|
Baptists
Are Like Cats: Some Stray Thoughts on the Psychology of the
"Born Again"
by
Sam Smith
July 15, 2004
In
1968, I was born again. I’d been Christian my whole life,
of course – I was raised in a staunchly Southern Baptist home,
and you were Baptist whether you’d been born again yet or
not.
Not
a lot of people know this about me, and given what I have
become over the years, most folks simply don’t have the tools
required to imagine what a straight-laced, God-loving boy
I was up until, oh, my early 20s. But it’s true. At the age
of seven, I walked down the aisle at Union Cross Baptist Church
and told the Pastor, Rev. Roy Capehart, that I had accepted
Jesus into my heart as my personal Lord and Savior. Preacher
Roy didn’t know it was coming, nor did my grandparents, because
it wasn’t something I had talked about with them (or anybody,
for that matter) ahead of time. But the Reverend came down
out of the pulpit at the end of the service and gave the call,
as he always did at the end of the service, and I imagine
that the organist was playing "Just As I Am” when I decided
this was the thing I needed to do.
Union
Cross didn’t have its own baptismal pool, so every month or
two, depending on demand, we’d have an evening service at
Waughtown Baptist up in Winston-Salem and use theirs. I was
baptized and welcomed into the fellowship of the saved along
with six or seven others, all of whom were older than me,
and pretty much everybody was so proud of me they could have
busted.
How
Christianity Has Changed
But
why does any of this matter? Well, Protestant Christianity
in America has changed a lot since 1968, and as you’re probably
aware, it has made itself a very visible and frequently malignant
force in public life in recent years. It’s been observed by
scholars who follow religious trends (if you’re bored I can
provide the cites for you) that there has been a significant
movement away from traditional denominations (Catholic, Baptist,
Methodist, Presbyterian, etc.) and toward new non-denominational
congregations, a shift that gained speed especially as the
Baby Boom was growing into adulthood. This phenomenon has
dramatically changed how religion is perceived and practiced
across the country. My guess is that if you aren’t somebody
who attends a non-denominational church yourself, you probably
know people who do.
Perhaps
in an attempt to hold onto dwindling market share in the face
of stiff competition from all the new entrants into the salvation
sector, the traditional denominations (primarily Southern
Baptist and Methodist where I grew up) have become more and
more like the independent churches. I know for sure that the
Southern Baptist Convention these days looks a lot more like
the non-denominationals than it does the SBC of 1976 or so.
Maybe this is less so for other organizations – I don’t know
for sure.
If
I might generalize a tad, let me offer the following observations
about this new breed of church and its membership:
1:
They are more politically activist. I remember the first
time a church I was a member of offered an opinion on how
its members should vote on an issue. It was a local liquor-by-the-drink
ordinance that church leaders feared would increase drinking
in the community (and boy, I could do a whole book on how
funny that premise is all by itself – but I digress). I was
still a Good Kid®, so I was teetotally on board
with the idea that liquor-by-the-drink might be a bad idea
(my family was infested by alcoholism, up one side and back
down the other, so at that point in my life I regarded drinking
as pretty much pure evil).
But
it seemed alien that we talking about how to vote in
church. Up until that point I couldn’t have imagined the preacher
crossing that line into politics unless Satan himself was
on the ballot, at which point it probably wouldn’t matter,
given the unceasing stream of anti-Devil invective that issued
from the pulpit on a more or less weekly basis.
This
was maybe 1978 or so, and something was happening, although
at the time I couldn’t imagine what, exactly. Now, of course,
we know what: Jesus is a Republican.
2:
They are more given to self-righteousness. This is the
primary thrust of what I’ve been thinking on lately. These
churches and those who attend (and fund) them are less likely
to keep their religious views private – in fact, the idea
that religion is or ought to be a private thing is exotic
to them. By way of comparison, you have to remember that the
traditional denominations I’m talking about, and that the
non-denoms have displaced, were already evangelical.
They believed that you had an obligation to witness to the
lost, and I remember on occasion church or youth group leaders
trying to round us all up to go door to door selling religion.
But
it never quite took with us, because for me (and I suspect
a lot of others), there was just something inappropriate about
cold-calling for Jesus. It ran counter to basic American live-and-let-live
conservatism. We’re more than willing to tell you how we feel
if the subject comes up, but we also understand and respect
the fact that others have a right not to be bothered.
The
crusading ethic has extended into the political realm as well,
to the point where the new breed of activist Christian seems
to perceive no boundary between religion and governance. Through
the years I’ve repeatedly found myself talking about the difference
between traditional conservatism – which trusts people to
make their own peace with God and Caesar – and the new crusading
variant, which fervently believes it has a holy mandate to
impose its views on the non-believers and secularists who
were driving the world to hell in the proverbial handbasket.
Fact
is, there’s nothing conservative about this movement at all.
In a word, this new thing is jihad. These folks aren’t
going to like that word, but there it is. The crusader doesn’t
believe there is a right not to be bothered.
Two
Kinds of Christians
So
I’ve been thinking on these questions for years without tripping
over any burning bushes. This morning, though, I was struck
by a what I believe is a key piece to understanding the rise
of the new Christianity. My little revelation isn’t the full
measure of the issue by a long shot, but humor me.
Let’s
say, for the sake of argument, that there are two kinds of
evangelical Christians – those that grew up in the church,
and those who converted later in life. (Some started in church,
strayed, then came back, and for reasons that I hope will
be clear, we’re going to count them as converts.)
Right
here, before I get in too deeply, let’s pause for a few caveats.
- This
theory is drawn from my observations of the life of our
culture, which are certainly incomplete.
- I’ve
done no surveys and crunched no statistics.
- Even
if my posits are dead-on, I’m sure there are exceptions
to the rule – plenty of them, in fact.
- You
shouldn’t assume that I automatically like folks in one
category and don’t like those in the other. I have friends
(and family) who fit both descriptions, and there are likewise
people in both camps that we’d all be better off without.
- And
in the final analysis, it may just be that I’m wrong. If
so, I feel sure somebody will tell me.
It’s
a theory, something we can talk and think about. So think,
talk.
That
all said, let me outline my hypothesis about these two groups
of Christians, each of which claims millions among its ranks.
We’ll call those born and raised in the church "natives,”
and those who joined up later in life we’ll call "converts.”
Understand,
both groups are "born again,” according to the precepts
of church doctrine, but their cultural and psychological relations
to Christianity can and do differ dramatically. The differences
I’m mostly interested in here have to do with one’s relationship
to sin, I think. All sin and fall short of the glory of God,
and from experience I don’t see either natives or converts
as being more or less sinful than the other group. But, I
do think that these two cohorts differ in how they
see and coexist with sin.
The
Natives
First,
the natives. Natives grow up with sin and salvation living
side by side. They sin, they go to church and ask forgiveness,
then they sin some more. When I was a teenaged boy (this was
still when I was a Good Kid®, remember), my sin
of choice was – brace yourself – girls. Booty. Poontang. T&A.
Yup, surprise, I was a typical kid with hormones squirting
out my ears, and I spent an inordinate amount of time trying
to devise ways into certain girls’ pants (by "certain”
it should not be inferred that I was terribly picky or exclusive
– it’s just that particular girls occupied more of my attention
by virtue of simple proximity). It should be noted, in the
interest of full disclosure, that I enjoyed far less success
than I’d have liked, and was thus far less sinful than I wanted
to be.
Now,
in church we heard all about the evils of fornication, and
I agreed with these lessons. In principle, anyhow. So in one
sense, life was full of spiritual conflict, at least in those
rare moments where my brain was functioning. In another sense,
though, there was no conflict at all, and I can’t quite explain
how this contradictory state of mind worked. The psychological
concept of "cognitive dissonance” doesn’t fully articulate
the dynamic – I didn’t spend any time rationalizing that Jesus
didn’t really mind if I felt some chick up. Perhaps
the better term would simply be denial. You knew it
was wrong when you did it, but you did it anyway, and I guess
you kind of hoped you wouldn’t go to hell for it. To the best
of your ability, you just didn’t think about it.
Probably
the same thing went through my grandfather’s mind every time
he slipped out to the utility closet or up to Clyde’s for
a beer, and if he was guilty of some other things my grandmother
suspected him of the beer was a comparatively mild crime against
God.
It’s
like musician/comedian Jim Stafford once said on his weekly
variety show: Baptists are like cats – you know they’re raising
hell, you just can’t catch ‘em at it. Yup. I suspect if I’d
had some way of knowing all the sins being committed by my
fellow church members it would have destroyed my ability to
trust in anything at all (which wound up happening anyway,
I guess). I knew what I was up to, and I knew what my friends
and the other kids in the youth group were up to, and I knew
pretty much what my grandfather was up to, but I’m not sure
I realized until later that we were the rule, not the
exception.
In
fact, pretty much all Christians in America were, and
still are, raising mortal hell. And then going to church.
And somehow finding a way to pack an oppressive burden of
sin along their intended road to salvation.
In
other words, for the natives, sin and salvation,
heaven and hell, righteousness and mortal failing, all are
integrated into their lives, and have always been so.
There has never been a time when the two weren’t there, side
by side. They have never lived in a house where Jesus and
Lucifer didn’t bunk together.
This
isn’t to say that they don’t know the difference between right
and wrong or that they’re somehow more complacent about their
shortcomings – on the contrary, they see it all up close and
personal in their daily lives. Ambivalence, dissonance, and
inner strife are constant companions, and like most everybody,
they wrestle with these conflicts in hopes of becoming better
human beings who are more worthy of eternal reward.
The
Converts
The
converts are different from the natives in at least one critical
way. They know sin, and they know salvation, and they know
the difference, just like the natives. They actively seek
to become worthy of salvation, like the natives. And so on.
But
in the life of the convert, sin and salvation are not psychologically
integrated concepts. In their lives, there was a time
when they were wicked, sinful, wandering in a wilderness infested
with soul-destroying worldly pleasures. They were lost, empty,
and unfulfilled. Then they found Jesus and were born again.
Now
their lives are completely different. They wouldn’t say they’re
free from sin, of course, but now they live lives that are
more aggressively devoted to Jesus and goodness, as they understand
it, and by the measures that matter to them and their communities
they’re living lives that are far more righteous than the
ones they lived before they found the Lord.
The
stories some converts can tell are incredibly, intensely,
curl-your-hair powerful. I remember as a child the time our
church had a guest speaker who’d once been about as wicked
as you can get, or so it seemed. He’d been in a motorcycle
gang, with all that entails, and he talked about his extensive
drug use in his former life (this was actually the first time
I ever remember hearing what speed can do to your head if
abused over an extended period of time). If the man he once
was had walked through the door into the sanctuary at that
moment, we’d all have trampled each other running for the
door. But he’d found Jesus, and through the glory of the Lord
was now blessed with the opportunity to speak to others, giving
his testimony about how Christianity had literally saved his
live, to say nothing of his soul.
My
eyes nearly popped out of my head. Here was somebody who didn’t
mess around with any of that penny-ante, pissant little sin
that my friends and I perpetrated. No, sir, here was
a real sinner, and if he’d died before finding God
he’d not only have gone to hell, he’d probably have been housed
in one of its worst neighborhoods.
For
this man, life could be divided in two – the life of sin,
and the life of salvation, with the moment he accepted Jesus
as the figurative Berlin Wall standing between the them. Indeed,
this is the very language of Protestant salvation – your old
life is dead and you are born again. Those words explicitly
insist that the saved Christian see his or her new life of
grace as separate from the old life of sin.
When
I think about the converts I know, they are generally people
for whom this is also true, although rarely is the life of
sin so profoundly nasty as was that of the speaker who came
to visit us at New Friendship Baptist Church back in the 1970s.
The life of sin occurred in the past, and they now live the
life of salvation. It’s a challenge, because they remain human,
and they regularly fail, but it remains something very unlike
that which came before their Berlin Wall moment.
At
some level the same things are true, or are intended to be
true, for the Christian raised in the fold. But in reality,
life for the born again native is pretty much what it was
before baptism. You may be held to a higher standard, but
the house is still a Christian house, like it always has been,
and when you accept Christ officially it doesn’t turn your
entire life (and often, the lives of those around you) upside
down.
The
Dark Side of Conversion
If
you accept the theory I offer here, what does it add up to?
Well, let’s boil it down to this:
- Natives:
the life of sin is and always has been present.
- Converts:
the life of sin is psychologically in the past.
In
this conceptualization, natives don’t see salvation as something
that’s especially unusual or surprising. Baptism was kind
of like sophomore year – if you didn’t die young, you’d get
there eventually, like the rest of the family had. Nor would
they see sin as something that’s been forever vanquished –
the fact that everybody else in the family had been saved
didn’t make them perfect, after all.
Converts,
on the other hand, see their salvation as something incredibly
special and unanticipated (most of the converts I know certainly
do). Every day is new, and the emptiness of the past is now
miraculously, marvelously gone, replaced by a warmth, a sense
of belonging, and a sense of purpose.
But
there’s a dark side to the convert mind set, as well. In its
worst manifestations, the convert mind set can be tempted
toward a particular breed of self-righteousness (true, natives
can muster plenty of self-righteousness themselves, but in
many cases it’s tempered somewhat by their personal knowledge
of sin’s eternal juxtaposition with salvation). While paying
lip service to the idea that one can never be free of sin,
converts often project a holier-than-thou-ness which manifests
itself in arrogance, and they’re readily given to crusading.
I
have long argued that converts can be the worst Christianity
has to offer (a considerable statement, I realize), and I
now think this is because at some psychological level, their
decisions to set sin on the other side of the wall infuse
them with a sense of specialness that, when hitched to the
engines of the non-denominational church’s rabid evangelical
mission, leads them to an assumption that God wants them to
impose what they know about salvation on others.
Whether
they want it or not.
21st
Century or 17th?
As
I say, a theory. Right or wrong, though, the issue itself
has tremendous implications for all Americans, and especially
those who count themselves as Christians (which is to say,
a vast majority of Americans). If you haven’t noticed, we
find ourselves in the midst of a significant culture war,
and the battle for the soul of Christianity will go a long
way toward determining the battle for the future of the US.
It
is undeniably clear that the mainline denominations failed
to understand and address the powerful dynamics driving the
emergence of the evangelical right, and as a result the nation’s
moderate and progressive Christians – and don’t be fooled,
these people still constitute a majority, albeit a disturbingly
quiet one – find themselves being spoken for by people who
simply do not share the same core values about the proper
role of religion in the life of the society.
It’s
equally clear that the battle must be won. The commitment
and vigor of the new fundamentalism can perhaps be a valuable
tool in energizing the productive evolution of American Christianity,
which faces unimaginable challenges in providing a spiritual
foundation for the 21st Century, but only if properly
educated and socialized. As I wrote in the intro to my dissertation
a few years back:
Few
questions remain as to the inventive power of the human
mind, but many critics suggest a that a widening gap between
knowledge and morality plagues technological development
in the West. A few years ago when England’s Prince Charles
delivered the commemoration address at Harvard University’s
350th Anniversary celebration, he lamented that
humanity’s intellect had advanced so tremendously while
its ethical capacities had evolved so little. "In the
headlong rush of mankind to conquer space,” he said, we
must teach our children "that to live on this world
is no easy matter without standards to live by” (quoted
in Safire).
The
events of 1968 notwithstanding, I’m not a Christian anymore,
but one thing our right-wing types are right about, for better
or worse – we are a Christian nation. Christianity has frequently
not served us well through the centuries, but I’m a realist,
and I can do basic math. If we are to advance our souls, as
a culture, so that they begin to catch up to our minds, Christianity
must lead.
Right
now, the arc of Christianity is leading us not into the 21st
Century, but back to the 17th. The American church,
if we are to thrive, has to quickly and effectively begin
to understand the seemingly incalculable gulf separating its
numbers.
If
my observations here have any validity at all, American Christians
might spend a few minutes pondering what it means when a large
portion of its most passionately intense members see sin as
something they’re past.
Comments
|
