Being Nice is More Important Than Being Orthodox

Anthony Bradley tee'd off the other day on the niceness that passes for masculinity in evangelicalism.

That's my invitation to you guys as well. Flush the evangelical "nice guy" image down the toilet from which it came and embrace what God intends for you as a man. It's dangerous, exciting, adventerous, and much more fulfilling than passivity and "niceness."

I read this during a time when I was contemplating Mark Driscoll's now famous apology to Brian McLaren and Doug Pagitt for unkind things he had said to and about them in Leadership's Out of Ur blog.

I am sure Mark did the right thing in apologizing.  If the Holy Spirit is convicting someone of sin then I wouldn't want to be the one telling them they aren't sinning.  As one who believes in total depravity I believe we all have far more sin we need to confess than we actually do confess.  So, Mark gives us a wonderful example of humility here.

But, and you knew a "but' was coming.  I fear this whole controversy exemplifies what Anthony is talking about in regards to the nice-guy syndrome.

We live at a time when being nice is far more important than being orthodox.   Maybe I didn't follow the discussion at Out of Ur deeply enough but it always seemed to me that people were more focused on Driscoll's words and attitudes than his arguments. I'm not saying that bad attitudes are ok, if indeed Driscoll had a bad attitude.  Nor am I saying that the use of invective is a good thing.

Yet it does bother me that the whole discussion seems to have gotten sidetracked into a discussion of Driscoll's delivery, and not his arguments.  The issue being debated was a pastoral response to homosexuality and Driscoll, as many of us, found McLaren's comments, shall we say, less than helpful and less than pastoral.  Driscoll asked some very tough questions which I think have been given short shrift in the hubbbub that ensued over his tone.

Now, I am not trying to resurrect this debate right here and right now.  Nor do I want to encourage Mark Driscoll or anyone else to reignite any hostile attitudes if hostility is what was present and what is now simmering down. What I am saying is that "niceness" is the new reigning orthodoxy and this is a huge problem. 

Speaking along similar lines, in A Serrated Edge, Doug Wilson says:

The assumption that collegiality is owed in all debates is an assumption based on widespread but false notions of neutrality, and since neutrality is impossible, acceptance of such assumptions is simply a tacit way of going over to the other side.

And . . .

Every society has an orthodoxy (which is invisible to most adherents of it) and every society has its heretics, those who challenge that orthodoxy.

And . . .

. . . every orthodoxy protects its sacred things with blasphemy laws.  Because our culture likes to keep up its secularist pretence, we do not use the term orthdoxy or blasphemy.  But we do have politically correct thought, and we do have laws against hate speech.  Furthermore, and related to this, every established orthodoxy maintains the definitions of arrogance, and this brings us to our point - a defense of biblical satire.  Whenever someone uses satire against the current regime, among other things, he is invariably accused of arrogance.  The orthodoxy is the keeper of the keys, and those keys include the definitions.

It seems to me, and again this is just one man's opinion, that a large part of the commotion over at Out of Ur was because Mark transgressed the reigning orthodoxy of niceness and collegiality.  McLaren transgressed centuries of biblical theology and pastoral practice and Driscoll challenged him on it, with vehemence.  Mark Driscoll transgressed the reigning orthodoxy of niceness and he was challenged by many.

When I read some of the great reformation debates invective flowed freely from protestant and catholic alike.  I am glad that style of debate and dialogue is mostly gone.  Yet, even with all of the flying invective it seems that in those debates that the issues themselves took center stage, not the attitudes of the combatants. 

But in our day you can shut down nearly any discussion of nearly any issue at nearly any time by calling someone arrogant or mean.  I'm not saying it is ok to be arrogant or mean, but let's face it, it's not a bad thing to be passionate about something.  Sometimes emotions overflow into these things and the rhetoric gets heated. 

I just hate to see us sidestep significant issues and debates in the name of niceness. 

Comments

[Jeremy Pierce]

I agree in general, but I wonder about the first of the three quotes from Doug Wilson. You seem to place that quote along the same lines, but I think he's saying something much harsher. I think what he's saying is something you probably wouldn't want to endorse.

His presuppositionalism leads him to deny neutrality, saying that we can't explore the consequences of atheism (for instance) without tacitly endorsing atheism. This is clearly false, because presuppositionalists regularly explore the consequences of atheism in order to try to show that atheism is internally inconsistent, and they don't think that involves tacitly endorsing it. The classical arguments for God do the same thing.

So his second claim is false to begin with, but it clearly doesn't imply the first claim that he uses it to support. How can the issue of being unable to trace out consequences of an assumption for the sake of argument be in any way connected to collegiality? Why should the denial of neutrality lead to a requirement that we be mean when it comes to certain issues? It's one thing to say that we shouldn't do what McLaren does. We shouldn't be unwilling to take a stance on important issues. But that doesn't mean we need to be mean, as if collegiality is unimportant. Stating views clearly and unapologetically does not require lack of collegiality. This is just a non sequitur.

I don't think you intended to endorse any of this, but that's what I think that quote is really getting at, and it seems to me to be at cross-purposes with your post. Your post is trying to argue that we should take a stand for orthodoxy, though it is important to do it nicely. Niceness isn't an excuse for not stating our views on important matters. Then you say that this quote is along the same lines, but it's not. You want us to be collegial, but you don't want that to detract from stating orthodox positions. He seems to want to say that collegiality doesn't matter at all for issues of orthodoxy. That just struck me as really strange in the middle of a post that is taking a very different view.

[Don in Phoenix]

The issue is not nice vs. orthodox. As followers of Christ, we are required to be BOTH. What the Holy Spirit did in Mark Driscoll's life was to convict him of his transgression of the Third Great Commandment (a.k.a. the New Commandment, from Christ Himself); the commandment Jesus gave to His followers was to love one another as He has loved us. Short of denying the fundamental truth of the Gospel of Christ, I can't think of anything that would disqualify Brian McLaren from "one another" status; so, if he was not loving his brother as Christ loved him, Driscoll was rightly convicted of the beam in his own eye.

Nasty debates within the ranks of followers of Christ do nothing but detract from our primary mission, which is NOT getting involved in the American conservative vs. liberal cultural and political war, but rather showing by example the Third Way of the Kingdom of God, making disciples of every nation.

[Terry]

To Don in Phoenix,

I would hate to think that Christianity is merely a sanctified dot alt. If you remember a few years back we had on the Internet there was primary discussion groups and then there was those .alt groups which stood for alternative. Some of the .alt groups were way more vivrant and interesting. So you would have politics.conservative and then politics.liberal and then politics.alt. I would actually think in terms of discussions, a sanctified approach to culture and social groups is that we embrace what is good in all three groups. It does not matter which side the thinking came from. I understand Brother McClaren is seeking to do something new. What I think I hear though is liberalism with a tad more evangelical doctrine than his mainline liberals. He is doing something new, but it is not all that earth shaking as far as I can tell. By saying that I mean I don't think he is showing a real third way, he is a variation in theme. So actually, I don't think he would qualify as .alt and to do so would be 'off topic'. (I hope I'm not the only one who ever got thrown out of a discussion group because I was off topic. I'm pretty sure I am though.) So brother I take issue with the new third way thinking. I really think saying your not a part of either camp transcends it. I'm not saying it is impossible to transcend issues in a debate, we just need to not think that we do so by declaring it. "I'm transcending this." To be a bona fida .alt, you have to be different and other will tell you your different.

By the way, I'm with you that we need to treat Brother Mclaren as a brother. I'm with you that fulfilling the Great Commission is primary. I'm with you that we need to be both nice and orthodox. My good friend the Jollyblogger is usually both. He can't help it, he is just a nice guy who knows how to think.

To Parableman,

I know Doug Wilson mostly from his reputation, so I don't know the guy. I took a little look at the Jollybloggers's link, which I thought was going to be to a blog post but turns to be a book. It sounds like from the little bit on the Amazon review that Wilson can be caustic in a unholy manner and even justifying of his rudeness. However, I'm not following your arguements here. Are you looking at the book and looking more context that Jolly has given us here?

[Jeremy Pierce]

Terry, Wilson's remarks are stock presuppositionalism of the Bahnsen variety. Just to make sure I was reading him correctly, I read the quote to a friend who knows both presuppositionalism and Wilson far better than I do, and he confirmed my reading. The kind of language he is using is classic presuppositionalist-speak for avoiding classical apologetical arguments because they think it means you're giving in to atheism by assuming what they assume (even though presuppositionalist arguments do exactly the same thing, and that doesn't count as tacitly going over to the other side).

But regardles of that issue, Wilson seems obviously to be saying that we don't need to be collegial in all debates, which is really a denial of what David was saying. He wants us to state the truth when it comes to matters of orthodoxy and not use niceness as an excuse to avoid that. He wasn't saying not to be collegial about it, though. Wilson wants to argue against the view that we should always be collegial, and his reasoning behind that is that we need to speak the truth. It's the same mistake as the people he's criticizing. Both are assuming that you can't be collegial and frank. David is saying we can be both. So I don't see how Doug Wilson's statements are really along the same lines as this post. It seems to me to be a completely contrasting view.

[Joel Haas]

Apparently being a Gator right now is better than being either orthodox or nice!

[pgepps]

I'm not sure what to do with the use of "collegial" and "nice" here. On the one hand, I'm certainly sick of an evangelical culture in which the pinnacle of aspiration is "niceness." On the other hand, "collegiality" refers specifically to the manners appropriate to treating one's colleagues, co-members of a "college," a purpose-assembled group of people devoted to a common purpose (now, almost exclusively used of academics).

Now, I understand that "collegiality" is not the right word for every kind of courtesy or decency. For example, when I am dealing with my colleagues, it is often necessary to defer confrontations because we have agreed to focus on some other matter that day or in that environment. In the context of my church, I have to do that, too--but there are different priorities, and I cannot accept (as I must in academia) an *indefinite* deferral of any concern about truth or right.

So, if "nice" means "never telling someone he's wrong," then sign me off. But there is something about online discourse that encourages people who do not know each other and are not involved in the same endeavors under the same leadership to lash out at those who they think are wrong. I've done it more than a few times, too, and have had to apologize for my actions in online discussion groups.

My exposure to Doug Wilson's writings in his newsletters and books has given me the impression that he considers offensiveness a positive evidence of truth-telling; that is not Biblical thought or speech. I tend to avoid him for that reason.

"The wrath of man works not the righteousness of God."

Cheers,
PGE

[Richard Kindig]

In my view niceness is a sub-biblical word, too easily bent toward "smooth words" which deceive the simple. But "sweet reasonableness", "speaking the truth in love" is a Biblical mandate that trumps orthodoxy. Let us have salt and light in our content, but not "Orthodoxy" ... itself a sub-biblical, historically discredited concept, and the source of much of the rejection of Christianity by the educated parts of our culture. They have seen the historic vituperation of Christians, dating back to the time of the Nicene Council, and concluded that they needn't expect good fruitage to flow from such a bitter fountain. Of course, Jesus predicted this, as well: "because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold."

Every area of teaching that I find Christians willing to divide from one another about needs re-examination ... the trinity, hellfire, Calvinism vs Arminianism, 7 24-hour creation days, future probation, pre-trib vs post-trib, etc. etc. Only those who notice the constant emphasis on character over knowledge in the New Testament will be prepared to engage in the discussion and study that is necessary to move toward doctrinal unity among those whose hearts are pure toward Christ ... who I remain hopeful can be found in virtually every fellowship circle.

[Terry]

To Parableman,
Thanks for the clarification. If I get you right, you do have more context and the context is that you understand presuppositionalism more than I do. I would like to hear your thoughts though on the concept that the Scripture does use sarcasm, insults and in your face confrontation. I am not trying to justify my own sin, of which I have plenty, I am just trying to understand better where the balance happens to be.

To all,
On a related note, I have noticed that those who emphasize chivalry, manners and collegiality can do so out of pride. I am definitely not proposing that decorum be thrown to the wind in order to exterminate pride. But it is true that creating a rule which your opponents often break is an easy way to justify your indignation. I think we all have to be careful, especially me, that we don't create a false issue by pointing out the improprieties of our adversaries when in reality we just don't like them. To summarize our point, it is easy mask an unloving attitude by pointing out the lack of manners of our opponent.

[Terry]

By the way, on a humourous note, Doug Wilson pointing out that those in power hold are the ones who keep the keys of orthodoxy (meaning current approved norms in thinking, not meaning Biblical thinking) and keep the definitions, this sounds a whole lot like Wilson is using the arguements of....post-modernism. (Please read with a Paul Harvey inflection at the end.)

[pgepps]

Oh, puh-leeze, Terry.

"As the Prince, so the country."
Marxism
"civic religion"
neo-pragmatism
cultural relativism

That's just a few of the strands of modern thought that articulated exactly the same point. Just a few. It's a commonplace kind of idea. Nothing here is new or post-modern.

Don't use the term if you don't understand it.

Oh, sorry--was that "nice"?

Cheers,
PGE

[pgepps]

And, Terry, while I agree that "it is easy [to] mask an unloving attitude by pointing out the lack of manners of an opponent," it is also easy to be offensive to force the "opponent" to either become combative, confront the sinful behavior, or withdraw from the discussion, allowing the one who cast the discussion as a "debate" with an "opponent" to crow about victory.

See, the second someone truculently tears into their opposition, they have stacked the deck:

a) confront the sinful speech: you are "changing the subject" and "making manners more important than Truth"

b) ignore the sinful speech: you must put up with abuse, suffer the offender to continue in sin, and worry about how your testimony is being affected

c) respond in kind to sinful speech: you have sinned, and you must now worry another way about how your testimony is affected

d) withdraw from the conversation: you must be willing to accept the false words spoken about others concerning your reasons for withdrawing, or else you're back at a, b, or c.

That is why civil discourse rules this kind of thing out of order. Once you've violated that boundary, there's no *good* way out; only the lesser of evils. And that's because it starts when someone *sins*.

(In most cases, the best choice is [a] followed, if there is no repentance, by [d]--but that, too, can be used as a "cloak of licentiousness")

We don't shoot first, or launch sinful speech first, because "the tongue is a flaming fire, a world of iniquity, a deadly poison." It is one thing to say "you're wrong." It is not even wrong to say so harshly, in an appropriate context. It is definitely the case that our vituperative online discourse is more characterized by concern for one's own honor and machismo than by real concern for truth. Truth doesn't need me to murder you verbally.

"But I say to you, that he who says to his brother, 'Raca,' that is, 'you fool!' shall be in danger of the burning gehenna."

Take care,
PGE

[pgepps]

Oh, and for those out there who like the ol' "just kidding" defense, there's always a Biblical diagnosis of their condition.

Cheers,
PGE

[cavman]

Jeremy,
to lump all presuppositionalists together is quite pitiful example of over-generalization.
Bahnsen & his descendents are not the only presuppositionalists out there. There are many- like most Westminster grads- who are quite gracious. The pre-sups I know or have experience with (Pratt, Frame, Kidd, etc) are nothing like the theonomic strain (North, Bahnsen etc.)
As one of those supposedly evasive pre-sups (who studied under Sproul and worked for him as well) we simply say that the noetic effect of sin cripples the evidentialist argument. We cannot, due to the effect of sin, rightly understand what is plainly obvious (as Paul says, we suppress it in unrighteousness).
I trust I graciously disagreed with you, while pointing out the area of disagreement. I found your comments lacking in love to many of your brothers by attributing false motives and making false assumptions about them.

[DLE]

A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.
--Proverbs 15:1 ESV

[Terry]

To PGE,

http://www.anewkindofchristian.com/archives/000018.html

[pgepps]

Uh, Terry, that's a very pretty URL.

Do you have a point? I don't take MacLaren very seriously, though having read that open letter to Chuck Colson, I'm a bit more inclined to hear him out than before. Was I supposed to hiss like a cat, or applaud, or what? You aren't helping me much, here.

If I agree that Wilson was probably trying to riff off his perception of post-modern argumentation to reinforce his rhetoric, will this all go away?

(I just hate being suspended in a position where there is no comforting feeling that no one could justly question my statements.)

Cheers,
PGE

[Terry]

To PGE,

Sweet!

[Jeremy Pierce]

Cavman, why are you attributing to me this strange view that presuppositionalists can't be nice? I found your last sentence deeply ironic given that you so radically misrepresented me even to make it, and then you acted as if I have radically misrepresented others.

I said nothing about how nice or not nice presuppositionalists are. All I said is that Wilson's words about endorsing atheism by granting its assumptions is a standard presuppositionalist line (and I explained why his argument is fallacious). I never said his insistence that we need not be nice has anything to do with presuppositionalism. That's a completely different issue. I brought the presuppositionalist issues in only to show that he wasn't saying what David seemed to be taking him to be saying.

Frame is barely a presuppositionalist, in my view. He allows classical arguments such as those of Aquinas. He agrees with almost all my criticisms of presuppositionalism and yet still calls himself one. I think there's one thing he holds onto that I think makes him barely presuppositionalist, but otherwise he's not. His view is not really the view I have in mind as presuppositionalism, which is why I singled out the Bahnsen variety and said that was all I was talking about anyway. You might call Frame's position weak presuppositionalism or soft presuppositionalism. I don't think you need to be like Van Til and Bahnsen to be a strong presuppositionalist, though. The Gordon Clark school is just as much presuppositionalist and is equally (or perhaps even more fully) wrong, in my view.

About your own view, I agree, but I'd say something much stronger: the noetic effects of the fall cripple the evidentialist, classical, and presupposititionalist arguments alike in terms of actually saving someone. I'd also say something weaker: all three kinds of arguments can be part of the means of God's grace in bringing someone to salvation, though they will only have to do with the intellectual component of faith. Different ways of putting arguments have a different effect rhetorically in different contexts, but contexts change.

[graham]

Yet it does bother me that the whole discussion seems to have gotten sidetracked into a discussion of Driscoll's delivery, and not his arguments... Driscoll asked some very tough questions which I think have been given short shrift in the hubbbub that ensued over his tone.

Isn't that the point? If he had used a different tone, then maybe the conversation wouldn't have got side-tracked. So, aside from being nice, it would have been more fruitful and conducive to making a point and having a decent discussion.

[Aaron Shafovaloff]

"First, that Christian people are mistaking natural qualities, niceness, a cultural veneer or politeness, for true Christian grace. It seems that we are no longer capable of differentiating between the two. How often today is affability mistaken for saintliness! 'What a gracious man he is,' they say. What they really mean is this: he never criticizes and he agrees with everybody and everything. I know of nothing more dangerous than that. These so called gracious men are, of course, altogether nicer than John the Baptist or the Apostle Paul! I do not hesitate to go further they are very much nicer than the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, who denounced the Pharisees! Affability is not saintliness. A mere intellectual, moral flabbiness, is not synonymous with graciousness and with the possession of grace!" -Martyn Lloyd Jones