One of the perennial problems that thoughtful people face is how to assess their own positions when they are in opposition to the majority. Or, to put it another way, wise people struggle to know whether they are right, or in the right, when they are standing alone on a subject, especially a controversial subject.
I’ve attempted, over the years, to be quite clear that being in the minority and being disliked is not a guaranteed sign that one is standing for God. Christians who are generally objectionable will find that people generally object to them. Unfortunately, foolish Christians, particularly foolish Christians with a martyr-complex, seek to validate themselves by interpreting other people’s dislike as persecution.
I think we’ve all met people like this. People who claim to be Christians who are rude, unkind, and obnoxious and who justify and validate their obnoxiousness by claiming that they’re persecuted. They are not. Jesus makes it clear that it’s good to be persecuted “for righteousness’ sake” (ἕνεκεν δικαιοσύνης). And this is obviously not a new phenomenon in Christianity. Peter addresses this very issue in I Peter 2:19,20:
For it is commendable if someone bears up under the pain of unjust suffering because they are conscious of God. But how is it to your credit if you receive a beating for doing wrong and endure it? But if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God.
And thus, the Christian, at least thoughtful Christians, cannot simply see that there is suffering or opposition and presume that they’re right. Being ill-treated by others does not, ipso facto, mean that you’re on God’s side. Maybe you’re just a jerk. Similarly, standing firm on a theological conviction and being in the minority – even standing alone – does not mean that you’re right. Sometimes you stand alone and it’s you and God; sometimes you stand alone and you’re in opposition to God. I think a comparison of two Medieval Jans might shed some light on the subject.
Let’s consider Jan Hus and Jan van Leiden.
Both were Jans. Both were European. Both lived in the Holy Roman Empire. Both were from weaker principalities. Both faced major Imperial Opposition. Both were the catalyst of military rebellions. Both differed from the practice and theology of the Roman Catholic Church. Both died young. Although their influential years are separated by 12 decades, they have a lot in common. Certainly both would have viewed themselves as Athanasius contra mundum…which, as I alluded to earlier, is a rather precarious presupposition.
It’s dangerous to presuppose you’re Athanasius reborn because Anathanasii don’t come very often. A couple every few centuries…maybe? It’s especially dangerous if you’re going to lead lives like these men led, lives that lead men to live lives and lose lives for a cause that’s in total opposition to the prevailing order. If you’re going to lead people to risk their lives and their eternal salvation, then you’ve got to be sure of what you’re doing. Because not every rebel is right.
Let’s consider Jan Hus, first. Born in 1360s he was a theologian who led a major, though premature, movement against the contemporary Catholic doctrine, which was viewed as a movement against the Emperor and the Empire. He was branded a heretic. And he was eventually martyred.
But what did he teach that was so radical? Well, Hus was heavily, though not totally, influenced by Wycliffe and he was primarily a reformer. In fact, most of the issues that were major for Hus would seem odd and nit-picky to us, but at that point in history the Roman Church was in serious trouble. The theological divergence that had been tolerated in the past was being weeded out and Catholicism was (insert your participle here depending on your theological preference) calcifying/ clarifying/ dogmatizing. Men like Abelard who questioned major issues of the faith were tolerated and even celebrated in the 1100s, but in the 1300s the law was being laid down. Ecclesiastical divergence was fine, so long as it didn’t make any calls to question the prevailing order, particularly the Imperial or Papal order. Hus, however, being a Czech Bohemian, when he began to question the use of Papal authority and the actual make-up of the Church was presumed to be a radical and one who would undermine the Imperial order. As de La Fontaine quipped, “On rencontre sa destinée souvent par des chemins qu'on prend pour l'éviter” “one often meets his destiny on the road he took to avoid it”.
Of course, it’s easy to oversimplify the issues. But suffice to say, the Catholic Church was corrupt and the Holy Roman Empire was cruel. Even men who never left Rome decried the extreme corruption! Erasmus of Rotterdam wrote scathingly about the Church in his satire about Pope Julius being excluded from Heaven: Iulius exclusus e coelis.
Unfortunately, Hus was calling for theological divergence where Rome and the Empire would not tolerate it. And so Hus was eventually killed. But his influence postmortem was even greater. The Hussite Wars likely would not have happened without Hus, and Luther famously assented, “Ja, Ich bin ein Hussite.” Hus was part of a long tradition that began as a reform movement and eventually led to the Reformation. Hus was living, and dying, proof that right is right and wrong is wrong and a Church that cannot or will not reform itself is doomed to die or fracture or become oppressive and authoritarian, but that by standing on the Scriptures we can, indeed, reform the Church.
Now, let’s consider our other Jan, Jan van Leiden (aka: Jan Bockelson or Beukeszoon/ Johannes Bucholdi/ Jan van Leyden/ Jan of Leiden or Leyden/ Iohan von Leiden). Jan was Dutch, an illegitimate Mayor’s son who worked as a taylor’s apprentice and amateur playwright. He was influenced by Anabaptist preaching and became an Anabaptist…but the bad kind of Anabaptist. He wasn’t so much into the “forsake the sword and love your neighbor and believe in salvation by grace through faith apart from works…oh and also don’t baptize babies” kind of Anabaptism. Oh no, not Johnny B…he was the “I’m the Messiah and now it’s orgy-time” kind of Anabaptist. Which, as an Anabaptist I stress to say is not the normative form of Anabaptism.
Jan got a movement to follow him and he moved to Münster where Jan was declared King and there was a peasants revolt, and the Imperial Army showed up, and you know the rest of the story: siege; battle; rape; pillage; murder; also, try to blame Menno Simons…look if you’re going to try to hold the Holy Roman Empire together remember to never not blame Menno Simons for stuff – that guy!
But here’s the thing: Jan of Leiden, or King John if you prefer, was opposed by all kinds of people, ESPECIALLY people who were sympathetic to Anabaptism. Menno Simons wrote The Blasphemy of Jan of Leiden. Others openly rejected his teachings and tried to steer people away from Jan’s heresies and delusions of Millenarian grandeur.
You see, Jan of Leiden made a very crucial mistake. He was right, and knew he was right, about baptism. But he presumed that because he was right, and persecuted for being right, on one issue that he was right on all issues. He wasn’t able to differentiate different issues so as to assess each belief on its own. He presumed that because he was hated for Anabaptism that therefore those hating him for claiming to be the Messiah were wrong about that too.
And we see this A LOT in theology (and I presume we see it in all disciplines, but we’ll constrain ourselves)! All too often we see pastors, preachers, and theologians fail to be able to throw out bathwater and keep babies. Theologians, despite some hefty education, seem to be all-or-nothing people. That’s because human nature is an all-or-nothing affair. Humans tend to be very bad at nuance and context because nuance and context are complex and hard to make sense of. Simple answers are preferable! Lex Parsimoniae cries Occam! And so cry his adherents, but they forget that his Razor is only appropriate when ALL OTHER THINGS ARE EQUAL! All things being equal the Law of Parsimony suggests that the simplest answer is the best. But it doesn’t necessitate or require it. And determining when all things are equal is not exactly a simple task. Humans are bad at this, and even graduate-level education does not seem particularly adept at disabusing people of their preference for simplistic and predictable answers to complex, multivariant, system-level, problems. It seems that the ability to take each part of a complex issue and address and assess it both individually and as part of the whole is one that belongs to the wise and not the smart. That’s why men with grade-school educations can troubleshoot complex automotive and electronic problems with limited information while men with PhDs make simplistic and embarrassing errors by ignoring crucial facts and data.
The heretic who gains a following is a heretic because he gives a bad answer to a good question. The heretic who stands alone gives a bad answer to a bad question. And frankly, the heretic and the hero can look awfully similar. It can be hard to tell the Jans apart. But good theologians, good churchmen know that howsoever similar they may appear, they are not the same. Indeed, they aren’t even similar. Their similarities are accidents of history, not native to the essences of heretics and heros. The heretics, the Jan van Leidens, they are fools. They see things only one way. They cannot and will not consider all the data. The heros, the Jan Huses, they are able to see other points of view and critically assess their own arguments. They don’t have the cocksure arrogance of the heretic. The true heretic never doubts, because they never doubt themselves – heretics, the truly deadly ones, are always monomaniacs. The heros, they doubt, they suffer, they second-guess, they see the opposition and ask themselves if they’re wrong. But after looking at as many angles and perspectives as possible and wrestling with their doubts and fears, the heros stand on unshakeable truths. In short, the hero is wise and the heretic is a fool.
Theological education would do itself a serious favor if seminarians and theologues were assessed on their wisdom as rigorously as on their academic work. It seems to me that Academic work has always simply been a proxy and an adjunct to wisdom anyways. Perhaps a wisdom exam can’t be conducted in a University setting. Indeed, I think it can’t. But there are ways to assess wisdom and folly. And if theological pedagogy wants to improve it ought to find a way to differentiate the Jans before they get behind a pulpit.