Oppression of the Mind and the Imprisonment of Christianity

            As the information tends to expand and our society grows there looms this ever-present cloud of exclusion. The content to follow may be difficult to grasp because of the linkage to a dark past and by no means is this comparison likened to the same in so far as the severity of physical punishment is concerned. But the idea that I present is one that is ideological and strikes at the core of what it means to be human, having a will.

            The Christian faith has a dark past of enduring some of the harshest of punishments (and lashing out punishments as well, unbiblically I will add) during its infant stages of growth. Under some difficult years of persecution, many people stared death in the face just because they proclaimed Christ as their Lord. Under Nero, Decius, and Domitian (to name a few) the church experienced massive amounts of suffering due to claims brought against it such as being atheist, immoral, and committing heinous acts. Well, this leads me to interject an idea here that may be hard to swallow but I see a similar thread today but only happening outside of the physical realm. This is happening within the realm of the will or our minds and is being veiled by the word of “tolerance.”

            This is not a baseless claim but rather quite evident so long as you do not commit yourself to the dark recesses of the back rooms. When Christians go and stand outside of an abortion clinic, not to cause trouble, but to simply hold a sign they are met with undue hate when they are simply standing for what they believe to be right. Apologists are out making arguments for the faith in hostile arenas being met with angry crowds with manipulative questions trying to force them into a bunch or a lie. Where is the tolerance for those who proclaim Christ as King? For if we step out to lovingly debate points of concern or contention we have with those who we stand opposed the normal reaction is to cry for “tolerance” (of course this is for those who are extreme and not those who are seeking humble discourse mind you).

            What is the point of my rather cross correspondence then? It is this. Unless you fit inside of the postmodern, humanist box you have been deemed an outcast by modern intellectuals. Your intellect counts for little and your character means nothing. Character in the land of intelligence brings little to the table and is not a point of discussion (but it should be). But if we live in a world that encourages us to think and use our minds yet forces us into the confines of a box how are we supposed to operate freely in an intellectual manner. Thus, we are experiencing an oppression of the mind. By limiting ourselves to a strictly naturalistic view of the world and not allowing other views into the discussion are we not limiting the knowledge up for discussion. If the knowledge that we allow into the discussion is simply all scientific and has nothing to do with the metaphysical, philosophical, epistemological are we not limiting or suppressing what we can ultimately come to know and know fully.

            What is the point of all this humdrum than? Science in and of itself is of great importance and relevance because it provides observations of the world around us but that is all that it provides is information about our physical world. Naturalism is a set of beliefs that bases its assumptions from the workings of science (and I pick on naturalism because it is the mainstream evidentialist ideal) much the same as Christianity bases its beliefs on the bible. But some would ask, again what does this have to do with what has been stated above? Well, the idea is that science (i.e. they really are meaning naturalism veiled behind this term, in most cases) is amassing so much knowledge of the physical world that it has become almost a sort of intellectual juggernaut in the sense that if you contend with its ideals it will run you down. This is not an overstatement by any means. There is a great deal of evidence (too much to cite here) to support this idea and Ben Stein hosted a great documentary that touches on the lines of this idea, “Expelled: No intelligence allowed” was the title if I am not mistaken. In short (to not divert from the core point of this article) was those who submitted the idea of creation/ intelligent design (i.e. not God specific) in the academic realm, many lost their jobs and/ or were pushed to the fringes of their fields. The monumental point to take away from here is that naturalism veiled behind the guise of science (again science is the actual good thing) has become the oppressor of ideas. It stands opposed to anything that looks at the many flaws of its “theory” and crushes it because it (naturalism) has been “preached” as doctrine to our children for so many years that it has been engrained to the very souls of the American psyche.

            This is a blatant oppression of the mind because it is strictly empiricist in nature and limited to the physical. But as anyone who has lived a life filled with any sort of adventure, heartache, joy, pain, relevance, etc., can tell you there is more than just the physical and to limit things too strictly an empirical view is a modern western ideological format. As higher functioning beings we have mental capabilities that allow us to reason at levels that far exceed that of any other creature on the planet and that should not be taken lightly, even if you are an evolutionist (though if that be the case our reasoning abilities would not be very trustworthy if they simply came from chemical reactions over the millennia). We as human beings have the ability to reason deductively, inductively, and causally. To argue that these reasoning abilities are useless would be to argue against science because these are used in science and thus used for naturalism, so the naturalist would, in essence, argue against themselves to try and say these principles are wrong. So, based on these ideas we can logically assume that we can make deductive, inductive, or causal claims about our immediate universe that are just as valid as those of naturalism. But the problem is that any naturalist is most likely going to be an ardent empiricist and claim that these ideas are going to lead us to inconclusive answers. All the while their worldview is based on assumptions of the world that are based on strictly the physical without consideration that the immaterial may and/ or does exist.

            Though I personally do not like long quotations this one seemed rather pertinent to the topic, so I am choosing to include it here. This is sort of in the way in which we have developed as a society which has led to the current state of affairs where individualism and relativity reign supreme and with that comes residual effects. Richards and O’Brien (2012) state,

The generation coming up now, often called millennials, are usually the children of Gen Xers; and because the Gen Xers’ parents (Boomers) weren’t very involved in their lives, parents of millennials tend to over-parents. They’ve been labeled helicopter parents, because they hover over their kids and make sure they get everything they need all the time. This constant attention means the millennials have a strong sense of self-esteem (verging on narcissism, some would say), a strong sense of entitlement (because they’ve always gotten what they’ve wanted) and don’t take criticism very well. They, as the generations before them, are obsessed with self-improvement, self-actualization, and self-expression.

            The idea behind this and the connection to the oppression of the mind is that with individualism and that mentality of relativism that comes with it. Since nothing is objective (by this standard) nothing can actually be known but rather everything is subjective. Most would suggest that this is the ultimate expression of freedom and this is the opposite of oppression but without a standard whereby we can gauge progression from or the misdeeds or the validity of a certain position nothing can again be known. This by its very nature holds people back from being able to fully self-actualize or experience communal success. Some will argue with this (and they have that right) but those who do so (in my opinion) have blinders on when it comes to the topic of relativism and objective truth or objective anything. Something worth noting at this point is that individualism is a predominately western ideal whereas in most of the eastern parts of the world they are what we would call collectivist cultures or concerned about the whole. I think this is important to note for interest purposes and to show that some of these things that we hold near and dear to our lives are not universal truths like we may think they are (spoken as an individualist/ relativist) but rather they are born out of the cultural environments and ideals where we were raised.

            Since the above topic (oppression of the mind) I think has been covered rather adequately it would be safe to move onto the second and last point of this writing. What would make such a simple-minded fool such as myself make an astute claim as Christianity is being imprisoned because even at a cursory view most would contend that it is flourishing quite vividly? Well, at first, I do not make this assessment simply based on angry assumptions but on careful observations over time. Secondly, the flourishment of the faith is not Christianity as a whole but pockets of Christianity and might I say it is caught in a wave of disunity. But disunity is not imprisonment some might say, and I would agree with that fair assessment of reality, but this is just the beginning of a long road to what is to come. Also, let me add that I do not wish this to be taken as the ramblings of some old mystic fool who believes the end is upon us but rather the writings of a thoughtful observer who has seen the progression of events lead us to a point where truth has been relativized, morality “subjectivized”, and toleration made king above humanity.

            Since the postmodern movement has begun and truth has been relativized this would mark (in my mind) the initial stages of the “herding” of the Christian religion into its cages. Christianity is based on objective truth and if you take away that foundational premise the rest begins to lose footing. By entrapping the minds into believing that truth is but a personal endeavor or an experience then the Christian has no place to stand in the place among intellectuals. The same can be said when it comes to morality. If morality is simply relegated to the personal longings of an individual pursuing betterment (at whatever capacity that may be) the Christians message is essentially useless. Tolerance cried out in the name of all religions except that of the Christian because the face of Christ has been what has been seen for nearly two thousand years because it was accepted by the Roman Empire as the state religion has all but limited the audiences we can speak to. Has the message become clear yet?

            Let us move beyond the matters of truth, morality, and tolerance and look more internally then to see if this will shed light on the precariousness of the situation. Christianity is called to be a family, a unity (neither Greek nor Jew, slave nor free), a whole not a part, yet there are more parts that all disagree and not all peacefully so. By suggesting this I am not saying that having a difference in doctrine is intrinsically bad (because it is not) but some of those doctrines are divergently not Christian (i.e. Jehovah’s Witness, Mormon’s) but yet are still considered among the fold, is this not of great concern? There are biblical studies departments suggesting to new students that they are free to interpret the bible as they please because the Bible is God’s mirror to our time and it is his message to each individual person, wherever that person is (reader-response technique/ criticism) which completely ignores the historical-cultural aspects of the passage and the unique method that God used to send his word to us (context determines meaning).

            Slowly there is a trend that is moving the Christian faith and anyone who is an adherent to it to the subjugated fringes because it is not “progressive in thought” and not “spiritual” enough in nature. But again, anyone who can even briefly peruse the development of social norms and see how individuals interact and how our perceptions of foundational things of relevance have been simply shoved to the side simply for convenience then you will see how this has drastically impacted our view of the world. This is not simply a cultural issue anymore because it is going to go beyond that as time progresses on. As we see culture is meaning far less then what it has meant generations ago and without this sense of where we came from we lose a sense of who we are as unique people, and this is not a good thing. Cultural perspective is something that is so majestic that in its diversity we can gain so much unity in the immense knowledge that we can gain from this unique endeavor. This can also be seen in how there is a merger between the sexes (not in equality, equality should happen for everyone) in how there are no differences between them and how we can shift between them as we choose. But the postmodern ideal of tolerance and relativism has shattered this diversity shell that we are slowly going to merge into some indistinguishable blob of an unintelligible mess. I think that this is the ultimate goal for the imprisonment of Christianity because if we are ultimately indistinguishable from anything else who are we then?

            What are we to do then? Firstly, there needs to be a diametric shift in our thinking (as Christians) in the way we view the familial aspects of the church. As opposed to viewing ourselves as Lutherans, Pentecostals, Baptists, or whatever your specific bent may be we are all at our core Christians and the biblical precedent is that we are to be a family. It is in our unity that we are the strongest. As the adage goes, a house divided against itself will fall. Secondly, I truly believe in our current state there needs to be a revitalization in the apologetics field. The reason I say this is because the Christian faith is under attack and we need those who are unafraid to go out and give a reason for the hope that is in them and do so with humility and respect (1 Pet. 3:15). Thirdly, we need to realize (especially in the west) that just because that we do it a certain way here does not mean that it is necessarily the right way or the “Christian” way to do it. The bible was written in the middle east and in a completely different time than our own, so we need to be cognizant of this fact if we are going to not only to be able to reach those in different cultures but also be able to apply biblical passages correctly. This will help us empower each other properly for the mission to lead the lost to Christ and to endure the trials from those who hate us. Lastly, we need to be representatives for Christ no matter what. Even if we are imprisoned (both literally and in the case of this article figuratively). This is the culmination of who we are as the church of Christ. Christian means little Christ and when a Christian actually lives out like Jesus did that says far more to the lost than any words leaving your lips ever will. If we (the church) can become a unit, no trial or period of pain can harm us because we will be fulfilling God’s purpose for us as a family and that is an honoring thing to understand before a gracious God.