Analysis of the AG Trust: part three

Research and Development

“The very first project of the new Assemblies of God Trust is to commission a remake for the Foundations For Faith course to bring its approach into modern times. Six years equals a generation of elementary kids. We are over six generations behind.

Does learning doctrine have to be boring? Can learning doctrine ever be really fun? The group of children’s pastors we brought together to rewrite the curriculum believe it can and will be fun.

The new approach will not change the 16 Fundamental Truths, but will enable us to more effectively teach the next generations — generations who don’t know what it is like to live without a computer, Game Boy, Xbox or cell phone or the Internet.

The Research and Development Initiative of the AG Trust will provide the funds to enable our Fellowship to produce innovative, cutting-edge educational materials to teach timeless truths to all ages.”

Research and development usually entails working on developments and ways to improve or redesign what a company has to offer. One will note, however, that at some point, Ford stopped developing the Pinto once they found out that car exploded from a fender-bender.

You can read the Statement of Fundamental Truths here. The problem that arises from efforts called “research and development” in regard to the 16 tenets is that there is something else called “doctrinal purity”. In fact, what the Assemblies is talking about when it comes to updating Foundations for Faith has nothing to do with research and development and everything to do with repackaging for subsequent generations.

And there is nothing wrong with updating for future generations of young people (and old people, for that matter), provided that what is proclaimed as truth corresponds rightly with theology and is properly epistemic. The fact that the curriculum has not been updated in six generations (for whatever reason, Christians love to refer to people in terms of generations) shows that doctrinal purity, and not research and development continues to be at the fore. The firebrand pastor has been dictating–and still does dictate–how things are operated from Springfield to its affiliated district offices.

I appreciate the tough spot in which the leadership of the Assemblies of God finds itself, from the very top to district officials to university presidents and presbyters. On one side, there is scholarship, some of whom are pastors and faculty, who stop short, in classrooms and offices, of saying that the Statement of Fundamental Truths is broken and needs a revisit and renovation. The intention, generally, is not spite or ill-will, but preservation of the movement and or intellectual integrity.

The other side–again, generally–are those who find Jesus to be the answer to all the questions, who think the solution to real-life societal and ecclesiastical issues is more of the Holy Ghost, who find these serious questions to be a sign of apostasy and a pre-tribulation, premillennial rapture of the church and represent a desire to resort to primitive Pentecostalism.

Both sides are guilty of one thing: appealing to doctrinal purity. In terms of doctrinal purity, the latter has a natural, home-field advantage; while the former needs to watch the tongue for fear of being placed under suspicion. Faculty at A/G Bible colleges don’t get tenure, at last check, but a series of one-year contracts. If they don’t like you, they can replace you, saying they choose not to renew a contract. And they have not been afraid to replace, because those administrators are beholden to regents, many of whom represent the latter.

Tenure is a controversial topic right now in education in general. I believe tenure should remain a part of the academy, but not in its current–unaccountable and broken–form. And if that needs reexamination, so does this concept of “doctrinal purity”.

What you’ll notice by the above link to doctrinal purity is that there is no direct link to anything about the A/G’s Commission on Doctrinal Purity. Their fingerprints are all over anything that has anything to do with doctrine, position papers or theological development (if there is any) coming from headquarters. It’s like Orwell’s Ministry of Truth, or the Gestapo: faceless and beholden to its own special interest.

The 1800s brought about a number of significant developments in American religious life: the Second Great Awakening, the rise of the tent meeting, the Holiness movement and the crisis cults. When one also considers the number of catastrophic events endured by the United States in the 19th Century–two economic collapses, the War of 1812 and the Civil War, Lincoln’s assassination, the oppression of the American South by carpetbaggers and robber barons, etc.–it creates the perfect stew for the explosion of Pentecostal and charismatic Christianity, first in Europe in the 1890s, then here in America, incidentally, in yet untamed Kansas on New Year’s Day 1901.

I make a brief historical pitstop to say this: nothing that happens anywhere in American life occurs in a vacuum. The flowering of tongues as a new Christian distinctive is neither a sovereign move of God nor an overreaction of human limitation pressed against an undefinable, unqualifiable experience. [Though, in the interest of full disclosure, I tend to think more toward the second than the first.] That statement alone will rankle more than a few, but it’s the truth: it corresponds with reality and is epistemologically sound. Everything that happens with the birth of modern Pentecostal Christianity makes perfect sense when given a historical backdrop. It does not diminish the events, it makes them real. Reality lends these things gravitas.

And reality, frankly, is not what we do very well.

Among the other religious developments were the crisis cults, and Christian flash-in-the-pan heresies: the rise of the Amish, the Mormons, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, their heritage found in the Millerites (as we’ll see, the Holiness movement is a child of Miller as well), Latter Rain, multiple anointings/blessings (Charles Parham himself preached somewhere between 10-12 ), the Social Gospel, and one could by extension include the Ku Klux Klan and other supremacist movements as well. They all–minus the Social Gospel–preached sanctification as isolation: the Amish still drive buggies, the Mormons moved west, the JWs essentially hid until the date of the end came and went (…and came, and went…and came, and went…) and the Holiness movement latched up with everything from abolition to temperance, beginning what I have long referred to as “bomb shelter Christianity”.

The reality of the matter is that movements that heavily rely on “doctrinal purity” are fundamentally unsure. And you cannot hold something as fundamentally true when it has not happened, thus eliminating the final four of the 16 tenets. So, in the face of anxiety and uncertainty, and in the effort to assert a fully-human existence, a movement needs purity, and to vigilantly defend itself against thorough examination, even from itself.

This disturbing trend exists in all the crisis cults. The Assemblies, itself not a cult by any definition, would be wise to step away from such a sordid, unwitting relationship and allow itself to be scrutinized, examined and reworked for the sake of integrity in theology and openness to criticism; at the very least, for its very viability in the near future. If what we believe is true, we ought to welcome it. If what we believe is not properly theological, then we as those bound to truth, should be welcoming of examination. This is not mere semantics or word-play: little things matter. A statement of faith not only allows for institutionalized opinion, but for open and honest scrutiny.

The fact is that the Assemblies of God excels in doctrine, but suffers in theological development. A wholly Pentecostal theology has been sought, but by those who have been kept on the outside (Amos Yong, Clark Pinnock, et al) or forced out, when faced with a preponderance of the evidence (Edith Blumhofer, et al): and these are the people, off the top of my head, who have done the research and attempted to offer help for development!

The Assemblies needs to raise capital to develop a theological task force–many of whom are already in house–to move past fundamental truths and toward sound Pentecostal theology. Simply retooling Foundations for Faith and making the 16 tenets palatable for a new audience is unacceptable when there is so much more work to be done. In this respect, the A/G is no different than the federal government’s answer to problems in education: throw more money at it and make it more entertaining, make them take tests and meet centralized standards. The conscience of the Assemblies is clearly part of the religious right, though unable to be a part of the political process. What business does a generally-conservative laissez faire voting bloc have working within methods that are clearly progressive/statist? (Pro-lifers should also be put on notice this way.) Change the culture and you change things, change things at the top and you can expect two responses on the ground: muted, suppressed hostility or unconscious acceptance.

A conscious people wouldn’t need to fear the approval or contempt of “doctrinal purity” in the first place. Thus, it appears that the AG Trust is banking on unconscious donations based on thoughtless acceptance. After all, thinking about the matter at hand only seems to get one in trouble. There is a better way, and there is hope for the future. The AG Trust  as it is now is neither. The frustrating fact is that it could be a catalyst toward both.

Respectfully submitted for your consideration. Part four forthcoming.

Analysis of the AG Trust: part two

“Let’s keep our brightest and our best.”

“The data shows [sic] that if we can get our AG students to attend one of our AG schools, they have a much better chance of spiritual survival.”

These statements, made virtually sentences apart best summarize the fundamental disconnect between the church and the academic worlds, though my remarks will cover more than this.

At last, the Assemblies of God has realized that it costs too much to attend an Assemblies-sponsored university!

This is the component of the Trust that is the most frustrating: great, because students desperately need the assistance, and not-so-great for a number of reasons.

First, it fails to acknowledge the scores of AG alumni who are saddled with overwhelming debt loads. If money were blood and the Assemblies a body, this is putting a band aid on a deep puncture wound, untreated for 70 years. To recognize this is to the credit of the denomination; to those who are just finishing off their loan payments, just starting their loan payments or just finished defaulting on their student loans, this is icing on the cake.

True to the nature of millennial movements, the Assemblies of God has acted reactively instead of proactively, reactionary instead of prophetic. An endowment or trust fund-type program is long, long overdue. And, to embark on this enterprise now is bad timing: university endowments are losing money, as this story from the Indianapolis Star bears out. A trust or endowment that is not managed well will not bear interest worth handing out to students, much less any interest at all, and the last thing the Assemblies needs is to run this ambitious effort like a pledge drive or with faith promises. A down economy will not make faith promise-givers promise-keepers. (With all apologies to Bill McCartney.)

And, make no mistake, this economy has come unhinged from reality. What is happening in the markets, in my most amateur opinion, is not reflective of reality. In a time when funds are losing value by the week, is it worth the risk of thousands of church dollars? As I said in part one, less dollars means more troubles up top, not to mention pastors’ salaries being threatened. Can a church, right now, afford to pay pastors twice, which is the essence of the Next Generation fund? Can many churches really afford to pay pastors at all?

Now, to speak directly to the aforementioned quotes, what kind of quality does the Assemblies expect from its youth when they imply that their best and brightest will walk away from faith if they don’t go to their schools? What kind of best and brightest are we raising, if we have come to expect them to, under statistically realistic circumstances, fail?

The logical fallacy put forward here says that Assemblies of God-sanctioned schools are academically rigorous and spiritually vibrant, and your kids will fail without it.

Youth pastors: your kids are going to fail.

Senior pastors: your kids are going to fail.

Parents: your kids are going to fail.

What the AG Trust unintentionally says is that, according to UCLA, A/G churches are blowing it at a two-thirds clip, but they’d rather put the blame on an 18-year-old who either cannot afford a Christian college or chooses to go to a secular institution!

In a not-so-incidental twist of irony, Ralph Riggs, the man for whom the Trust’s scholarship is named, put it this way: “If they are lost, we are to blame.” [Wood, "Passion for the Future," p. 8; italics mine]

The reality of the matter is that quality and quantity are not any more connected than Genghis Khan to the assassination of Lincoln. Big youth groups do not show that the ministry to youth is successful. Big churches do not mean that the ministry to the community is successful. Church-going children is not sufficient evidence for meaningful development.

All of these things are neglected when people choose to hide behind polling or statistics. In this case, a scare tactic is substituted for meaningful examination of the reasons why the students are leaving the faith at a conservatively-estimated 70%. (The statistics I had heard while involved with Chi Alpha were not the same as the ones promoted by the AG Trust. Those numbers were closer to 90%. Much more ominous a number, much more revealing than a simple fraction. Regardless, the truth is that the pattern is growing more and more marked as we march along.)

The old, 20th Century church model said that the church needs to be all things to all people, a one-stop shop for all things Christian, a bomb shelter from the evil, nasty outside world. That obsolete thinking–a paradigm that never really worked in the first place, mind you–helps guide the AG Trust; in this case manifested as protection of youth from the world around us. These same kids are–right now–either hopelessly disconnected, or well-exposed. The raw either-or of the predicament shows that the Assemblies hasn’t done a very good job developing people, much less preparing students for ministry or life. Who should worry about backsliding when our students are either too invested or not at all? Over-investment is not a sign of health: it’s a sign of overcompensation.

Riggs, again, looms large: “If they are lost, we are to blame.”

My bias is coming out most obviously here: the AG Trust gives reason for Chi Alpha to worry about the legitimacy of the support from A/G churches, the General Council and US Missions. While Wood’s contribution to the COCHE report delicately walks the high wire between support of AG colleges and Chi Alpha, the fact is that this is an overt attempt to give the moral and financial highground to AG schools, especially when many churches and youth pastors tend to view non-AG-school-attending graduates as less valuable. When coupled with the fact that the statistic used from UCLA is a statistic borrowed directly from Chi Alpha’s research department, this line of thinking grows less conspiratorial and more legitimate. Anecdotally, a recruiter from an Assemblies of God university told me as much with a straight face. This isn’t a partnership or networking, they simply don’t trust Chi Alpha to do its job.

Speaking of Chi Alpha’s job, the three-fold mission of Chi Alpha is as follows: 1) Protect the Investment; 2) Reach international students; 3) Reach the campus with the gospel, essentially in that order. Chi Alpha is a branch of US Missions. Missions organizations exist to spread religious belief. Why, then, is the principle method of growth coming from church kids?

Let me be clear: I believe in campus ministry. I devoted my career in ministry–even, as it turns out, sacrificed my career in ministry with the Assemblies–to the cause of reaching college students. My internship with a noted chapter of Chi Alpha taught me something very profound, amongst other things I value greatly: a ministry can exist on a campus without ever being a part of campus. The majority of students in that organization were church transplants, many of whom came from the same churches. I do not say this with malice or any ill-will toward my chapter, I have great friends there and I value my time spent there, but the reality is that, whether in church or elsewhere, numbers do not tell a whole story, and responsibilities can be shirked when the numbers will deflect criticism.

What I’m getting at here is that big Chi Alphas and Assemblies colleges can suffer from the same problem, but instead of raw numbers for XA, one can look at percentage of capacity or enrollment ratios for the colleges and commit the same logical fallacy. Enrollment is up, things are great! We have 100 students, things are great! Enrollment is down, what’s wrong with us? Our XA was at 100 but is now at 25, what’s wrong with us? The campus ministry gets more credit for growth, and more criticism for declination. The college may get less overt criticism, but continues to get funding; while a Chi Alpha campus missionary might well lose his or her income!

Indeed, this tells a better, more true-to-life story, and offers a better message: if we are really interested in seeing our students keep the faith, they need to be out where their faith can be tried and tested, not where they are assumed to be righteous. As one of my mentors once told me: the easiest place to backslide is Bible college!

If that weren’t enough, here’s a dirty little secret: according to people who know, Chi Alpha consistently produces better pastors and missionaries than their Bible college counterparts, both in terms of longevity and in terms of spiritual reproduction.

That is not to say that the AG Trust is worthless because AG schools are worthless, that would be a misunderstanding of what I am trying to convey. As I submitted in part one, and am reinforcing now, our churches are not doing the job they set out to do, but instead are suffocating in self-interest, protecting the Assemblies instead of engaging culture. Again, reactive instead of prophetic.

While we’re here, it must be at least taken into consideration that because the denomination, like other denominations, has a tendency to protect itself, that domestic missions efforts have to be to parts of our society that are decidedly not covered by our core demographics. In this way, Teen Challenge and inner-city efforts are celebrated, not unlike the overt preference of the Assemblies to overseas missions. The fact of the matter is that the fellowship is comprised largely of white, upper to middle-class families of middle age and older people. Teen Challenge and inner-city efforts are different; like missionary efforts to non-Eurocentric nations, they share an exotic quotient.

Efforts like Chi Alpha, though, end up muddied by the fact that the majority of college students are the product of white, upper to middle-class families. It is no surprise that churches tend to ask what they get in exchange for campus ministry support, or hold funds hostage in campus cities unless the Chi Alpha missionary funnels students into their pews. Is it any surprise that churches have young adult or college and career ministries in direct competition with a Chi Alpha chapter, or worst of all, don’t even know (or care) that an Assemblies-sanctioned ministry is at work in the midst of campus life? Or those churches will support international student ministry efforts but eschew XA? Cynically stated, foreigners are sexy, Americans just need to get involved in a church. (Or Bible college. I digress.)

Arthur Holmes put it best: Christian colleges do not exist to educate, but indoctrinate. (Ironically, Holmes was a professor at Wheaton.) They are in the retention business first and foremost. Statistics like those the AG Trust offer, coupled with the fear tactics the AG Trust and its partners have a tendency to employ, only make Holmes’ argument all the more accurate. (Why else would Evangel–the AG’s preeminent, if not only, liberal arts university–catch so much flak? Or have a strong alumni financial support network?) If the Assemblies of God is to place the future of the church in the hands of its offspring and trust its fate to be vital and transformative, it will not do so by pushing A/G colleges or creating a trust fund, though those may be well-intentioned and good ideas. It will do so only by building and developing real people to survive and thrive in the real world, a process that, when applied to college-aged people, happens too late. That kind of development comes from healthy churches and healthy families bringing up well-adjusted, disciplined kids.

Additionally, at last check, most colleges and universities in the Assemblies are either land-locked or suffering from enrollment decline. So many Assemblies high-school graduates cannot go to an A/G school not only because it’s too expensive, but also because they physically can’t be there. And because many of those schools for whatever reason have an allergy to off-campus living, the problem can’t be solved aside from building funds and property development.

And for one final reason, numbers drives for Assemblies of God-sponsored institutions of higher learning, both financial and physical, cannot work:

Most Assemblies of God high school graduates simply don’t want to go.

The numbers, as they are, bear this out. The fact that graduates reject Bible college is not the same as them rejecting their faith. Cost can be overcome, provided students want to be there. Harvard, Stanford or a solid state school are all a world apart from Southeastern or Evangel. I’m not picking on Southeastern or Evangel, either; the fact remains that, for whatever reason, these campi are not atop many prospective students’ wish lists.

Sometimes, the better course of action is to respond to the reality of big-picture situations than force your way to an unlikely ideal. The Trust, unfortunately, is clearly neither a response, nor is it likely to move the Assemblies toward its ideal.

Respectfully submitted for your consideration. Part three forthcoming.

Analysis of the AG Trust: part one

For some of you, you’re looking at this and saying “huh?” That’s OK. If you don’t want to delve into church business, statistics and other nonsense, I don’t mind; feel free to peruse other posts out here. No hard feelings.

Several months before I allowed my ministerial license with the denomination in which I was raised to expire, I received a package introducing and outlining a trust designed to help provide payment assistance for would-be ministers’ student loan costs. In that package was a pamphlet, some additional materiel and, of course, a pledge form and return envelope.

The AG Trust is a great idea, but, with all sincerity and good will intended, too little and too late. I hope to spell this out clearly over the next week or so.

A few years ago, the denomination’s Commission on Christian Higher Education (now referred to as the Alliance for Assemblies of God Higher Education) released a report entitled, “Is the Lower Cost Worth the High Price?” The report, a collaboration between then-Secretary, now-General Superintendent George Wood, Christian college consultant Steven Henderson and the director of Assemblies of God Christian Higher Education, Dayton Kingsriter. The resulting product was an impassioned plea for greater enrollment of Assemblies of God high school graduates into A/G colleges and universities.

While the reasoning for the report was ostensibly to protect Christian youth from the dangers of backsliding at a public or private secular institution of higher learning, a glance at the statistics from the past two to three years shows a stagnation of growth in the fellowship, essentially zero growth in the higher education sector and a general “brain drain” of laypeople and ministers from the denomination. (Summary and comprehensive statistics can be found here.)

[In the interest of full disclosure, I am a former minister in the Assemblies: my license lapsed at the turn of the calendar year. That said, I hold no grudge against the denomination. The reason I write about this is because I spent a number of years working in the campus ministry arm of the A/G (Chi Alpha) as a student, volunteer, intern and candidate for ministry. So an enterprise attempting to energize an under-appreciated, under-utilized demographic gets my attention, as well it should.]

The Trust is rooted in three initiatives: “church multiplication”, “training new leaders” and “research and development”. For reference and ease, quotations, unless otherwise noted, come from the AG Trust’s official website, aogtrust.org.

Church multiplication

“We must have vibrant, evangelistic new churches reaching out to the 18,000 communities in the United States that are without an Assemblies of God church. With your help, the Assemblies of God Trust will help make it happen.”

There are a number of problems here. First, the stated goal is to invest in areas where there is no present church affiliated with the Assemblies. These communities are likely small to mid-sized towns and cities. Said towns and cities are a small percentage of the state or general populace. Speaking from a purely fiscal perspective, why should this denomination spend thousands of dollars on planted churches in communities that are either 1) a blip on the map; or 2) stretching thin the supply line for pastoral support?

In all likelihood, smaller cities and towns already have entrenched churches, which already have the cultural highground. Why would the Assemblies risk planting churches in these areas? Further, if there was an Assembly in one of these communities in the past and it shuttered (the ugly upshot of the Decade of Harvest, according to Blumhofer, et al), would it be prudent to plant a new one? And what of church planters; many of whom are decidedly uninterested in rural or smaller communities detached from urban areas? Given the targeted demographic, the black-framed glasses-wearing, soul-patch fronting former youth pastor cum home missionary doesn’t fit the bill, in my opinion.

Second, an analysis of the converse of the above quote betrays another picture entirely. Here’s what it says: “We have stagnant, self-interested established churches reaching out to the x communities in the United States that have an Assemblies of God church.” [x is, of course, the variable of communities that have A/G presence.] Granted, that’s not true, there are great Assemblies churches as well as less-than-stellar ones. This could very well be an accdiental example of overstating the need, in this instance, throwing every other A/G church under the bus. When we consider that the prospective charter membership is comprised of ministers, A/G college alumni, select laypeople and those already established churches, it’s smart to pitch the trust in a way that doesn’t stomp on toes.

…but here’s the problem with being nice: it doesn’t solve the problem, the problem being that the big picture is bleak, growth is at zero, an entire demographic (18-30) has almost entirely abdicated the movement and where there are congregations, they are graying. Where there are gray hairs, there is less income; less income, less offerings; less offerings, big problems up top. So, they’re essentially selling a revolution to the bourgeoisie, should the trust be effective in stimulating the economy of the church, against whom they would revolt! I don’t get the feeling the Bolsheviks or Sandinistas asked for permission before taking over, much less an allowance to make it happen.

As an aside, one is forced to ask a question of A/G management: Is the converse statement true? If not, why are most church planters entering suburban/exburban America and places where there are already Assemblies churches in proximity?

Concerning the established churches and established ministers, the preferred way to enter full-time ministry is for a would-be pastor to go through Bible college. Should a freshly-graduated Bible college alum head out straightaway into planting a church? If established churches balk at the idea of having a young senior pastor, and those in campus ministry–a field, I would argue, that is pitted in direct competition with planting–aren’t allowed to head straight out from the college to the field, why have a church planting major?

Additionally, what meaningful difference is there between those in pastoral studies and church planting? That question goes two ways: educationally (is there a dichotomy in curricula and why?) and institutionally (is there a departure in philosophy and why?) Most of all, why plant when you all but admit that the way you do spiritual business is failing, or at best, not optimal? If most pastors go through the Bible college experience, what, if any, difference is there between a church planter and one headed into traditional church ministry? To borrow from one of my seminary professors, what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

Statistics of church plant closures are nearly impossible to come by, and probably with good reason. Anecdotally, and I have offered this elsewhere courtesy a public statement from a faculty member of an Assemblies of God Bible college, 90% of graduates who enter full-time ministry are out within ten years of graduation. (When factored against a statistic like nearly nine of ten Evangelical youth group-going, high school graduates walk away from their faith after one semester at a non-Christian college or university, the problem becomes much more striking. More on this in the next part in this series.) A fair and reasonable guess is that the successes of these plants are dwarfed by the failures, while an educated perspective goes on to say that many of those who do ’succeed’ do so by adopting to the methods of the traditional Assemblies of God church model. The dressing is a little different, the coffee may be a little better and there may not be an organ, banner or tambourine in sight, but the end result is probably something that is more or less more of the same.

And what is to come that, 30, 40, 50 years down the line, will rescue church plants from a legacy of mediocrity? For that is what Superintendent Wood all but says about the current state of the union.

I would love to be wrong on this, but if the Assemblies of God is staking their future as a movement in casting wide the seeds of church plants, it doesn’t appear to be an idea that is considerate of current socio-political cultural motif, a wise investment of money and energies, or presented in a way that adequately or accurately stresses the necessity for such capital.

Respectfully submitted for your consideration. Part two forthcoming.

on niceness

We’ve become too nice.

I just returned from my second set of intensive courses at seminary, where I had hoped for academic rigor and challenging peers. While I have found both, what I have also found, are saccharine and shallow people, those who’d rather be nice than make a point. In other words, what I have found are people who are fundamentally no different than those I strive to–and went to seminary to–avoid.

We offer people the kingdom of God, but give them a crusty double-wide. Hey, at least there are plenty of doormats.

Don’t get me wrong: I’ve met some great people there, people serious about their faith and academics. But there are those who would rather be passive and nice than pursue anything meaningful. And they’re in ministry, en masse.

I’m not against being friendly, I don’t think people should be cruel or mean. But persistent niceness is not virtuous, nor is it healthy. It’s ecclesiastical correctness. Think political correctness, but for the 8/9.30/11 AM church crowd.

I’m not cynical enough to say that nice people are nice because there’s nothing else there. But clearly, as demonstrated by this cross-section of church people, there is a line of thinking in this little corner of society that upholds niceness as a preeminent value, a fruit of the spirit. The world is a cold, indifferent place; what makes us think that going from the freezer into the fire somehow makes for evenly-cooked meat? That is to say, taking a frozen steak, slapping it on a hot grill and serving it may look good, but little if anything happens in the middle. It comes out half-baked.

Time and again, I was told that you can’t attract a bear with crap; the metaphor essentially saying that people won’t hear you unless you give them something they want. The metaphor breaks down because truth, and the pursuit of it, is nothing like sating one’s particular taste. Often times, the truth is more like brussel sprouts at the cosmic dinner table: you’re not going anywhere until you put them in your stomach whether you like them or not.

The Christian message, indeed, the Christ himself, was utterly disinterested in the flavor of the day in antiquity, and he, the ultimate truth, was not a flavor for which those who were so anxiously awaiting their messiah were particularly in the mood. For those who desperately needed some sustenance to survive, though, Jesus was the bread of life.

Best of all, Jesus was not polite. Christ did not come from Stepford, nor is his message one resembling happy happy joy joy.

So we had a guest lecturer in one of our morning sessions, a young Ph.D. who gave his talk not only to the class, but to a select number of professors and faculty: he was interviewing for a job with the seminary. The spotlight was on, and our presenter really struggled, and understandably so. The self can be the toughest obstacle to overcome when you’re fighting for a job. Nevertheless, he wilted under the pressure.

After a break, we reconvened without the candidate and the faculty asked for feedback, written and verbal. I volunteered some thoughts that were strong and fair, but firmly in the camp of being concerned about the prospect’s ability to handle a graduate-level classroom. And lo! the class turned to look at me as though I wanted to wrest open the poor man’s jaw and poop in his mouth! The other comments offered ranged from ‘he’s a nice guy,’ ‘I think he did a good job,’ to ‘well, he’s trying’ to ‘he shows humility.’ Forgive me for thinking that mostly whiffing with the classroom opportunity demonstrates something other than humility!

The feedback time ended, and I returned to taking notes, and I found myself feeling bad for offering a loaded critique. Was I too hard on him? Did I treat him fairly in my analysis? Am I mean for giving negative feedback?

At that point I realized that the climate established by those in the classroom was one of blissful ignorance. And it’s not that the school is doing it, but it comes from wherever it is they come from. Our churches are producing what CS Lewis uncharitably, but truthfully called “men without chests”. (Since most churchgoers are women, I choose to also include the equal opportunity “women without chests,” in the most non-bosom way possible. And, while I’m here, why is seminary a sausage-fest when most of our laypeople are female? Another conversation for another day.)

People aren’t nice. Does that mean we ought to be mean? Of course not. Of course, if we are overly nice in a cruel world full of people who do not excel in being polite or downright cheery, how is that a witness to anything other than just being annoying?

Later on in intensives, my professor said something that left quite an impression on me: he said that his commitment to truth surpasses even his commitment to theology. And it makes perfect sense: if all truth is God’s truth (which all is), and the quest for truth helps us understand the nature of God (which it does), then even the study of God’s nature and interaction with the world is secondary. How much less important, then, is being nice as a matter of Christian discipline?

There’s a difference between being nice and being kind. Kindness is an extension of compassion, whereas niceness tends to have no regard for anyone but the self. Unshakable niceness may be covering an existential vacuum, after all. Have you ever seen a nice person let their guard down? It’s not pretty, in fact, it shows how artificial being nice is. In the quest for ecclesiastical correctness, we see how fundamentally incorrect people can be.

I’m not interested in nice people. I don’t need people who incessantly must be cheery. I need people who are unafraid to be, um, people: gloriously human in our joys and sorrows, our anger and peace, our sin and righteousness, and in our positive and negative impressions on events, people, places and experiences. A relationship with God does not exempt us from the all-encompassing realities that comprise the spectrum of life.

And if that spectrum includes disappointment, frustration, anxiety and frankness, we ought not feel shame for expressing them. In fact, I would argue for quite the opposite: so long as the spectrum of experience does not lead us to sin, our honesty is in itself an act of worship.