic doctrines? Hadn’t I defended “the Faith” fearlessly at every opportunity? What, then, were they afraid of? It didn’t take me long to find out.

My years of graduate study in Boston were the most mentally stimulating and liberating that I have ever experienced. I was not indoctrinated with atheism or evolution. My field of study was International Relations. But for the first time in my life, I was taught to think critically. I was taught to challenge the accepted dogmas of political thought, to submit them to rational inquiry and empirical investigation.

It was exhilarating. It was also a bit frightening, for suddenly all the “handles” were gone, the trusted mental landmarks had disappeared. My whole carefully constructed world of political and economic axioms came tumbling down around me. The United Nations no longer appeared as the salvation of the world. International law began to emerge as more of a dream than a reality. The national interest of the United States no longer seemed identical with the higher interest of the international community as a whole. The failings of democracy and capitalism became apparent for the first time.

My mind had been opened, and with its liberation had come a strange sort of insecurity—an insecurity that was satisfying. I no longer had all the answers, but this fact was no longer terrifying. I could sense that a significant turning point had come in my life, although I did not fully understand the nature of the transformation.

And then one day I stumbled across a remarkable essay that gave meaning and direction to my intellectual metamorphosis. I am speaking of John Stuart Mill’s essay On Liberty, written in 1859. What an inspiring experience! What an intellectual thrill! If ever there were a piece of literature that should be required reading annually for university administrators and church leaders, this is it.

The search for truth is Mill’s central concern, and his forceful thesis is that this search is directly dependent upon freedom of thought and discussion. The essentiality of such freedom is due to the fact that few opinions are the result of reasoned analysis. Instead, most opinions are based upon either “received truths” or experience. In either case free discussion is a necessity if the opinion is ever to be anything other than meaningless dogma or superstition. Experience alone is not sufficient to ascertain truth since experience must be interpreted—and this requires discussion. Likewise, “received truth” must constantly be subjected to the acid test of intellectual challenge, for human history is full of opinions which were held by one age to be the ultimate truth, only to be considered by subsequent ages as false and absurd. These observations prompt Mill to the powerful assertion that “if all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind …” He then concludes by pointing out that the silencing of opinion robs the entire human race, for “if the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth; if wrong, they lose what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.”

Mill particularly condemns the blind acceptance of dead formulas as truth, without the challenge of discussion. He argues that even the strongest opinions need to be “fully, frequently, and fearlessly” discussed if they are to be prevented from degenerating into dead dogma. Understandably, Mill strongly cautions against the naive acceptance of the sacredness of orthodox religious doctrines. “There is a class of persons,” he observes, “who think it enough if a person assents undoubtingly to what they think true, though he has no knowledge whatever of the grounds of the opinion, and could not make a tenable defense of it against the most superficial objections. Such persons, if they can once get their creed taught from authority, naturally think that no good, and some harm, comes of its being allowed to be questioned … This is not knowing the truth. Truth, thus held, is but one superstition …”

In summary, says Mill, the necessity of freedom of opinion and expression is based upon three grounds. First, any opinion we silence may be true, and in silencing it we lose the truth by asserting our own infallibility. Second, even though the silenced opinion may be mainly erroneous, it will probably contain some truth, and because the prevailing opinion on any subject is rarely the complete truth, “it is only by collision of adverse opinions that the remainder of the truth has any chance of being supplied.” Third, even if the prevailing opinion be the complete truth, it will inevitably become dogma, prejudice, and empty mechanistic formula unless it is exposed to the challenge of free discussion.

Mill’s essay suddenly turned on the light for me. For the first time, I began to understand the nature of the intellectual transformation that had occurred in graduate school. Mill’s logic had provided me with an intellectual compass, and I became intent upon charting a course out of the wilderness of dogma.

It was then that the inevitable occurred. I began to apply my newly acquired thought processes to my religious inheritance. It was a painful experience. I loved that inheritance. It was the focal point of my life. And as I submitted it to the test of critical analysis, I did so tenderly and defensively, for I wanted it to stand the test. Yet, the more I studied, the more I realized that I had never really studied the Bible before. It began to dawn upon me that I was guilty of precisely the thing that I had so often condemned from the pulpit—studying the Bible with a closed mind for the purpose of defending a particular interpretation.

In my desperation I turned to my old stand-by, my “security blanket,” Leroy Brownlow’s book, Why I Am A Member of the Church of Christ. It was “the Truth” that I had learned so well as a youngster in Men’s Training Class. It was also “the Truth” that I had later incorporated almost word for word in a series of hard hitting sermons. Chapter by chapter I critically studied this cherished book that I had simply read and taken for granted so many times before. Chapter by chapter it began to fall apart at the seams, and I was seized by the realization that this book was nothing more than an unofficial creed. And after all those years of proudly proclaiming “We have no creed book but …” I was embarrassed and ashamed.

I was also confused. My belief in Jesus as Savior was stronger than ever, but I no longer knew what to believe about such matters as church organization, worship, and Christian ethics. And so, I began to search, and the search required questions, and the questions led to another disillusioning realization about the church that I loved so much: too many of my brethren’s minds were closed. To them, truth had been achieved. Questioning, therefore, was branded either as heretical or as dangerous to the faith of “the weak.” I could not understand this reaction. It seemed paradoxical to me that people who were absolutely convinced that they had discovered the truth should be afraid to submit that truth to critical inquiry.

One Wednesday night after teaching a class on the New Testament church, I was approached by two members of the congregation who counseled that I should be more discreet in my questions to the class. They were concerned that my questions might generate doubts that would undermine “the Faith” of “the weak.” Increasingly, in the years that followed I was confronted time and time again with this argument, and I slowly came to understand the meaning of the conversations that I had heard as a child the ones concerning education and its subversive influence upon religious faith. “The Faith” that my brethren were so interested in protecting was not a deep and abiding trust in Jesus as the perfect sin-offering: “the Faith” was the creed … the all pervasive corpus of sacred dogma which had been enshrined in Brownlow’s book.

And thus it is that anti-intellectualism makes perfect sense in a brotherhood such as ours.

This is why we need the challenge of things like Voices of Concern and Mill’s ideas on freedom.

David Reagan, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Government, Austin College, is serving this year as Fulbright Lecturer in the Philippines. Write him at American Embassy, USEF, Manila. This essay is our second from him. Others to follow.
 

 

If a way to the better there be, it exacts a full look at the worst.

                                                                           —Thomas Hardy