Soap Box
On Monday I worked from a coffee shop, sitting next to someone I worked at Christian Camp with ten years ago. (It was a place I have scrubbed from my memory as best I can, except telling people that I lived in a “Blaire Witch Project Cabin” for a few months before quitting the camp entirely.) He is getting a masters degree in clinical psychology from a Christian school. We talked for too long and today I am looking at graduate school options.
“I have three roommates,” he said, “and I enjoy the diversity of perspective, because diversity of perspective teaches us more about God.” One of my professors used to say this, as a sort-of way of destabilizing fundamentalist approaches. It’s good, but this person continued talking, which was not so good. “One of my roommates,” he said, “is as conservative as you can get. He listens to Joe Rogan.” And I thought, “oh no,” as he blinked and blinked.
“I’m a centrist,” he said, adding, “I’m the most moderate you can get,” as he described his second roommate. “My next roommate,” he said, “is a celibate gay man,” and I thought, “oh god,” and the third, he said, “is a liberal. I thought he was gay, but he’s just liberal,” he said. “It’s a really diverse group of people.” A celibate gay man, somehow, representing diversity is not what I had anticipated for my morning.
Do you, and I am truly honest to God asking if you can relate to me right now: do you ever sit down and buckle up and wonder where people have put their thinking caps?
He continued. “I think my goal is connection,” he said, “and there are so many ideological differences between people that get in the way of connection that I do not like to tell people who I voted for. Because that gets in the way.” (In a book, Moving Beyond Sectarianism, the author identifies this as a classic upper-middle-class belief, if that means anything.)
The barista called out my cortado at the coffee bar, but it sat for a moment as this man continued.
“I think there are so many ideological connotations that get in the way of connection that it’s more important to just connect with people,” he said, bragging about his centrism. “I want to get as many different perspectives as possible, and not have anyone assume anything about me, and I do not tell people my own beliefs,” and he started to talk about church, saying, “I’ve got a soap box.”
“I used to have a mentor,” he said, “that said that churches are too intellectual. Too much about belief, and studying things to get to that belief, and it’s important to figure out the reasons why people believe something. Because every theology can be pinned down to beliefs” and I said, “do you mean that it’s as if people have to go to seminary before they can actually feel like they’re Christian?” and he said, “exactly,” and I said, “interesting,” because I was talking now. And I said, “you know, there are two things I’m thinking: one is that there’s a reaction to that intellectualism that you notice, or that it’s not exactly the case, or that it’s a popular dichotomy. Because you see these Bethel-type anti-intellectual churches, sort of using that intellectualism as a thing to rally against; and you see the intellectual churches pointing their fingers at the more charismatic or Pentecostal churches, which are comprised of working class people, and both are sort-of demonizing each other as a legitimation of their own church. So it might be a dichotomy to think about rather than to take part of.” And I added my second thing. “Plus,” I said, “I’m interested in this sort of displacement of belief. I guess I learned about it in my religious studies degree, that belief isn’t all that’s happening in a religion. And so here’s an example.”
“I work part time at a Lutheran church. And sometimes I like to take this sort of anthropological lens. So the church had a potluck once during Lent, and someone brought Casserole. Lutheran Casserole, it was called, and I walked up to three older women puzzled. ‘What makes Lutheran Casserole Lutheran?’ I asked, and they said, ‘We have no idea. It’s just Lutheran Casserole.’ And everyone else answered the same way—that Lutheran Casserole is something they’ve just been making for a while, that they did not know why it was what it was, but they know the ingredients and can reproduce it, as if they’ve been habituated into casserole rather than reasoned into casserole. So I’m not sure that churches are intellectual, or rational all the time, as you suggest.” And he said, “well, there are reasons, but people don’t know the reasons,” (apparently he knows the reasons) and that approach seemed to exemplify a clinical psychology perspective, a certain psychological “hermeneutic of suspicion,” at least from a Christian school.
Which, all of a sudden, seemed to ground the conversation. Soap box kicked down, you know, even though he continued to talk about ideological differences. That his celibate gay roommate had ideological differences that were just ideological, and not so important, he even said, and that “affirming/non-affirming” (aka pro/anti-gay relationship) theologies were just ideological. They did not matter; human connection did. What a stupid thing to think so I spoke up.
I looked out the window, feeling myself sweat a bit, because it had been a good, long time since I’ve ever had to engage someone in a conversation about pro-gay theology. I tend to not really care that much anymore: people can either get on board with the LGBTQs or not. And I said, “I think I might have a different perspective,” feeling myself sweat a bit more through my Tin Lizzie shirt. “Because some of the issues you say are not-valuable, or ‘just ideological’ are actually very material and real issues for people. Those people just are not you. Like the celibate gay roommate probably experiences issues that make connection with other gays difficult, and that’s not just ideological: it informs his everyday life.” He saw where I was going.
My friend countered, “well I’ve had difficulties in my life as well. I’m Asian from immigrant parents,” and all of a sudden I got the sense that this was a very strange comparison he was making: that because he’s experienced some material problems, he had the ability to categorize (in his mind, and by his definition) others’ problems as merely ideological. “It seems like ideology is a way for you to abstract other people’s problems,” I said, “like you do not actually have to live them. But they do. And so you’re devaluating people’s problems as ‘ideological,’ in favor of connection, but sometimes I think maybe if you talk about material problems as real life problems that people encounter, instead of avoiding them, then that’s a new area for connection.”
I truly, I am honest to God just bluffing at this point. I don’t know if I believe what I say because I have not had to believe what I say in this area of life for a few years. I just want, as a life goal, to go to gay bar and get a drink, and never have to deal with straight Christians having an opinion on ideology. I came here to write emails for photography clients, and the person next to me is proclaiming “centrism” through his celibate gay roommate as Donald Trump is in office right now sending ICE to be his own little personal Gestapo.
“I think the real issue,” he said, instead of ‘ideology’ apparently, “is loneliness.” I thought of his celibate gay roommate (a particular loneliness issue with ideological or religious roots). “None of the other issues matter as long as people learn to connect.” I thought of how my friend might be lonely because he is actively building a façade to hear about other people’s problems, but never really giving anything of himself. He’s studying clinical psychology. Maybe he was actively distancing himself from authenticity. I’m not sure. But I am sure that if I had sat there and listened and pretended that I did not have any opinions at all, or did not say a thing, then I would not have really put myself out there to either connect or disconnect with this person, and as I think about it more and more, that I’m not sure what he thinks “connection” is.
But I kept going, “you might be interested in what I call the ‘pluralism problem,’” I said. I needed to give him something. He is in grad school. “The pluralism problem is, well, it’s a problem. In order to hear all those different perspectives that, for you, point to God, you know, you have to get everyone in the same room to negotiate their perspectives. At least hypothetically.
So the theoretical problem becomes: how do you set a framework for conversation that does not diminish each perspective, or reduce it to some other thing? Practically, imagine trying to get a trans person in a room with a Trump supporter to talk on the same terms. How could they try to speak to one another rather than speaking past each other? There’s a problem in deciding on the terms of their discussion, trying to understand each other, without scaring the trans person away, or without the Christian feeling disqualified from the conversation entirely. Without the trans person trying to convert the Trump supporter to a different, more inclusive perspective, and without the Trump supporter trying to convert the trans person to their perspective. Because the trans person might believe in a secular Human Rights framework for their conversation, but the Christian might only believe in the Ten Commandments, and so if you try to mediate what they’re saying, or find a common ground between them, or even terms for discussion, you have to decide on something first: are you going to use Human Rights as a way of viewing someone’s full humanity, the Ten Commandments as a way of viewing someone’s full humanity, or some other framework? How would you decide?” And this all went over his head, like the casserole, I think, until I said, “I need to grab my cortado,” and he said, “eat your burrito it’s cold,” while quickly turning towards his laptop, putting his headphones in, and typing quickly. I imagine he was embarrassed. I do not think people normally kick down his soap box.
But if someone is going to interrupt my little day of replying to photography emails, with a long-winded speech, then I will reply back. That’s it.