Committed Critic

For this post, I’m piggy-backing off of an interesting discussion that Brad Brock called my attention to this week. Here’s an excerpt from the blog of Scott Adams, the Dilbert cartoonist:

This will look like a rhetorical question, but it’s not. I’m still trying to figure out how religious people interpret their environment. Here’s something that has always puzzled me.You’ve probably seen the studies showing that the smarter you are, and the more you know, the less likely you are religious. The studies are usually expressed in terms of education. High school dropouts are more religious than people who finished graduate school, etc.

We’re talking averages here. Obviously there are plenty of smart, educated religious people. But on the whole, the more you know, the less likely it is that you will buy into a religion. The correlation is quite striking.

This squares with my own observations. When I encounter extra-smart people who are also religious, I tend to ask a lot of questions trying to find out why. What I have discovered is this: Under my special powers of interrogation, the extra-smart religious people almost always admit (privately) that their religion is more of a choice than a perception. In other words, for the extra-smart, the concept of God exists, and that concept benefits their lives, independent of any literal truth. It’s a lot like being an atheist while keeping the benefits of being religious. That’s exactly the sort of extra-smart solution you would expect from extra-smart people.

My puzzlement is over the question of how the true religious people interpret the fact that the smartest and most educated people in the world are, on average, far less religious. These are the explanations I can think of:

1. There is no correlation between intelligence/education and religion. Where do you get you so-called “facts” cartoon boy?

2. Religion comes from the heart, not the head. I missed the biology class that says the heart is just a blood pump.

3. God doesn’t like intelligent/educated people so he wants fewer of them in heaven.

4. I didn’t know about that intelligence/education/religion correlation. But now that I do, I renounce my religion!

5. What’s an “average”?

Can the believers among you tell me if I left anything off the list?

If you want to look at some of the 495 comments made that day, you can find them here. (Adams also has a follow-up post here.) But I’d like to throw open a question that Adams touches on: How do you, personally, reconcile your Christian beliefs with being an educated critical thinker?

To start the conversation, here’s what I posted after most of the discussion was done:

I think intellectuals resist being lumped in with non-critical thinkers who make silly claims (religious or otherwise) that don’t hold water. I know I do. And it must be admitted that Christians say some pretty silly (and at times even evil) things.For me, though, the strongest argument in favor of Christianity does not start with theological claims but with the life of Jesus. A critical thinker can pick apart a theological argument about Jesus, but to consider that someone would love his enemies, turn the other cheek to those who would kill him, befriend the whores and lepers of society, claiming that they are the ones God wants a relationship with, and be crucified –– that’s enough to undo just about anyone. (And however skeptical you might be about the four gospels, this much of the depiction of Jesus is historically sound, even from a secular standpoint; if he existed at all, he clearly helped the marginalized and died on a cross.)

As an intellectual who is still a believer, I believe that the life Jesus lived undergirds Christian claims that he was the Son of God –– indeed God himself. If God were to become human, I think Jesus is who he would be. That, and the fact that a strong historical argument can be made for the resurrection (as long as you don’t rule it out a priori on naturalistic grounds) are enough to keep me a believer.

Well, I’ve decided to start posting some of my more provocative class papers. This is a new one I’ve wanted to write for a long time. I should note that this essay is based only on the theology of Luke/Acts, but feel free to egage it at whatever level you wish.

He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose. -Jim Elliot, reflecting on Luke 16:9.

The parable of the “unjust steward” (Lk 16:1-9) has fascinated me for some time. I want to propose a reading here of which I actually am not yet convinced myself. But even though Luke may not have intended the interpretation I’ll present, I feel it does reflect the message of Luke/Acts. At any event, this is how I wish I could exegete the parable. The parable and its “moral” (Luke 16:1-9) are grouped with several teachings on money at the start of Luke 9, concluding with the Pharisees’ reaction and Jesus’ response to them.

The story is clear. A house manager is accused of squandering his employer’s things, so the employer informs the manager that he will soon lose his job. Realizing he will lose his livelihood, the manager covertly reduces the debts of some of his employer’s clients, hoping they will offer him shelter when he loses his job and home. The employer learns of the deed and, surprisingly, praises the manager for acting shrewdly.

The interpretation of the parable is more confusing. Luke’s explains, “for the children of this age are more shrewd in their generation than the children of light.” Luke then indicates (16:9) that his readers can learn a specific lesson from the present age: “And I say to you, make friends for yourselves by means of wicked wealth, so that when you pass away, you will be welcomed into eternal shelters.”

The problem with Luke’s explanation is that it doesn’t make clear which points of the parable are intended to relate to the reader. This is a typical dilemma in interpreting parables. Some are to be interpreted allegorically (e.g., the parable of the vineyard, Lk 20:9-19), while others are meant to find only one or two important points of connection (e.g., the parable of the persistent widow, Lk 18:1-8; note that an allegorical interpretation would make God the wicked judge). So in 16:1-9, Luke may wish for his readers to act only on the “moral” of the story, as found in 16:9; if so, the entire lesson is to use wealth to “make friends” (=please God?). My better sensibilities, exegetically speaking, urge me to limit the parable’s lesson to this point.

However, I’m not satisfied. If you look at all of Jesus’ teachings in Luke, surely he means something more. I want to suggest a reading in which the reader’s connection to the steward goes a level deeper, so that the parable is allegorical. To do so, I need to describe how Luke views the various elements of the story (the manager, the kyrios, the possessions being managed, and the relationship among the three).

Within the parable, Luke associates the manager and Wealth with one another by describing both as wicked (or, perhaps, “unjust” or “sordid”). This is the reason the house manager has valuable insight into the use of Wealth; they belong to the same world. Therefore, when Luke includes the manager among the “sons of this age” (16:8b), it would seem he characterizes Wealth as a member of “this age” as well. Perhaps the manager and Wealth are not entirely evil, but neither are they trustworthy. They belong to a different realm than Luke’s readers.

The next point to determine is the identity of the owner. At this point the metaphor either breaks down or becomes very interesting. Within the parable, the owner is a sympathetic character for Luke in that he recognizes that the manager’s behavior is shrewd, an assessment Luke would agree with. So we may wish to conclude that the manager corresponds to God, the true owner of all wealth.

However, there are several problems with seeing God as the owner. First, if Wealth indeed is wicked and belongs to the present age, it would seem odd to place God as its owner in the parable. Second, Luke’s explanatory statement in 16:8b makes better sense if the owner’s praise is based on worldly standards. (Verse 9 then suggests how that worldly wisdom can apply to Luke’s readers.) Third, in the parable the employer praises the manager despite the fact that the manager squandered his wealth for his own ends. It seems unlikely that Luke intends for his readers to act against God’s wishes, but in such a way that God would commend them because they were shrewd in serving their own interests. And fourth, verses 10-12 call Luke’s readers to be faithful with what they have, whereas the hero in the parable is dishonest with what has been entrusted to him. If we take the kyrios of the parable to be God, then verses 10-12 contradict the parable.

If, as I will assume, Luke intended verses 10-12 to further interpret the parable, then the implication seems to be that the faithfulness of 16:10f is to be directed not toward the money’s owner but elsewhere. Someone might manage one person’s money but owe loyalty in that management to another. One possible “real owner” of the money, from Luke’s story, is the devil. When tempting Jesus, it is he who claims that “all the authority and glory” of the world have been handed over to him (4:6). However, it is problematic to regard the devil as the character whose praise of the manager constitutes the moral of Luke’s story. I would suggest instead that we associate Wealth with the present age, such that we see the present age, personified, is its owner. The owner, then, is not the devil, but rather a sort of representative of the present age and its attitude toward Wealth. The present age regards self-preservation as of first importance, so naturally it commends the manager’s behavior.

The manager’s shrewd behavior is grounded in two key dynamics that he is aware of explicitly in the story. First, the wealth he manages is not his own. Because of this, he can influence others by cancelling debts without losing anything of his own. Second, the manager knows that he is about to lose his position as manager. If he were trying to keep his job, it would serve his interests to use the money carefully. But knowing that he cannot hold on to what he has, the next best thing he can do is consider the future. Because he is losing his job, he owes no further loyalty to his employer, and so what he can gain by his use of the money is his only concern.

The story’s great insight is that all people are just like the manager at both of these key points. The person who has accepted Jesus’ eschatalogical message realizes that the wealth he holds so dear was never his own, and soon even the job of managing it will be taken from him. As a result, he owes no further loyalty to its real owner (this world). However, he still has control of the wealth such that he can use it as he sees fit. By winning friends among those in need (helping the poor is a major theme in Luke), he wins a friend in God, and he thereby wins for himself a dwelling for the time when his work as manager has ended.

We find here Jesus calling us to a strange sort of self-preservation; but it is significant to note that it is based on faith in Jesus, because only the one who believes Jesus’ message will see that it is indeed in her best interest to give her money away.

The difficultly for the reader in accepting the parable is accepting that both of these facts are true: the money we handle is not our own, and our access to managing it will soon come to an abrupt end. Once we have accepted these two facts, Jesus in Luke presents us with a startling command through this parable: we are commanded, essentially, to squander our wealth.

This reading will offend a lot of people, for at least two different reasons. Some will protest that such a teaching will lead us to squander our wealth on self-indulgence. Their concern is legitimate, and indeed in the story just before this (the prodigal son), Jesus describes what it looks like to squander wealth inappropriately. However, there is another way to squander wealth, as modeled by the wicked manager. One could give the money away freely to those in need, recklessly distributing wealth with little regard for financial stability or prudence. This kind of squandering offends people as well, because it smacks of irresponsibility. They feel that instead, they should think of ways to use wealth wisely and still glorify God with it. The problem with their interpretation is that it assumes that wealth is good (whereas 16:9 and 16:11 say it is wicked) and that accumulation of wealth can be carried out in moderation (whereas 16:13 intentionally polarizes the issue).

But what if Wealth, as I have suggested, indeed belongs to this world and its ruler? And what if, by managing it “wisely” according to the world’s standards, we serve the world and its ruler? In this reading, serving Wealth amounts to viewing it according to worldly standards, as something to be accumulated and protected. If this is the case, Luke makes clear our choice in 16:13. We can serve either God, or Wealth, but not both. For the Lukan Jesus, I am arguing, the only real alternative to serving Wealth is to squander it, and I believe that is exactly what he indicates/commands with this parable. The only appropriate use for wealth ever described in Luke or Acts (as far as I have found) is to give it away.

Or to put it another way, taking into account the reality of the spiritual situation: the appropriate rebellion against the Wealth that masters us is to squander it for the sake of others, winning friends by giving away what the world holds so dear.

I’ll open my first post with my favorite song lyrics:

We are frail, we are fearfully and wonderfully made,
Forged in the fires of human passion,
Choking on the fumes of selfish rage.
And with these, our hells and our heavens, so few inches apart,
We must be awfully small
And not as strong as we think we are.

With all due respect to Rich’s insight, right now I think there is perhaps no greater indication of how small and weak humans really are than how much our perception of a situation can change based on a little stress or a single night’s sleep. Maybe I’ll post again in the morning.