Evangelicals and Reason: The Case of Sonlight Curriculum, Ltd.
Friday, June 11, 2010 at 3:27PM | by Otter Twenty years ago John and Sarita Holzmann brought into the world a company dedicated to providing evangelical home schooling parents with the tools required to cultivate intelligent critical thinkers.
It was from the beginning an enormously popular venture.
It catered to the evangelical who believed that the best plan for cultivating a Christian world view was not to insulate the child from the best arguments against it but rather to investigate truth wherever it was found.
You can imagine the sort of assaults such a company would endure from all over the ideological map: fundamentalist Christians were scandalized that the science curriculum did not parrot the usual bogus arguments for Young Earth Creationism [YEC]. More scientifically minded people lamented that it didn't simply declare YEC to be the twaddle that it is.
Atheists and agnostics and more traditional Christians probably looked on bemused, wondering what was so original about actually reading ideas before dismissing them. Well, that's the evangelical subculture for you.
Sonlight attempted something that rarely works out well.
It attempted to hold to the idea of a reasonable faith.
Evangelicalism (depending on who is using the term) stakes itself on the premise that the most important truths are supernatural and only accessible by special revelation. Right there, you have a death-knell for the kind of intellectual pluralism required to figure out what actually is true as opposed to "what seems true to me." The search for truth cannot simultaneously depend on appeals to reasoned argument and subjugating reasoned argument to claims of special revelation.
But reason has to do with drawing out thought based on the truth of particular cases, which have to do with reality that is open to any human observer. When you reason, you look at what is, and you work your way along the chain of what is possible, probable, and necessary from what is actual according to rules that can be demonstrated to work.
This is why the evangelical meme that science or materialism is a kind of faith is equivocating: everybody, including the evangelical, survives by observing and reasoning from the observable world. But only religion, narrowly understanding the term, posits a faith in things outside of that world. It might reason from that faith, or reason inwardly from subjective states of mind, but there isn't a check on one's claims that can appeal to any arbitration we have available to us. If you tell me that God is not observable but that he has ten horns, I have no appeal except "Prove it."
In other words faith leaps over the the process of knowing.
Faith posits a thing that does not appear in reality, or posits an account for a reality that does not itself exist in a way that is accessible to any human observer. If someone tells me the Bible is infallible, for instance, and I ask, "What does that mean?" and I am told there are no mistakes in it, I know immediately that the person is talking nonsense, or else changing all the definitions of "mistake" and "true" and "fallible." Mistakes and contradictions, however theologically immaterial, lie open to view, because the Bible isn't designed for the purpose of infallibility in that sense.
The word "God," to take another instance, unless one is a pantheist or panentheist (which are excluded by most articulations of the word "evangelical") is not about a thing one can say "exists" in the same way that we ourselves do. That is, it (ordinarily) refers to nothing in time or space, nothing we can appeal to in the event of a disagreement or misunderstanding. You may see a miracle (that is, something extraordinary), but you do not see "God." Even the Bible insists that God himself dwells in light inaccessible, and that nobody has seen God except the logos [Word or discourse] of God.
That word "god" may serve excellently for something in time and space ("my god is my belly") or for some articulation of metaphysical realities our concept of which is rooted in time and space ("God is the ground of all being") or to sum up the worship-worthy nature of something ("God is love").
But if it refers to something outside of time and space, there is a tremendous difficulty that the word "god" encounters: we don't have a clue what we're talking about.
There's much that can be said about this from a theological point of view: I'm very interested in The Gospel of John's handling of the idea of the logos, a Greek concept he inherits apparently from Philo and manipulates to great effect. He says, for instance, that nobody has seen (and can therefore talk about) God, except the logos, the emanation from God that is as it were God's user interface for time-space creation.
But I'm more interested here in the relationship between god-talk and reason.
The landscape is littered with the remains of people and institutions who have tried to hold to the reasonableness of evangelical faith. Wheaton College is an exception that tends to prove the rule that it cannot be done forever: at some point you have to lose (or grow past) your current faith, or you have to give up thinking too hard about it.
Oberlin, Guilford, Earlham, and Antioch, for example, and a number of other institutions created on the same lines as Wheaton have traded in the motto "For Christ and His Kingdom" for a more definite and modest affiliation with the Eco League. And then of course there's American Fundamentalist literalism, which has renounced reason entirely in favor of revelation, whatever it may say of itself, where "facts" are only true if they conform to a literalist reading of scripture.
Sonlight's recently seen some strange times, and I think they are telling about how reason and evangelicalism intersect.
And how they don't.
Sonlight generously made available an online community forum to its customers. Lots of that space was dedicated to home schooling questions and answers, curriculum-specific discussions, and customer service.
But there was also a community forum where people could engage with another at the level of "fellowship," discussions of current events, prayer groups, and something called "lifelong learning," which was dedicated to the idea that good teachers must always be learning.
To summarize the recent rather complex difficulties at Sonlight, it became apparent that some of us on the forums were pushing the thinking of Evangelicalism to its margins. In some cases, pushing it way past those margins.
We were interrogating, for ourselves and with others, the meanings of the clichés that hold evangelicalism together, which, for intellectually engaged evangelicals, does seem natural enough. And there was something to ruffle pretty much anybody of religious conviction:
- What does "inspiration" or "inerrancy" mean, really?
- What is the pedigree of the Bible, really?
- What is the status of the Bible as "truth" if Genesis 1-11 never happened as advertised, and what cases can be built about whether they did?
- Is there a rapture in scripture?
- If there was a factual resurrection why are the gospels so divided about what actually happened?
- Who can be "saved"? How, when, why, from what, and in what sense?
- Do you believe in hell? Why? Where does your belief come from, and do the biblical texts support it?
- What can be known about Jesus, historically or otherwise?
- Why don't the Orthodox respond to the Western definition of "original sin"?
- Did the pope usurp the bishops' authoritative collegiality?
- Are there sound reasons for adopting a King James Version-only position? What are they and are they intellectually sound?
- Luther: Hero or Villain or Well-Meaning Owner of a Huge Theological Black Box?
- Did Luther really understand Paul?
These were questions coming from very biblically literate people who, in their biblical literacy, found little room for agreement. It would be pointless to deny that more than one person wondered, "If the Bible itself does not settle these questions finally and with authority, where is the authority?"
In science you could appeal to observation and induction. In reason or math you could appeal to fixed and proven rules. What do you appeal to here?
And so without anybody really intending to undermine scripture's authority, it came to be seen as less than definitive in fixing serious questions when they were opened up to the inspection of many points of view.
There were few questions that didn't come down to basic differences in perspective, experience, and presuppositions. And while I think most of the people there got along fairly well at a personal level, there were unavoidably collisions of personalities.
Many Evangelicals complained, apparently, that they felt intimidated by the big ideas and difficult questions.
The thing is, big ideas and big questions are supposed to be intimidating. That's why they're big. Some evangelicals were unaware of that (despite being engaged in Christianity, what's arguably one of the Biggest Ideas of All Time), and complained.
Sonlight made a pronouncement: tone and politeness would be regulated. Rules on the books would be enforced to protect the feelings of those who needed protection.
Okay, fair enough. Ideas were okay, but tone and politeness needed to come up to standard.
But then added to that was the caveat that no post would be permitted that tended to draw people away from... evangelicalism.
That was a strange moment for many of us. Well, what it was was a great big WTF moment for us.
I doubt that any of us wanted to hurt anybody with our questions and our attempts at articulating our faith in a way that didn't fit neatly into the Evangelical vocabulary.
But that vocabulary had reached its terminus for many of us, and we were, I freely admit, a bit much to handle for those who wanted above all to stay Evangelical. We were accused, among other things, of being "intense" by senior Sonlight personnel.
Intense is a liability when you're talking about God. Okay. Got it.
I want to say straight up that I wish the Holzmanns well, and that they have every right to make determinations like this about the forums they operate. They declared explicitly and perfectly reasonably that they want their forums to be a safe place for evangelicals:
You agree that, while honest and difficult questions and soul searching are very welcome on the Sonlight Forums, you will refrain from making statements designed to mock, discount, or pull others away from the perspective that Sonlight espouses as a company - a perspective that involves a staunch commitment to the Bible as the Word of God and loyalty to Jesus Christ as the final authority. You need not claim nor espouse either an evangelical or a broadly Christian worldview,but you agree to communicate on the Sonlight Forums in a manner that is respectful of those who do.
There's nothing wrong with saying a forum is for evangelicals and their ideas only. People like hanging out with other people of like mind.
But I think that in that moment, there was a tremor in the Force, simply because Sonlight's distinction was that it believed in a pluralistic discussion, as uncomfortable as that might be. Ideas will stand or fall on their merits. That's a silly idea where there is only one idea: of course it will stand.
The idea that one may not say anything "designed to pull [others] away" from evangelicalism meant by contrast that Sonlight assumes before beginning that evangelicalism will not fail someone in his or her spiritual walk, or that evangelicalism will never come into sharp conflict with certain kinds of intellects. Which is demonstrably false: but if you had insights that might help such a person to keep his or her faith (Catholicism? Orthodoxy?), by the letter of the law offering such a view is out of bounds.
I think in that moment then that Sonlight admitted defeat: evangelicalism needs special protection. You cannot treat your faith as a thing like a scientific law which is verifiable, or modifiable, by anybody with the right equipment to observe. It needs help surviving the onslaught of other peoples' ideas. In a community that was made up mostly of evangelicals, Sonlight actually issued a memo to its forum-users saying that it wanted to "level the playing field" by enforcing the don't-pull-evangelicals-away guideline.
As an objective articulation of reality, evangelicalism fails. There is no Jesus open to view, no God open to view, no Resurrection open to view or compelling on reasonable grounds (notwithstanding Josh McDowell and Lee Strobel). That doesn't make it untrue: but as an objective truth-claim, it suffers from a tremendous handicap: there are no very strong arguments for it.
But it's a subjective thing, a kind of poetry. It's interpretive. It's performative. It gives voice to a real experience and gives it a form in the human mind where it can be discussed, celebrated, deepened.
But that's not an exercise based on rationality but on the presupposition that all the participants in the conversation agree to use the same language for the same experience. And I think that for too long some people who had been told that evangelical biblicism must be the very definition of reason had had enough of the suggestion that such a position did not wash.
They were wrong. But they had the right to their wildlife preserve.
A lot of us just left those forums, out of boredom or a sense of injury (the former in my case).
Those who were injured though continue to complain of their injuries. It became increasingly clear, because of the way that moderators of the forums made their decisions about which ideas would stand, that the experiment in evangelical reasoning was failing. The real target was a disruption of the peace that resisteth understanding, caused by questions that evangelicalism had no answers for. That species of evangelical needed a sort of nature preserve, safe from difficult ideas that came in brusque tones, but which (coincidentally, I'm sure) also happened to point up that there were no persuasive evangelical answers. At least none coming from Sonlight's evangelical customer base.
I've been among the brightest evangelicals on the planet, though, and I'm not sure that it really gets any better, this struggle to formulate a dogma around the evangelical experience.
I believe evangelicalism can be a beautiful thing. But it cannot be everything, and its limitations are severe.
It's not far to look to find why it fails.
There is a strong belief in evangelicalism that the truth, once identified, sits more or less static on the mantlepiece. It's a truth that lies beyond both reason and discussion, and it must not be disturbed.
It's the worst of evangelicalism.
And those who worried about the tone of the questions repeatedly lamented being called "unintelligent" (the word means "uninformed"). That's a horrible thing to feel. But anybody who knows what learning is like knows that feeling, simply because there really are moments when you are uninformed, and unintelligent.
And you have to learn something.
Evangelicals are a protected species at the Sonlight Forums, and I think this gives the lie to their founding idea that one can be Evangelical and still courageously take on the burden of thinking.
But at root the trouble was, and remains, that a person has to make up his or her mind whether s/he values truth more than the imaginative structure of the world s/he has lived in and continues to credit. If there were no god, would you want to know? If Evangelicalism were insufficient as an articulation of the Bible's vision(s), would you want to know that?
If not, do you have any right to sit there insisting people not discuss the matter past the point of your comfort?
Sure, you do at Sonlight. I get that. No problem there. Their house, their rules.
But it's worth worrying about the evangelicals who believe that faith can be a deeper, richer thing, that the litter and wreckage of intelligence that faith wreaks isn't a necessary one, only what happens when you suit up your fears and bring them along for the discussion.
I worry about that. The evangelical response, "Have faith that your worldview is unshakable because it's founded on [an interpretation of] scripture [with which I happen to agree]," now rules the day in the Sonlight forums.
And it happens to be a lie.
There used to be people there who would say, "Your questions are right. Your worries are worth worrying about. But there are conversations we can still have that might give you some hope that your faith is not in vain. But you will change, and are you okay with that?"
Is anybody left to tell them?
And when the faith-crisis comes, as it must for any person who reasons and who learns, who is there to reflect back the question, "What about the things I do not know? What am I missing?"
Well, at Sonlight, they're melting away.
You'll have to look elsewhere.
Reader Comments (16)
Great post.
I'm quite sad about all of the questions that won't get answered for moms like myself. When I was lurking on LLL, my whole worldview changed. It was uncomfortable at first, for sure. But I'm so glad for it and I wouldn't change the path it put me on for anything. I discovered a kind of freedom that I didn't know existed within Christianity. A lot of that was thanks to your posts.
Thank you. This post perfectly describes the problem with the new Sonlight. It also describes the problem with current Evangelicalism in America today. We are afraid to think, and those who ask questions are branded as troublemakers.
Well, SL also has the income to consider. It seems that conservative EC homeschool conventions are not above censorship.
The question "wouldn't you want to know" is a hard one. I can understand why people cannot question. Their faith may be what keeps them sane, or out of depression. Many times the EC faith gives a loving community that one does not or cannot live without.
After the questions, there doesn't seem to be another faith to replace the one lost. You say people should be able to question, but I don't see that anything is offered in return. You mention authority, but that has it's own problems. Authority does not always answer the questions. Or if it does, it doesn't give you the loving community.
Also, it's not as if EC's don't run into these questions IRL. Just because they aren't asked at SL doesn't mean they aren't exposed to them. Perhaps one safe place to discuss things isn't too much to ask.
I realize people need a place to ask questions. However, some people need a safe place where no questions are asked. SL can only satisfy one, and I think they picked the group that buys more curriculum.
Do I wish that EC's were comfortable with questions at SL? Yes, I do. I would love to discuss the questions I have with other EC's, and not just the non-EC's. However, I understand why people can't do it.
I do think Evangelicalism is changing. I see it around me. I guess time will tell if it can last.
This is what Lifelong Learners did for me. It helped me to have the courage to look my faith square in the eye without wavering and ask the really hard questions. And when I didn't like the answers, it gave me the hope that I could still have faith, only now it is a faith that I am (mostly) at peace with.
And when I say "it" (LLL), I mean "you" and all of the other curious and maddening and funny and honest and beautiful people who were Lifelong Learners. I mourn its passing.
Sherry:
Of course that's true, if not the understatement of the year, and I appreciate you bringing it up. [Note for the uninitiated: EC = Evangelical Christian]It's also an intellectual disaster, part of evangelicalism's apparently suicidal attempt to cordon itself off from real life in anticipation of the life to come.
In a weird way I can respect the decisions of some homeschool curriculum companies to simply say, "Well, hey, we're conservative evangelical Christian, and that's what we do, and we'll teach you enough to read the Bible in English and how to use Answers in Genesis to defend yourself against the idea that reading the Bible takes subtlety and intelligence, and we'll reject biblical criticism as a liberal enterprise of some sort."
In short, we won't face the questions because we don't think they're relevant.
It's a trainwreck, but an intentional one. Mythbusters evangelicalism: let's blow something up.
I didn't write, "Wouldn't you want to know?" I wrote "Would you want to know?"
I don't think there's any obligation on anybody to go to college, to struggle with science, to learn how to reason, to delve into the textual history of the Bible or anything at all like that..
I think there is an obligation not to pretend you're being intellectually rigorous when in fact you're just putting good books on the parlor shelf.
I can understand them too, Sherry.
But why would such a person want to expose their children to such questions?
Nobody can force anybody else to ask those questions.
When EC's default to protecting people against that bad ol' serpent in the garden who asks the questions, they remain, literally, without knowledge.
And some are okay with that.
But let's call it what it is: it's forcing evangelicalism to remain nothing more than an affective state.
Cheaper than drugs, I guess.
I thought I had posted, but it seems I have lost it.
Yes, our children will have questions. I am planning on addressing this with my dd, although I don't have a lot of answers for her, other than to seek truth on her own.
Also, for a placebo to work, one has to believe it's real. This is why it's hard to have the questioning people mingle with the placebo people.
I suppose I feel myself caught in the middle, looking at both sides. I have a lot of sympathy for the placebo people, and feel that they've been forgotten in all of this.
I think EC Chrisitanity can change, because there are some thinking people in the leadership. And you never know, maybe God will do something. What can I say, I'm an optimist.
I do appeciate places like your blog, where people can still question. Thanks for providing it.
Sherry, thank you for the kind comments.
Who said anything about a "placebo"? Not sure where you're getting that.
Sorry! My mind works in mysterious ways.
You mentioned that it was "cheaper than drugs." I likened it to a placebo. You have to believe it's real in order for it to work.
Thanks for the informative blog, and thanks to Leonana/Sherry for making the link from SL.
I have a related question which deals with the issues brought up in your blog from a historical perspective. From my understanding, Luther disagreed with the Catholic view that we can come to know God through faith and intelligent reasoning, and through his interpretation of scripture believed that we can come to know God through faith alone. If this it true, then did Luther also state that intelligent reasoning should not be used when reading and studying the bible? I'm losing the train of thought or logic that dismisses the uses of intelligent reasoning by protestants. Is this a self-inflicted limitation?
Sherry,
Ah, got it.
I mentioned it was cheaper than drugs when it's allowed to remain a purely affective state. Which maybe it has to do anyway. But you'd never know if you don't face the hard questions with some courage.
Deanne, I've had a crack at your question here. I wish it were more full. But it's a book-length question!
Yes, my guard stood hard when abstract threats
Too noble to neglect
Deceived me into thinking
I had something to protect
Good and bad, I define these terms
Quite clear, no doubt, somehow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now
Eric,
Dylan for the win. Yes.
The irony is, the less you need to tangle with the "opposition," the less public your faith is inclined to be.
But it can get pretty effin' musical in its solitude.
--Otter
Oooh, this post raises a thousand poignant questions in my mind about community life (imagining for the nonce that the Sonlight message board is, or functions similarly to, a community): What is the relationship between a given community and her leaders? Who has the primary responsibility to define what is healthy for a community and her members and what will harm it/her? Who is responsible for bringing in “the good” and rejecting “the bad”—the individuals in a community, the leaders of it, or both, and to what degree? What is the difference between “paternal” and “paternalistic”? When is “policing” a community a vital, life-giving service and when does it strangle, smother, and starve that community?
Thank you for articulating so well all the questions that I have pondered since my return to Christianity. I grew up fundamentalist Evangelical and in my mid-twenties the need to hold contradictory thoughts in my head became too unwieldy so I abandoned Christianity altogether. Now, twenty years later, I am wishing to have that sense of community promised by Christianity but I'm unwilling to check my thinking self along with my hat and coat at the door in order to belong. So far, I'm finding better community online at blogs like yours than IRL.
Susan, I think you nail the difficulty as Sonlight perceives it.
Sandra, thanks for your kind words. I've just had a few minutes to look over your blog, but it looks fascinating!