The following is adapted from "Postcards to a Young Theologian 1," a blog post by Michael Spencer, with his kind permission. This piece complements Tom Maddux's article, Misplaced Loyalty.
We are relational creatures, and most of us will identify with groups
throughout life. It is lonely to be a loner, and it is eventually
unpleasant to be a hermit. Thomas Merton chose the monastic and hermit
life, but the desire to make human connections prevailed in his own
spiritual growth.
We each want to know who we are in reference to others, and we want to
be part of something larger and more significant than ourselves. We
want authority without having to create it entirely for ourselves. We
crave answers that have been, somehow, proven by the larger group. Of
course, we want mentors, models and encouragement along the way.
The groups we identify with help us in this journey. There are
pragmatic reasons for our identification as well. Groups allow us a
path upon which to “progress.” Identifying with a group makes it more
likely we can advance and achieve in some way. They allow us to be
“winners,” to claim characteristics and qualities that belong to the
group and to have the group’s history as somehow our own.
The groups we belong to are usually part of God’s good and gracious
world. From families to soccer teams to theological movements, groups
are part of how God shapes each one of us.
But groups are also fallen. They partake of our depravity and the depravity of the world. We must acknowledge that for all the good gifts of group participation, group loyalty is also a dangerous thing. We must realize the inevitably ambivalent and corrosive power of group loyalty.
We are, as humans, very likely
to take our group loyalty too far, to identify with the group when we
should step aside from it, to partake of sins that the group approves.
It was group loyalty that killed Jesus and that abandoned Jesus. It was
group loyalty that produced the Judaizers and other false teachers. It
was group loyalty that made Luther a wanted man, justified slavery and
killed Jews. it is group loyalty that bullies kids on the playground
and starts wars.
There are a catalog of sins that seem to occur most often in the
context of group loyalty. Proving our loyalty to the group, and seeking
the approval of the group are both slippery slopes that can take us to
terrible places. We should be skeptical, not only of every group and
its dynamics, but of the particular sins that occur within and because
of the group- no matter how noble that group’s aims and rhetoric might
be.
I work at a school. Group loyalty is part of what I seek to create in
order for our school to prosper in its mission and work. I want it for
students, employees and supporters. It is a good thing to support a
group that, like ours, seeks to minister to the least of these in the
name and methods of Jesus.
At the same time, I see a daily catalog of group depravity. In the
cause of promoting the good of the group, I frequently see lies told,
justice perverted and people hurt. I see what is genuinely wrong forced
into existence by well-meaning members of teams, classes, races,
geographic regions, political parties, and yes, theological
preferences.
Why am I saying this? Because it concerns me when someone tells me that
the group to which they belong spends most of its time engaging in
self-justification and ongoing theological war as the daily bread of
its existence. That group does not deserve your uncritical loyalty, and
may not deserve your continued presence.
When group loyalty says, “Don’t think for yourself or trust your
independent conclusions. Listen to the group’s versions of reality and
official line,” something is wrong. When a group cannot tell you its
history of being wrong, something is amiss. When leaders are venerated
as authoritative interpreters of texts, and criticism of the
leader/group is seen as mockery and betrayal of the Gospel, something
is not healthy. When the group criticizes you for criticizing it, stop
and think: What is going on?
Young believers: my experiences in the Christian world tell me that if
you simply rationally and reasonably consider the various groups within
the world of Christianity, you will conclude that there are many good,
healthy, tolerant and positively self-critical groups with which you
can identify. Sadly, you will also conclude that there are some places
within Christianity that you should avoid.
At this point, “loyalty” has become another issue. Loyalty is a good
thing, but loyalty should be submissive to reason, ethics and love. God
does not expect us to equate loyalty to him with loyalty to a
particular church or movement. That is irrational. If you are thinking
this way, you need to realize God isn’t asking you to be uncritically
loyal to any human relationship.
Find groups where your loyalty is rewarded with an interest in your
personal growth, patience with your flaws, and the freedom to be
different from the “norm.” When I hear someone say, “This is where I
was saved, and I feel I should be loyal,” I want to remind the writer
that many of us were saved in churches and ministries that we will
always love, but which we have found it necessary to leave behind.
One of the many criticisms I have received has been specific and
painful criticism for saying and writing things negatively critical of
the movement in which I was brought up. The unspoken assertion of that
criticism was that true conservative Christians don’t criticize their
roots, their churches or their leaders.
None of us who value the Bible, or what is right should
nod at that kind of thinking. Your loyalty is not to be given to any
human institution at the price of integrity, truth, humanity or the
love of Christ.