Feb 07 2008
Del Doughty
Structural Gnosticism and Little Omelettes
If you teach at a Christian college, you have to beware of something I call structural Gnosticism, the idea that some disciplines are inherently more holy or more important than others. The logic runs something like this: “If Christ is at the center, then everything else is at the margin. If Christ is of primary importance, then everything else is of secondary importance.” I don’t really buy that, and Art Holmes, thankfully, put the lie to this idea in The Idea of a Christian College (it’s on page 14-15). But still, it’s there. I like what Allen Ginsberg says in “Footnote to Howl” with his usual exuberance: “Everything is holy!”
I was convinced of this long before I read Holmes or even Ginsberg, though. I was convinced of it when I read Brother Lawrence, the quiet 17th-century Carmelite lay brother who worked in the monastery kitchen. He was, by all accounts, a regular guy with regular guy problems: bad skin, clumsy around the pots and pans, one gimpy leg, prone to mumbling to himself. What set him apart from all of the other brothers was his “practice of the presence of God.” Brother Lawrence loved God with the blinding intensity of a thousand burning sons, but he also had a job to do, one that he couldn’t turn his back on. Much like, say, an English professor. His wasn’t the most glamorous job in the monastery; in fact, it was probably the lowest if you stop and think about the sanitation practices of that era. But he dedicated his humble labors to God. Looking around at the busy-ness of others and at their elaborate programs for learning to love God, he opted for something simpler and more direct. “There’s no finesse about it,” he said of his approach. “I turn my little omelette in the pan for the love of God.” That was it. Eggs and onions came by way of the Lord’s grace, he figured, and so to get your hands on those things in a mindful sort of way was pretty good stuff.
You might think that living like that would lead one to take him- or herself too seriously, but Brother Lawrence was apparently regarded as a mensch by his peers. His biographer says that he liked to joke around with his companions and that he was slow-moving and calm, even when life in the kitchen got hectic.
Inspired by Brother Lawrence’s example, I’ve tried to follow it myself on occasion. On the one hand, it is, as advertised, pretty simple. You can get it down in one day. You just go about your business and from time to time say things like, “Well, God, here I am getting ready to grade this stack of papers” or “Here I am again, Lord, only 24 more papers to go and then I’m done” and so on. But it’s also often boring to sustain the running narrative and it’s too easy to get distracted by all of the little screens that increasingly surround me. The trick is to stay committed, like Brother Lawrence, through the boredom and the ephemeral fascination of new things and all else. Imagine what things would be like if we could manage to live it out like that.�
Del:
You certainly misunderstand Gnosticism. Perhaps you misunderstand the Christian college as well. I would suggest that the Christian college has the ability to integrate and pull together the various disciplines better than the secular university.
What you say in this essay is unclear, but if I read between the lines correctly, your assertions are downright misleading. You imply that the theology departments of Christian colleges dictate curricular decisions and domineer other departments. I can’t think of any Christian college where that is true. It certainly is not true at HU.
At ANY educational institution, certain disciplines are fundamental to the mission of the school. That is why certain courses are offered and others are not. Why do high schools require a large number of classes in Math, English, science and History, yet largely neglect other disciplines? Why does Huntington University have a required core for all students, yet a number of disciplines are absent from the core? Are we not distinguishing between important disciplines? All disciplines are important. However, some are more vital to our educational purposes.
In my second year at HC, we had a “Writing across the Curriculum” initiative, with a number of seminars led by our English department. The objective of the initiative was to integrate writing assignments across the curriculum at Huntington. I don’t recall anyone leveling the accusation that the English department was instituting a power play in order to move to the front.
I would venture to say that skills in written English are more vital to all of our graduates than Physical Education. I would go so far as to say that writing skills are more important to our graduates than skills in the fine arts. Let me go so far as to say that such skills are even more important to all of our graduates than the sciences.
Don’t misunderstand. I greatly value exercise, the arts and sciences. I exercise seven days a week, two of my children have graduated with degrees in the arts, and I myself have a Bachelor’s degree in Biology. Still there are some disciplines that are we consider critical to an education. Everyone prioritizes disciplines and for good reasons.
The university’s mission statement and educational philosophy, not to mention every piece of paper that flies out of the advancement office, public relations office and admissions office, are heavily laden with references to the fact that we are a Christ centered institution. That is our distinctive. Yet, according to your view, we should be leery of such things.
Finally, you misappropriate your reference to the venerable Art Holmes for the sake of dispensing with this idea. Holmes does not say what you purport. Holmes does mention the inane bifurcation of faith and learning that has sometimes characterized Bible colleges (and less frequently Christian liberal arts colleges). But Holmes is clear to point out that this defensive separation of faith from the secular disciplines is not “the idea of a Christian college.” If I may quote Holmes:
“Integration is concerned not so much with attack and defense as with the positive contributions of human learning to an understanding of the faith and to the development of a Christian worldview, and with the positive contribution of the Christian faith to all the arts and sciences. Certainly learning has contributed from all fields to the church’s understanding and propagation of its faith, from the early church to the present day, and the Christian college can contribute signally in that way. But it must also grasp what is not as often recognized, that faith affects learning far more deeply than learning affects faith.” (p. 46).
After reading this last sentence, perhaps you will conclude that Holmes too is involved in this widespread conservative Christian conspiracy to bully the liberal arts. You simply misunderstand. As another notable Holmes once said, “My dear Watson, there we come into those realms of conjecture where the most logical mind may be at fault.”
Mark: You may have misread Del’s first paragraph. I think both of you reject the same notion.
On the other hand, Del’s story about Brother Lawrence offers a very nice example of Colossians 3:17 & 23, “And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by Him…. And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men.”
Mark,
You seem a little too willing to use my essay as an opportunity to make some bully-sounding talk about Christian higher education; I find this odd given your role on the “Christ@Center@Huntington” Task Force, which invited me to write this essay in the first place. But whatever.
I’ll stand by my concept of structural gnosticism, which, as I say, comes straight out of Holmes. Please take a look at it–again, pages 14-15. Ironically, your post provides a pretty good illustration of what structural gnosticism looks like in action.
Del
I’m intrigued by your thoughts, Del, and certainly am attracted to the image and practice of Brother Lawrence. Still trying to connect all of the dots about structural gnosticism and the role of various disciplines at a Christian college. Consider what the ol’ gnostic slayer himself told Corinthian believers: “When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power.” While I don’t think this tilts toward favoring one academic discipline over another, I do think it commends a hierarchy of faith over knowledge, something Paul reinforces in the famous love chapter later in this letter. I think it’s Brother Lawrence’s starting point that can guide our own deliberations: that Jesus himself is pre-eminent and worthy of worship in the dynamic center of our life as paper-graders, omeleteers and curriculumites.
My only thoughts:
I’m not going to assume that “Christ Centeredness” is something that we’d be able to easily define as a unanimous university, whether that means faculty or students.
However, if we are not able to amiably work through what Christ-Centeredness could possibly mean without publicly tearing each other to pieces, can we really be considered a Christ-Centered university at all? I’m dubious.
I’m guessing we’d have a tough job agreeing on a definition of Gnosticism before we even get to applying it to Christian colleges. Anyway I didn’t see that as crucial to the point Del’s making about Brother Lawrence. To my reading his story centers one of the unspoken difficulties of living out the Christian life. We’re not asked to fulfill duties or perform rituals like other religions. We’re asked to experience a transformation of will. We’re asked to want or desire something other than our human nature wants. That Cheap Trick song “I Want You To Want Me” keeps coming up in my head. Jesus doesn’t want our rituals, he wants us to want him. He makes claims on our hearts. How do you manufacture desire? You can’t. We talk of this as the work of the Holy Spirit or the grace of God. Lawrence was already on to that problem when he turned away from the “elaborate programs for learning how to love God” and went to work on his omelettes.
I would encourage us all to read Jesse Brown’s essay.
I feel as though Del was touching on something that may have been overlooked here. “Everything is holy!” I think I understand why an institution, for practical reasons, may emphasize some disciplines over others. I think I understand why an institution for religious reasons might emphasize some disciplines over others. What I hope people realize, and what I think Dr. Doughty was trying to get at, is that in all things and in all believers Christ should be the center despite what discipline they are pursuing. It might be misleading to place emphasis on one or two disciplines over another simply because everything can be an agent of God’s grace; everything can be sacramental.
When I graduated my first job was working with mentally and physically handicapped men in their home. I studied educational ministries so I had no expectations of finding myself in this position but student loan payments came quickly and I needed a job. It definitely wasn’t my first choice for employment after getting out of college. Day by day, though, I found that through my job I came to know God’s love more, mostly through my shortcomings. I remember one evening in particular when one of my clients was sick. As I was helping him into the bathroom he had a bowel movement which drenched the floor (carpet). As I was on my hands and knees cleaning up the mess I was brought to a new understanding of God’s grace. That was one of the most spiritual moments of my life. It was on par with taking communion because God’s love and grace was so true and evident in that moment. I was humbled, made less, by somebody who I’m sure would be considered “the least of these” and most definitely considered “my brethren.” Christ was at the center of that job despite myself.
Now I’m a youth pastor. I spend my days investing in teenagers, reading scripture and theology texts, and practicing spiritual disciplines and I can say without a shadow of a doubt that serving those men after I graduated was the most Christ-centered job I have ever had. Everything: every discipline, every job, every task, every class, everything is spiritual if we allow God to humble us through it. Christ centered-ness isn’t about particular disciplines, it’s about, as Dr. Rahn pointed out, knowing nothing but Christ and him crucified and allowing that to shape our day to day lives.