The Danger of Black and White Thinking

Ask Me Anything

Week 3: The Danger of Black and White Thinking

When does faith inhibit open-mindedness?
Why do we as a faith preach inclusion but practice the opposite quite often?

"God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God.  Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it." Eph. 2:8-9

From the writings of Paul we can glean that salvation is a free gift. It is not through any of our actions or works. Paul claims that none of us can act righteous or boast in our salvation. In fact, to boast on rules and salvation would even be considered a sign of sinfulness. Yet, many church spaces and faith communities pride themselves on strict rules and rigid, black and white thinking as a sign of holiness and salvation. Black and white thinking is damaging for a variety of reasons. It puts the focus on the works and not the gift of grace. Growing up, we've probably all heard countless sermons about being saved by faith and not works. Yet those same spaces that preach being saved by faith and grace alone, have countless spoken and unspoken rules about what is and is not allowed. We preach that all are accepted, saved and redeemed, yet the second you step out of bounds or disrupt the status quo, you are told to leave.

The thing is, most of these lists of rules, are made up or pulled out of context from the community and time they weren't made for. Most of the common rules we here in church spaces are around sex outside of marriage, gender roles, and sexual orientation. A lot of these rules have to do with power. Having power over women's bodies, power over the church structure, power within relationship and a gender binary, and power over groups of people. These are all very controlling, and limiting. These rules are a form of control enacted by church spaces that are unwilling to relinquish their power.

Saint Basil, was an influential theologian that lived in the mid to late 4th century. Basil defines sin as, “the misuse of powers given us by God for doing good, a use contrary to God’s commands.”

What is interesting is that there is a combination of black and white thinking, yet very few churches disclose their enforced policies on their websites. Church Clarity is an amazing crowdsourcing tool that is trying to make church policies clearer. "Powerful institutions tend to operate in ambiguity, rather than in clarity…Ambiguity enables those with power to operate without accountability and cause real harm. Many people invest years of their lives into a church community, only to later discover the truth about the church’s policies, and end up feeling betrayed, deceived and 'bait-and-switched.'" So it is rarely from the pulpit that we hear these lists of rules.

How did we get here?

Let's talk about our context. In the U.S. for better or worse, evangelism is a part of our makeup. Movements such the First and Second Great Awakenings have shaped policy and culture in our country. The term Fundamentalist first emerged in prominence in the 1920s & 30s. There was a big debate in the Presbyterian church over issues such as the bible's authority, and the death and resurrection of Jesus. The Modernists, who believed that there was room for interpretation of the gospel under modern day circumstances and issues, took over mainstream Christian culture dominating Seminaries, and Christian publishing houses. Fundamentalists, split off and started their own private seminaries and publishing companies.

Typically in times of great national distress there is a re-emergence in fundamentalist thinking. So post WWII, after the 1960s Counter Cultural Movement, and today in the wake of COVID and protests. One of the biggest pushes of fundamentalism happened in the late 1970s. There was a lot of backlash in churches to everything that happened in the 1960s. Many churches believed that their power was at stake.

The supreme court decision Coit v Green (aka Green v Connally), caused outrage and white Christianity felt threatened. This is what pulled white evangelicals into politics. The supreme court ruled that any organization that engages in racial discrimination cannot be considered a charitable organization by definition and therefore cannot be tax exempt non-profit. Most private segregated schools relied on the tax exempt status, and private schools were a direct response to schools being integrated in the 1960s. Many big name church leaders saw an opportunity to rally evangelicals around one particular voting block. It became a big responsibility to vote, and for leaders to tell members who to vote for. This is where we see the Moral Majority and Jerry Falwell taking the front seat in fundamentalist Christianity.

This also caused a rise in the apologetics movement, which was the desire to defend the faith. Some fundamentalist circles will teach apologetics and quiz you from a young age to have the answers to any question. It is presented as "biblical and historical truth" the goal is to win the argument with the intention of winning someone over to Christianity. However many theologians throughout Christianity have been wary of apologetics as degrading faith. There becomes a drive for having answers instead of sitting in mystery.

What does this mean?

I think as humans we like to have control, and so we place rules on things. So people tend to latch onto systems that provide a level of structure and control. Fundamentalist thinking tries to have all of the answers and arguments, when that really shouldn't be the goal. We are all humans trying to make sense of the divine.

When we lean too heavily on truth as black & white thinking, things are much more grey. Faith is supposed to be this transformative, life-altering encounter with the divine and how that plays out in our daily life. When we make things a set of criteria and rules, that makes it exclusive. It is serving the needs of a specific group of people.

Faith itself doesn't inhibit inclusion, rules and rigid thinking do. The issue is that faith as we see it today in our context has become nearly inseparable from rules and rigid thinking. When we force faith, an abstract in-tangible concept into a neat and pretty box, it can't lead to open-mindedness.

"Now our knowledge is partial and incomplete, and even the gift of prophecy reveals only part of the whole picture!  But when the time of perfection comes, these partial things will become useless. When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely."

1 Cor 13:9-12

There are churches that don't teach inclusion. This is awful, however, it is better to have clarity than to than pretend to be inclusive while having a list of conditions. Additionally, in some spaces, I don’t think the church's message has caught up to the practice. Jesus preached all are valuable and have a place within the kingdom, and taught about great love, hope, and peace, but this doesn't match the actions of the church. So many places say they want to be a safe place, and yet their actions are the exact opposite. To be actively inclusive you have to always be learning and be willing to have it wrong and correct your path. Most churches, and pastors, aren't willing to do this.

Discussion Questions

When do you think faith inhibits open-mindedness?
Why might churches preach inclusion but practice the opposite?
What types of rules (both spoken and unspoken) have you seen in church spaces? How do you think those rules can be harmful?