GOD AND COMMON SENSE

June 8, 1986, 11:00 a.m. Worship Service
John M. Buchanan
Fourth Presbyterian Church, Chicago

"Always be prepared to make a defense to any one who calls you to account
for the hope that is in you..." --I Peter 3:15 (RSV)

Scripture
I Peter 3:8-16

One of the great and wonderful mysteries in the world is how human
beings learn...how a baby magically begins to translate sounds into meaning
and before long is imitating those sounds... "Yes"” - "No" - "Milk" -
"Please"... A very few months after birth brand new human beings take a
quantum Jeap ahead of the rest of creation by learning. Now I know that
brilliant scholars spend their lives trying to pin down how this happens
and I do not wish to over-simplify something that is anything but simple,
but my own curiosity led me to ask a distinguished educator one time what a
mature person Knows that a twelve year old does not know. (At the time it
may have been that one of my own twelve year olds was not learning what she
or he was supposed to be learning.) In any event, my distinguished dinner
companion lept to the challenge and said that at eleven or twelve youngsters
are primarily concerned with themselves; their interest in the world is
limited to how the world relates to them, impinges on them, effects them.
It is normal, she said, for an adolescent not to share an adult's
sensitivity to how the world is effected, say, by one's attire or hair
style. It is fairly futile, for instance, to say things like "What do you
Suppose people will think when they see your punk-purple spike hair-do?”
because that is a way of thinking that is not yet in place for the young
adolescent. So, remember that on your next walk along Oak Street Beach -
and also that very wise observation by Samuel Coleridge to the effect that
"Young people possessing anything like perfect taste merely reflect the
Tack of real talent."

It's natural and healthy and good at twelve, my educator friend went ~
on, to think first in terms of myself. Later I will come to terms with a
world out there. First, the little picture: then the big picture.

She went on to illustrate with mathematics. Youngsters struggle with
the components. and their own mathematical skills first and then the
exciting part comes later when you get the whole picture. I assured her
that there were reasonably intellignet people who never got-to that part:
that the world is full of people who first confronted the possibility of

ultimate despair somewhere in the middie of high school trigonometry. _She
' told me computers were changing that. Then we talked about music and © ~

athletics and history. Youngsters struggle to learn to read music, count,
develop technique. It is fairly contained and not always gratifying. And
then one grand day the third trumpet player finds himself in an orchestra,
and his counting out 34 measures of rests and playing three consecutive
quarter notes, properly articulated, is part of something wonderful and
glorious and whole and beautiful - written a century and a half ago by a
German whose name was Beethoven. Or the Junior High guard, after spending
hours learning to dribble and pass and shoot and how to move the ball down
court quickly after a rebound, finds herself in a game and the pattern
works and the ball gets down court and the choreography is perfect and the
last player actually scores. Or the reluctant student of history who has
memorized all the Civil War dates finds himself at Gettysburg and the dates
and the numbers and the weather and who was flanking whom during that
awesome final charge suddenly, gloriously, is a reality.

What wonderful moments those are! How fortunate that we continue to
develop and grow and that there are experiences of integration and
assimilation. How good it is that we don't try to perform our mathematic
calculations or Tisten to music or do our grocery shopping on the basis of
our world view at the age of twelve. How wise it is that parents and
educators don't give up on us when at the age of twelve we announce, -
"I'm not going to study this stuff any more - because it doesn't mean
anything."

That is precisely what happens to many - in fact to virtually all
people, in regard to religion. Theological development and religious
growth stop at about the age of twelve. The pattern is nearly universal.
Youngsters whose families go to church are brought to Church School for a
dozen years through the process of confirmation or its equivalent. At the
onset of adolescence a lot of things adults want youngsters to do look
irrelevant, pointless, uninteresting and oppressive and a protest is
Taunched. That protest part of staking out an identity, an important part
of the developmental process. Now, going to church school does not seem as
important as eating properly, or getting enough sleep nor does it have the
coercive authority of the law going for it that attending school does - and
so it looms in the sights of the healthy adolescent as a vulnerable target,
the place where a stand may be taken. And so going to church is sacrificed
by weary parents before the relentless onslaught of adolescence. People
stop coming.

But they don't stop thinking about religion, or asking religious
questions. On the contrary, I have discovered that from adolescence
through college questions of profound theological significance are always
near the surface. I was part of a Jay Cees project once that persuaded the
Guidance Counselor in the local high school to conduct a survey for us to
discover what the kids were really thinking - so that we could help them.
We assumed they needed weekly dances, or an after school canteen. The most
frequent response to the question: "What do you worry about..what do you
wish you could discuss with someone” was “What is going to happen to me
after I die?" But now a devastating pattern has been established. The
YelTigious skills, the familiarity with the resources, stopped at age twelve
but the questions keep getting tougher. Many adults seem to have come to
the curious conclusion that what they learned and experienced theologically _

at age twelve is all there is. Some, of course, continue to grow. Some —

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return later and resume the journey. Hany stay with the church, get by
theologically, but not in a way that is stimulating and challenging or even
very interesting. Like Alice in Wonderland, when the Queen claims to be
one hundred and four and Alice can't believe it, they shut their eyes
tightly, draw a deep breath, swallow hard and try to believe again whatever
it is that the church seems intent on their believing.

"Be ready at all times to answer any one who asks you to explain the
hope that is in you." The text this morning is a bit of advice in a Jetter
written to Christians in the First Century. The first and most critical
task of the earliest church was to know what it believed clearly enough to
be able to communicate it to a world that had never heard of it before.

The first job of the first Christians was to take a story about a Jewish
Rabbi and retell] it in a way that would persuade Greek speaking citizens of
Rome that it was true. They succeeded. They succeeded, at least in part,
because the intellectuals were compelled intellectually to deal with the
Gospel. They succeeded, someone has suggested, because they out organized
and out thought everybody else.

The requirement hasn't changed much. If the First Century was
hostile toward Christianity, the later part of the Twentieth is skeptical.
If theirs was uninterested, ours is preoccupied. Our world no longer makes
religious assumptions. In fact, the common assumption seems to be that
agnosticism is the only reasonable position, and that the truly brave and
honest will affirm atheism.

What Christianity has always maintained is that the human mind, the
intellect, is a legitimate avenue into the inner person, the soul. Jesus
himself told stories and taught in a way that required a fairly nimble mind
to understand. "You shall Yove the Lord your God with all you heart, soul,
and mind,” is the Great Commandment and part of what ought to be going on
inside the church is that intriguing task of loving God with our minds.

The mind is not the only avenue to your soul. You have heart, spirit,
emotion. To the thoughtless secularism of our age Christianity suggests
that truth is not exclusively established and celebrated by the intellect.
There are limitations to what your thought processes can do for you. We
have always known that when it comes to talking about beauty, love,
ecstasy. We've always known that precise botanical data does not accurately
describe one of those incredible Irises out in the Garth. Chemical
analysis of hormonal stimulation doesn't come close to defining what people
experience who are in love. The mind isn't all there is to us. But
neither are our emotions. Presbyterians have held out for a balance
between intellect and emotion: mind and heart. Pascal wrote long ago:
"There are two equally dangerous extremes, to shut reason out and to let
nothing else in."

One of the great things about our tradition is that it does celebrate
and value the human intellect within the context of faith. John Calvin,
our founder, was a scholarly lawyer. Among the revolutionary ideas he
conceived and put to work in Sixteenth Century Geneva was public education.
The Reformers broke with a thousand years of tradition by insisting that
people should understand what they believed. Luther translated the Bible. -
into German so people could read it. Calvin organized an Academy. and.

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taught Catechism so that people could understand their faith. We have had

a strong commitment to public education because of our tradition. And SO,
if there is a crisis in public education in this country, we latter-day
Calvinists are the ones who ought to be most exercised about it - and we
ought to be suggesting to anyone who will listen that there is a connection
between the spiritual health of the republic and the health of its
educational institution.

Of course whether or not you think there is a crisis in public
education depends on who you are listening to. But just this week I read a
report of a National Science Foundation survey which discovered that
Americans are gearing up for the 21st Century with new scientific
illiteracy...illustrated - "Large numbers of Americans do not understand
what a molecule is or radiation. Two-thirds read astrological columns and
one in fifteen changes behavior because of astrological advice. One half
of us believe UFO's carry visitors from outer space and that some people
have lucky numbers." [Washington Post, 6/3/86] I didn't like knowing that
our scientific sophistication is not as high as I assumed. So I called the
library to inquire about literacy in America and discovered that our
literacy rate is below that of a lot of countries - the United Kingdom,
France, Spain, Belgium, Sweden and Cuba. The newspapers told us Thursday
that there will be serious opposition throughout the State of Illinois to a
rather modest proposal that achieving passing grades in Math and English is
Slightly more important in public schools than participating in inter-
scholastic athletics. One of the more interesting after dinner speeches I
ever heard was delivered to a Chamber of Commerce group by George
Steinbrenner, owner of the New York Yankees - on the topic of Youth and the
Future. He was predictable for about four minutes, told great storiesabout
baseball players and the competive spirit and how America is number one.
And then to the utter dismay of his audience he talked for 20 minutes about
how the people in his audience - business people were working against the
welfare of young people - by enthusiastically supporting the reduction in
aid to public education at the Federal, State and Local level. They were,
it seemed to him, working for the medocrity of our people, and the eventual
demise of the whole system. It was a stunning experience. The quality of
public education is a matter of religious significance for the sons and
daughters of John Calvin.

In addition, Presbyterians started colleges and universities wherever
they went on this continent. At our best we have not only refused to
shelter the faith from the rigorous critical examination of the scholar, we
have welcomed it, sponsored it. At our best we affirmed the Godliness of
an open-minded, inquiring, free academic process. It is a matter of faith
for us to trust the persuasive power of the Gospel in any environment. At
our best, we do not believe a Christian college should regulate what is
taught, or monitor the religion convictions of its professors. We get very
nervous when universities do not allow the free expression of ideas which
may be offensive to the church sponsoring the university. That doesn't
sound like freedom or faithfulness to us. At our best, we have been
willing to trust that God will make his truth known and reveal himself when
minds are stretched and intellects challenged. I continue to believe that
the Christian faith can stand alone in the market place of ideas. I do not
believe. that.xeligion that is worth. aoything requires protection from. .-as-~

rigorous examination. I refuse to believe that there is anything science

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can discover about the world and how we got here, or the universe and how
it began, that will threaten the truth God has revealed in Jesus Christ.

In fact, I would argue the reasonability of what we believe. I would
argue that the Christian understanding of the human condition is the best
and most useful and most accurate: that our insight into humanity - made
in the divine image, enormously creative, with infinite potential, - yet
flawed, inclined toward destruction - is far more useful than any other. I
would argue that the Christian perception of human relations: the need for
grace, forgiveness, acceptance and selflessness, is the most profound
approach to the subject.

I would venture to argue that Jesus was demonstrably accurate about
human experience and human nature and human potential when he said
improbable things like:

"...if you want to gain your life, you must give it away."
",..it is more blessed to give than to receive.”
"...if your enemy strikes your check, turn the other also."

Is there any serious doubt about the practical wisdom of traditional
Chrsitian ideas about compassion and peace and justice? Is there any
serious doubt that unless something like the Sermon on the Mount begins to
be taken seriously - economically and politically - there will be no
future? When in God's name will the people in the ruling elite of South
Africa, who are leading that country into a revolution that everyone agrees
will cost 5 million lives, see that the only people talking common sense
are the church people? When, in God's name, will we at least entertain the
notion that Bishops who talk about peace and economic justice are talking
common sense - compared with politicians who seriously propose to start the
arms race again. When, in God's name, will we see that it is not common
sensical to suggest that with 50,000 nuclear warheads on hand, what we and
the Russians need - both need - are more.

"Be ready to answer any one who asks you to explain the hope you have
in you." Part of the reason we are Christian is that the hape in us, is
also the hope of the world.

The late John Baillie was a Scotsman who thought brilliantly about
the faith and the life of the mind. I have always been intrigued by an
essay of his I read a long time ago in which he argued that right religion
does not have to be forced on anyone intellectually. Baillie said that
he believed there was and is something fundamentally true about this
business. It doesn't ultimately conflict with my ability to reason. In
the final analysis, my own reason confirms it. He wrote: "I am under
obligation to love my neighbor as myself...contrary to natural
inclinations. But in my heart of hearts I know that it is true. In spite
of myself, I am more certain of this than of anything science or philosophy
could tell me.” [A Reasoned Faith, Pascal and St. Paul, p. 117]

a These, are..importantatimesan criti calatimes .n.dangerous -timese.-Patheusnccwee
of the challenge and the excitement in being a Christian today is .

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intellectual. It is to be alert - to read everything - to understand what
is happening in the world - to deal, Christianly, with a world which often
simply writes religion out of the script...

God calis us to love him with heart, soul and mind. The summons of
Jesus Christ to follow him includes our mental ability, our intellect. The
challenge is at least twenty centuries old. "Be ready at all times to
answer any one who asks you to explain the hope you have in you." In fact,
the argument is easily made that our community, our nation, our world,
needs people who can do that more despartely than ever before.

Amen.
God eternal, along with hearts to love you and voices to sing your
praise, you have given us minds to know you. Give us courage and strength

to use our minds to love you and to live faithfully, through Jesus Christ
our Lord. Amen.

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