THE THOUGHT GAP: A HUMAN LIMITATION
CLOYD ANTHONY

Contemporary communications media have been repleted with discussions of gaps: “security gap”, “credibility gap”, “communication gap”, and others. It occurs to me that the gap in our thinking processes may be basic to all other gaps, and to our personal and social problems. This gap is difficult to identify in ourselves, and more difficult still to bridge. It seems to be indigenous to human fallibility, to our culture and our total way of life.

This little article is intended to focus attention primarily on the thought gap in the religious world, and more specifically in our brotherhood—that wing of the Restoration Movement called the Church of Christ. (Or, if you prefer, the church of Christ.) I was “born and reared” in this brotherhood and I shall never, of my own accord, defect. Serious as our shortcomings are (and there are many) I see more, and more serious, faults in other religious establishments.

Paul exhorted the church at Corinth to, “Examine yourselves whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?”. (2 Cor. 13:5 emphasis mine). This exhortation is appropriate for all people in every age. Each of us as an individual, and all of us collectively as a brotherhood, must re-examine our beliefs, practices, Biblical interpretations, and our attitudes toward those in other “sheepfolds”. Self-criticism may easily develop into a masochistic exercise that is less gratifying than our perpetual sadistic analysis of our religious neighbors, but in the long run it will be more profitable to us, and to them. My lifelong association with the Church of Christ has imbued me with a loyalty and preference that I could never shake even if I so desired. Nevertheless, my supreme loyalty to Christ and to truth, as God gives me light to see truth, compel me to reexamine, continuously, my own self and the brotherhood of my special preference. If we are properly and adequately self-critical, correcting ourselves with honest objectivity, we shall get along much better among ourselves, with our “erring” neighbors, and with God.

One of the more precious talents which God gave to each of us is the capacity to think, to reason. Yet, this talent is one that we bury. We are lazy. It is so much easier and more gratifying to buy thinking already canned for us, especially if it is labeled “TRUTH” and if one of our “sound” brethren assures us that it is not adulterated.

I am certain that God saw fit to bless many, perhaps most, other people with capabilities far greater than he gave to me, but I accept this comparative “discrimination” gracefully. This would be a poor world indeed if my capacities and achievements were representative of the best. My responsibility and my desire is to use well the talent entrusted to me and return to my Donor, some day, the principal with added interest. A related responsibility is to do all that I reasonably can do to stimulate other people to use their talent to think. I wish to do that with the least possible offense. God’s children now bleed so profusely from wounds inflicted upon each other that love’s salve can never completely heal.

From my earliest clear recollections as a child to the present moment I have been disturbed by the tragic poverty of serious, honest, objective thinking on my own part and especially, of course, on the part of others. (It has always been easier and more pleas ant to see the speck in my brother’s eye than to detect the log which obstructs my own vision). It bothers me to hear intelligent but lazy, undisciplined minds, “solve” the most complex social, economic, political and international problems, or answer, with an air of self-confident authority, the most profound questions relative to our spiritual destiny, by simple platitudes and cliches drawn from their little bag of folklore, preachments, and traditions, and transmitted by the “sages” of their own small world of groups and subcultures. All of us suffer occasional lapses in thoughtful, objective analysis of situations which face us, and many of us seem never to have begun to think. We are content to be record players, parrots, repeating the meaningless old shibboleths and faulty Biblical interpretations which we have heard repeated in monologue for so long that we accept them as “sound doctrine” that we must defend without critical examination. We suspect the faithfulness of anyone who fails to “ . . . speak the same thing . . .” (1 Cor. 1:10)

Rational thinking is the most difficult of all labor. Perhaps that is one reason we do so little of it. Thinking involves seeing relationships. It requires painstaking analysis of all recognizable factors relevant to the situation or problem under consideration. Seldom, if ever, can we be certain that we have identified all of the relevant factors. However, the thinking person has a mind that is aware of its own limitation, open always to consideration of new evidence, and with new insights he will, inevitably, modify his ideas, concepts and beliefs. This willingness to change one’s views consistent with intelligent observation and reason brings upon the thinking person criticism by those whose minds are closed, who “have the truth” and who equate faithfulness with a stubborn, tenacious retention of irrational views.

Honest thinking is anchored in the assumption that our dominant value is truth even if truth does reveal unpleasant factors. If we love truth we must break down the protective walls of prejudice which we have built up around ourselves.

Thinking requires an unusual kind of mental-spiritual honesty, integrity, and objectivity. Courage and integrity are essential if I take into account in my thinking items of evidence which shatter my preconceptions or prove me to be wrong. But if truth is my first love I must be willing to lose my “face”. Jesus may have meant this, in part, when he said, “ . . . whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel’s the same shall save it.” (Mk. 8:35)

Finally, thinking necessitates a generous measure of genuine humility. Conceit convinces me that I now have the truth and my views are correct. Humility reminds me that I am fallible, and that it is by grace that I am what I am. My present views are, at best, very fragmentary, incomplete and must be tentative. There is no room for felt superiority; no time for bitter attacks against those who differ with me.

I do not accept as true everything that is labeled “science”. We have enough idolatry already without deifying another human creation. I do believe, however, that the method of science, in so far as it is applicable, is the most useful one yet discovered for revealing reality in the areas of human interpersonal and intergroup relations, and in the area of religious thought. There are, of course, some questions in my own religious perspective which seem to defy satisfactory explanation by the method of science, or by cold logic and rational thinking. The “leap of faith” and “If a man dies, shall he live again?” are examples. I do not presume that I can “prove” my faith or my belief in eternal life by scientific method or by any system of logic. I can, however, reduce some of the irrational elements in my beliefs. Then, some things in this life may be neither rational nor irrational; They may belong in the realm of the nonrational or super-rational. When “The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God” (Rom. 8:16), the symbols of meaning and communication defy the observation and analysis by human sense perception.

There is an array of forces which frustrates anyone who tries to free his mind from prison and do a bit of thinking. Some of these forces are unintentional; others are deliberately planned. “Dissent” is a nasty word in some circles. Divergence from the norms of thinking of a party or establishment is, to put it mildly, discouraged. A thinking person constitutes a threat to those in authority, or to those who feel burdened with the enormous responsibility of defending “the truth” against “liberalism”, “modernism”, “evolution”, “God is dead”, “situation ethics”, “ecumenicity” and a host of other evils as they see them. The mouths and pens of heretics and false teachers must be stopped, even if—the most questionable tactics of “modernism” have to be employed to get the job done.

Censorship and censureship are related techniques. The editors of some leading religious papers refuse to publish articles which express points of view contrary to those that prevail in their particular party or sect. There is only one way in which dissenting ideas find their way into a paper that exercises that kind of censorship. A “loyal, sound” writer may include in his articles ideas gleaned from a free press provided he censures them uses them as awful examples of “false teaching” which threaten the brotherhood. Often, the writer does not understand the implications of the position which he attacks, but all of those who belong to that party feel relieved that “truth” has been defended against “error”. The result of this kind of editorial policy is a perpetual flow of utter nonsense. When you read one issue, you will have read most future issues for years in advance. It is unfortunate that many in our brotherhood read this kind of paper exclusively, and that in some instances church elders abet the practice by using the “Lord’s money” to order mass subscriptions for a congregation. This helps to keep the membership in a state of spiritual infancy.

I shall mention only one more of the many situations which discourage thinking and honest search for reality and spiritual growth. I refer to the broad area of teaching and education. Much of our “teaching” is not teaching at all in a legitimate definition of the term. And what passes for “education” would best be labeled indoctrination, propaganda, and a process of thought control. Real education is a process of leading out and drawing out latent capacities, of stimulating minds to think and reason and make independent decisions. The “pouring in” process, which in the most common method used, leaves the mental capacities unused until they atrophy. Some pouring in is inevitable especially with young children, but its emphasis should decline with increasing age. It should play a minor role in the education of youth and adults.

The pouring in method is used in the home, and is continued, sometimes with intensified zeal, in church, schools and colleges. (Both the “atheistic and “Christian”) . We force-feed children and youth with so-called knowledge, truth, and wisdom, and all of the “right” answers. We test their ability to play the records back to us perfectly. We shield them, by isolation and segregation, from “false” teachers and doctrine both secular and religious. Thereby, we believe that we are bringing them up “in the nurture and admonition of the Lord”. Our misplaced faith is further reinforced by Solomon’s advice: “Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it”. (Prov.22:6)

We certainly do train our children and youth very much as we train dogs and ponies and other animals that lack the mental qualities which God gave to our children. We assume that the “it”, from which the child will not depart if he is trained properly, must refer to the beliefs, knowledge, and answers with which we filled him. If the record he plays back is exactly in harmony with the recording we made—if he has learned to “speak the same thing” , then our training must be flawless. I doubt if we interpret Solomon correctly. What do you think?

What are the consequences of our religious education? A considerable segment of our young people, perhaps a majority, do remain “faithful”, more or less, to the sect in which they have been trained. By the time they finish high school their ability to think and to exercise independent judgment has been emasculated or driven underground. Some of these “loyal” youth whom we succeeded in remolding after our own image, excel their parents and teachers in zealous loyalty to their party and in hostility toward all others. They may be poorly equipped to think and to adjust to a changing world, but if they can escape from the real world, perhaps they don’t need to think.

A minority of our young people do leave the “it”. For various reasons, the castration process which succeeds so effectively in making mental and spiritual eunuchs out of the majority, fails with a minority. After they leave the womb of conformity and uniformity imposed by home and/or church, they “go gay”, as our Amish friends have learned. Some of our youth react with a radical, violent, revolutionary spirit that shocks us. They have boiled for years in secret resentment of the enslavement to which they have been subjected. When they come “of age” they reject everything associated with early life. We would do well to listen to youth more than we talk, learn how they really think, try to understand, and respect the right of every human mind to be free under God, Creator of all.

Let me make it clear that I am not faultless in the area of education. No one is immune. All of us are under a cloud. The only unpardonable mistake is the stubborn, conceited, proud spirit that refuses to admit error and repent the same. My entire adult life has been devoted to teaching, or trying to teach—trying to rear three children; leading university students in a study of human associative life through a system of thought called sociology; leading church groups in a search for meaning through studying the Bible. I have recognized some of my errors and have tried to correct them. I have been accused of the same “crime” which Socrates and Jesus committed. If that were true it would be the greatest compliment I could want in this world. I don’t think that anyone can justly accuse me of closing any mind or hindering the freedom to think and express ideas contrary to my own.

Jesus was a thinker. He challenged his students (disciples) to think. I am one of his disciples—that and no more. He expects me to think, to use the dab of intelligence which he gave me. How can anyone say honestly that he is a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ (much less boast that he is one of the only Christians) until he has emptied himself of his own will, accepted His will, tried to think as He thinks, and walked in the light as He is in the light?

How can any thoughtful person be exposed to the good news and read the dialogues between Jesus and the Pharisees and still fail to see the parallel in our human situation today. Many of us are like the scribes, Pharisees, and “doctors of the law”. We are fearful of, and hostile toward, a fresh idea, or an old idea expressed in words that are unfamiliar to us. Dissent, no matter how sincerely and humbly offered, is “false, dangerous”.

Jesus was a dissenter. He challenged the interpretations and applications of the law as practiced in that day. He was “liberal”, the greatest of all the ages. He invented “situation ethics”, was the first “civil rights leader”, lead at least one “violent” invasion of religious places, was a severe critic of “private enterprise”, championed the rights of women and “minorities” including so-called “races”. For these and other things he was hated, villified, hounded all the days of his life on earth, persecuted and finally physically crucified. His disciples, from the first century until the end of the age, may expect similar treatment, and some of this persecution will come from those who claim to be followers of Christ. Jesus so warned us, and so it has been. There is a price to pay, crosses to bear, crucifixions to suffer, if we would see Jesus and really walk with Him.

__________________

Cloyd Anthony, Ph.D., is now retired after a lifetime of teaching Sociology in Indiana universities.