Pragmatism is "the doctrine that practical consequences are the criteria of knowledge and meaning and value". Stated like that, it almost appears to be a religious doctrine, doesn't it? But you get the idea. What is right, true, or valuable is determined by ... well ... what works. We all practice this "religion" in every day life, and it's fine. If the laundry detergent you're using doesn't work, you find one that does. Rational. Makes sense. If giving your wife a vacuum cleaner for her birthday doesn't please her, find a gift that does. We can see that. In fact, this was the number one doctrine I heard from those who did not support President Obama in the 2008 Presidential Election. It wasn't that the voters I knew were delighted with their options. They just believed that they had to do "what works" because doing nothing did not work. You know ... "If you vote outside of the party, you'll be throwing your vote away." That's political pragmatism.
On the rise and pushing into prominence today is the concept of religious pragmatism. No, that's not accurate. It has been the case for a long time. But it's pushing into prominence in Christianity these days, too. What does this kind of pragmatism look like? It was the approach of Bill Hybels and Rick Warren when they formed their churches. Ask people "What do you want in a church?" and then do it. That is, find out "what works" and do it. Religious pragmatism. If this kind of music isn't producing the results you want, change to another. If this kind of worship service isn't drawing in the numbers you want, change to another. If people don't like to hear the Bible in sermons, stop using the Bible in sermons.
Can you begin to see the problem? If "what works" is the defining doctrine for "knowledge and meaning and value", and God's truth "doesn't work", where are we left? When someone tells me, "I tried that 'born again' thing; it didn't work" (emphasis mine), where am I to go? When the congregation tells the pastor, "We don't want to hear about sin and repentance; just give us happy sermons", what is the pastor to do with the other 75% of the Word?
There are places in life where pragmatism works. Christian truth is not one of those places. Too many people are giving ground on biblical truth because it doesn't seem to work. That's because of a skewed concept of "work" in view of biblical truth. Truth, by its nature, is discriminatory and devisive. It doesn't tolerate a variety of opinions and doesn't allow for relativism. In biblical history, the only time that I recall God working in a pragmatic way was when Israel demanded a king. He acquiesced ... but warned them of the outcome. And He was right. So are we sure we want to try to do "what works" rather than what God says is true? Or would it be better to realign our thinking about what is meaningful and valuable to God's way of seeing things?
5 comments:
Fantastic post Stan. Francis Schaeffer talked a lot about "true truth" which he felt needed to be distinguished because of this same conflict between absolutes, Truth if you will, and relativism, pragmatism and others that would tend to blow us about.
It is almost impossible to have a discussion on anything if truth, meaning and value are up to us to define or change at will. I guess i'm not just adept enough at hitting a moving target.
Indeed, this is so right on. As I like to put it, some are looking to have God relate to them rather then learning to relate to God. Now, I don't have a whole lot of problems with getting butts in the pews to a certain extent (though I favor people dressing in their best clothes, not like they pulled something out of the hamper), but when the Word is preached, it should be no holds barred. Soft-soapin' the message won't cut it and it's a problem in my own congregation to a degree. If I'm still around when this pastor retires, I'll be looking to get on the hiring committee and pushing for someone more willing to get down to business.
What's interesting to me of late is the personal religious pragmatism I've seen. "I believe that homosexuality is evil! Oh, wait ... my daughter is a lesbian ... well, now, let's not be too hasty." Where is truth?
I think this is the case with Dick Cheney, though I don't know how he felt about the issue before he found out about his daughter. Some believe differently because the people they know are otherwise nice enough people. I used to hang with a guy who dealt drugs. We got on famously, but his drug dealing I didn't much care for. Another guy with whom I grew up used to be an unabashed racist. He's one of my oldest and best friends and I never let him forget what I thought of his crass generalizations regarding blacks. I feel a certain lib/progressive blogger we both know also is affected by his associations with homosexuals.
But of course, the same can be said of all sorts of sinful practices. People justify cheating on taxes, lying, stealing and other actions if they see others doing it, or don't do it on a large scale (white lies).
But when they are faced with the absolute truth, they rebel, reject and rebut with malice and shock that anyone would dare question or judge, confident that they aren't "that bad".
Oh, now, be careful there, Marshall. Like my pastor used to say, now you're starting to meddle. The other day I was walking to work and I watched a group of people cross against a light. I thought, "How bad that they can't obey a simple law like that" and then noticed that I had dropped a piece of trash on the ground. Oops ... I'm just as bad.
Of course, the primary difference in what I'm thinking here is that all of us sin, but one side pragmatically defends sin while the other repents.
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