"At that time Jesus said, 'I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure.'"- Matthew 11:25-26 (NIV)It is no secret that Evangelicals have a reputation, deserved or not, for having less than average intelligence. This has always annoyed me for obvious reasons as I have bounced between the opinion that the stereotype is often deserved and the opinion that making such a generalization is horribly offensive. I started trying to arrange my thoughts on this earlier in the week after I was directed to a CNN article about a sociologist who is trying to get rid of the stereotype.
Any time a stereotype is used it is a great disservice to the people who belong to the group who don't fall under that generalization, and it shows the laziness or stupidity of the person using the stereotype. Even though pretty much all of my audience is Christian, I have to acknowledge that. It isn't worth me focusing too closely on the uses of the stereotype, though, if the people who are doing the generalizing aren't reading this in the first place.
The Evangelical church is naturally structured in a way that encourages a bumpkin stereotype. There is an ingrained resistance to the free flow of ideas because so much church doctrine is already established in most denominations on even extra-biblical issues. Church evangelism typically targets the down and out, who themselves are stereotyped as having below average intelligence, and that evangelism is often stronger in style than in substance. Finally, the Evangelical church sometimes gets tied up in political issues in ways that encourage the stereotype. I think these are all generally bad, and I plan to post on some of these in more depth in the future. Whether I have solutions for these situations remains to be seen, though.
I am not sure whether Evangelical stereotypes will melt away some day, or at least become a faux pas. It used to be acceptable for people to voice their negative opinions about other races, but that is not the case any more, as many public examples over the last few years have shown us. I do not really foresee this cultural shift in purely religious stereotypes occurring any time in the near future, though. I'm not completely certain that the Evangelical church wants its very own Al Sharpton to enforce religiously tolerant perspectives anyway.
While being written off as stupid, or at least a little slow, is not particularly enjoyable, is not always a bad thing. Humility can be something to be proud of as well, if that is not an oxymoron. Jesus appeared to think intellect was of minor importance given the passage in the opening of this post. Maybe I have taken the wrong angle on this all along.
5 comments:
I think the stereotype is offensive but I use similar techniques on others. I heard someone use the term low church recently - I'd forgotten that term. It refers to all of us who don't have a structure like liturgy to hang our religion on thus adding somewhat to the stereotype.
I admire people who break "stereotypes". I try to associate with those who show more intelligence and free thinking when it comes to church doctrine.
I guess I didn't realize that we were stereotyped as "slow". I knew we weren't considered intellectual.
I noticed the article on CNN earlier and thought it would make a good post topic .... oh well.
One thing that did frustrate me was the suggestion that Evangelicals were somehow no longer stupid because they've finaly seen the light and abandoned their "stupid literal interpretation of the Bible".
That's sort of like saying that we're welcome to have our little subculture as long as we don't actully belive the gospel we are sharing. Your answer on the evolution question sudenly becomes a litmus test of your credibility.
I've read a bit of the extreme creation-scientist stuff - and while I think it's a bit heavy handed (trying to prove nearly all doctrine through Genesis 1-4) I think they've got a good point.
We "emphasize a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and commit to spreading the message of salvation through his redemptive death" because that is what scripture teaches us. If we start saying that parts of our 'fundamental' standard for truth are not literal, then we might as well join the rest of the world and make it up as we go along.
... and somehow that makes us smarter?
Yeah, I noticed that litmus test of sorts too. I have actually avoided discussion of evolution/creation/etc to this point on this blog because there are a few different perspectives represented by the people who read this blog and I don't want to get into that debate. So, keep in mind that my comments are not meant to start an argument on the merits/drawbacks of traditional evolution or creation beliefs. At this time, I don't want this to be a forum for that specific debate.
For one, I consider people like Kent Hovind (a vocal young earth creationist) to be largely at fault for the doltish perspective that people have of Evangelicals. From what I know of him, I do respect Ken Ham, though (another vocal young earth creationist). Christians should be VERY careful when promoting the arguments of specific "scientists" with whom they agree, because people like Hovind really make us look like idiots.
Regarding how to read Genesis 1-4, I believe it records truth, but I honestly don't know what that means. At the very least, the first chapter of Genesis reads like Revelation to me, and I don't know how to interpret that either. When I understand how night and day are measured before the sun and moon exist, I think I'll better understand how to interpret the beginning of Genesis. I have been toying with the idea of a post on original sin, though, so that would reach into these early chapters of the Bible.
Acceptance of a specific scientific perspective should not be required for Evangelicals to be considered intelligent. I do think, though, that if Evangelicals are to make hay of something that is otherwise accepted as common knowledge, they have a responsibility to approach the topic with a full understanding of the issue at hand. This requires a logical approach that is largely lacking by individuals in the Evangelical church. As it is, I don't see that more than a handful of people even know how to identify logical fallacies used by people they agree with.
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