Reflections on Why I Left, Why I Stayed, by Tony and Bart Campolo, Part 12
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Now we arrive at a chapter by Tony named “You Reap What You Sow: How I See Bart’s Deconversion.” In this chapter Tony talks about the way a series of decisions by Bart contributed to his deconversion. This is of some comfort to Tony, who periodically feels guilty for Bart’s decision, but then Tony remembers that Bart’s decisions are his own. Tony’s reflections also serve as a partial response to Bart’s own depiction of his deconversion we just got done discussing.
Bart chalks up his deconversion to God’s failure to show up and make himself known. Tony disagrees, invoking the notion of Peter Berger’s “plausibility structures” to remind us that what we do and don’t believe are often highly dependent on what is affirmed to be reasonable by those most important to us. When the dominant culture goes contrary to a set of beliefs, maintaining a countercultural support group is vitally important to sustain those convictions.
Tony gives church camp as an example of how plausibility structures work, which is a good example for me. I grew up attending camp meetings, and to this day I testify to their power in shaping my convictions in deep ways. My wife and I, partially to pay homage to my deep debt to church camps, wrote a book about the history of a camp meeting in Michigan.
As a sociologist, Tony is not averse to adducing such examples as an example of “social construction.” As a philosopher rather critical of, say, a constructivist meta-ethic, I’d be less inclined than he to use such language. But he’s surely right about certain sociological dimensions that are relevant to sustaining beliefs. Even Tony admits that plausibility structures provide only the conditions wherein a particular belief system becomes and remains viable. And as Charles Taylor explains, ours is now a secular age in which particular traditional religious convictions can no longer be assumed the default.
Tony points to an array of Christian convictions and how exotic, foolish, and unintuitive they may seem to the modern mind. Here I think he may overreach a bit by talking about how Christians from the start have “celebrated” the fact that their views don’t align with modern science. Having been rereading Plantinga’s Where the Conflict Really Lies, I find Tony’s language here more than a little unfortunate. Plantinga argues quite convincingly that the conflict between Christianity and science is superficial, but the concord deep (and just the opposite for naturalism). The conflict comes up between faith and the naturalistically inspired theological or metaphysical add-ons to science that are not a proper part of science.
Admittedly Christian revelation goes beyond reason, but it never goes contrary to it. These distinctions matter quite a bit.
Regarding Bart’s decisions that served to undermine his faith, Tony adduces several examples. When Bart stopped participating in a local congregation on a regular basis, Tony grew concerned. When Bart eventually began asserting that some people are unable to be saved or transformed in any meaningful way, Tony became even more alarmed. Here Tony poignantly quotes a Russian existentialist philosopher who said that when someone stops believing in the capacity to grow and change and engage in noble and worthwhile pursuits, that individual eventually loses faith in God as well. To lose sight of the divine presence in even the lowliest person is the beginning of atheism. And the reverse is true as well: to lose faith in God is to lose faith in people. This is why, Tony notes, the Great Commandment is so closely tied to loving our neighbor.
Bart’s inner city ministry had to mightily wear on him, but I think Tony’s all the righter that without a strong inner spiritual bulwark fortressed by community Bart’s loss of faith eventually was no big surprise. And the point is just as spiritual as sociological. Christian fellowship and community are a means of grace, and without them spiritual starvation is inevitable.
When Bart’s preaching changed to no longer include the power of God to forgive and change, that was another huge warning sign. Tony knows firsthand how his own preaching can help sustain his own convictions. This dialectic relationship between our words and actions is “praxis,” and a powerful force in our life of faith.
Near the end, Tony’s chapter becomes especially interesting. He sums up his analysis by saying that who and what we become is ultimately the result of a long series of decisions that we make for ourselves. “I think I am a Christian not only because God has chosen to love and save me but also because I have freely chosen to trust His Word and do His will…. I affirm our dignity as those who freely make the most important decisions that determine our nature and destiny.”
I wholly agree, though I’ve noted some hyper-Reformed proclivities in Tony’s words before. So what does he mean by “freely” here? Compatibilist freedom? Such that we make the “choice” but we couldn’t have done otherwise, but, owing to God’s grace, we are doing what we want to do? If so, I think the latter may well be something of a necessary condition for freedom, but not a sufficient one. Or maybe Tony means libertarian freedom—still requiring God’s grace, but with the ability to turn down God’s gift?
Tony seems convinced that whatever his operative conception of freedom is, it’s enough to hold Bart responsible for taking the steps he did that led to his move away from God. He says to do otherwise is to disrespect Bart’s independence as an adult or deny his dignity as a human being.
Tony keeps praying for Bart, of course, but then adds something simply fascinating in the last paragraph.
Secular as he is these days, his exegesis of Ephesians 2 is still right on the money. However we take care of it, our ability to believe—and therefore our ability to believe again—is always a gift from God. Therefore, rather than praying for Bart to soften his heart or change his mind or reopen his Bible or go back to church, I pray instead that the Holy Spirit will somehow dramatically overwhelm him the way Saul was overwhelmed on the road to Damascus, restoring his ability to look beyond the wisdom of the wise and see that the foolishness of God is ever so much wiser.
Although I agree we should certainly pray that God would do such things with unbelieving loved ones, Tony’s claim that Bart has a right understanding of Ephesians 2 is stunning to me. We discussed at length in our last installment why Bart was quite wrong on Ephesians 2. Does Bart have the ability to say no to God’s overtures of love or not? Tony just got done affirming he did, and then, like Bart, laid it at God’s feet! What was the point of the chapter, then?
Tony’s lack of nuance and careful distinctions here is deeply disappointing. Either he should have said more to avoid patent inconsistency, or he really did just make clear that his theology is problematically Reformed and the only conception of freedom he believes in after all is compatibilist. To say there is a tension, though, between that last paragraph and what came before is an understatement. There appears to be simply plain contradiction.
David Baggett is professor of philosophy and director of The Center for the Foundations of Ethics at Houston Baptist University. Author or editor of about fifteen books, he’s a two-time winner of Christianity Today book awards. He’s currently under contract for his fourth and fifth books with Oxford University Press: a book on moral realism with Jerry Walls, and a collection on the moral argument with Yale’s John Hare.
