Simple Faith and Seminary and Norm Howarth

"It's really quite simple, Bill," my friend Norm intoned. I was in a Bible study during my freshman year (1970-71) at Brown University and I had, for the first time, met Christian young people of many different traditions who were students at Brown. "It is really quite simple," he repeated. I had presented what I felt was a conundrum of faith--how God could really be said to be watching over and even controlling the actions in the world but, at the same time, there be so much misery in that same world. He looked at me with a hint of impatience that I could be so "slow" to resolve this question in my own mind. But before Norm graciously cleared up this issue for me, he went into a brief digression on simplicity.

"Bill," he explained, as if he was laying out a basic truth to a child, "the world is made up primarily of people in humble circumstances. God has made it clear in the Scriptures that He is no respecter of persons but that He does have a message for all people in the world. Unless the message was simple, was easily understood and grasped in its basics, then our faith would just be for elite intellectuals, for people who had the luxury to spend time thinking about everything in life. Jesus himself commended the young people who came to him. 'Of such belongs the Kingdom of God.' Thus, Bill, though we might not be able to understand everything of faith, we should realize that all our basic questions of faith are simply answered."

I, who was 18 at the time, and was awash in the difficulties of growing up, trying to deal with the deep loneliness I felt 3,000 miles from home, wondering if pure mathematics was the field for me, feeling buffeted by uncertainties placed in my mind by professors regarding the certainty of my faith, was immediately ready to receive Norm's advice. I remember the feeling I had at the time. Norm's words hit me with the force of revelatory clarity. 'Yes!,' I felt. Norm had it. I was feeling miserable because I was trying to make things far too complex. Just learn to accept the day, to realize that God had a sufficient answer to all of my questions, that God truly was in control of life and my life in particular, and the problems would wash away. I think I saw in my mind's eye a detergent commercial at that moment washing dirt magically away. I felt that by following Norm's simple advice I would soon mount up with wings like eagles. I would run and not be weary. I would walk and not faint.

Living in Simplicity

So, I resolved to live in simplicity. I didn't mean by this the concept of "simplicity" which the the Amish sung about in "Simple Gifts," a song so hauntingly beautiful that it has now become the staple of concerts throughout the land. For me simplicity meant only that all the questions racing through my mind about Christian faith and what it meant to live faithfully in the world had basic and simple answers. I may not know the answers all at once, but I would certainly discover them quickly.

And discover them I did. I quickly learned an explanation for the problem I posed to Norm: why the answer, simply, is human "free will." When God created us, we had freedom to follow or to screw things up. Just because we chose the latter in many ways doesn't implicate the goodness of God. So simple. And, then, what about the supposed "errors" in the Scripture? Well, of course, there were no errors in the original manuscripts, but with the ones that we have now, some errors have "crept in." So simple. I confess I didn't know what I meant by any of that, but it sure satisfied me. No one ever told me that the original manuscripts didn't exist today, and that the whole concept of "original" manuscript for something written 2000 - 3000 years ago was very problematic.

I became such a veritable pillar of simplicity that people began to come to me with questions that were bothering them about life, and I dispensed easy and simple answers with the skill of a rhetorician before a jury. I even became obnoxious in my simplicity. I recall one occasion, for example, a few years later when I was visiting Norm and his new wife, Cherie. They were strapped for cash and took up residence in an apartment at a school for wayward boys. They were to "supervise" the boys in the evening and make sure they were bedded down for the night. In exchange, their room and board were taken care of. But this was hardly the situation that a young married couple should endure.

In my most blessed simpleness, I visited them for dinner one night. As the evening wore on, they began to share their troubles with me, the way that this situation was very trying for them, the conflicts between finances and the desire to be together, the uncertainty created by everything, their desire to escape but, at the same time, be faithful to their charge, etc. They were, in short, miserable. I, who never had had a girl friend, much less a wife, who had never lived with wayward boys, even though an objective observer might have so characterized my family-of-origin life (a family with four boys), quickly whipped out the Scripture and began to quote verses from I Samuel. I recall precisely the ones I quoted, because I had just memorized them earlier that day. The more they greeted my fluent quotations with stolid and seemingly unappreciative stares, the more eloquent and insistent I became. I lithely leapt through the Scriptures, pointing out helpful verse after helpful verse.

It only dawned on me later that my commitment to simplicity was making me a royal pain in the ass. And, in fact, my doctrine wasn't doing much for me. I was having trouble with the evangelical methods of Campus Crusade for Christ, even as I was "President" of the Fellowship for the year 1971-72; I didn't want to try to evangelize my Jewish friends, whose humor and "take" on life was gradually working its way deeply into my soul; I didn't want to dismiss my professors who would patiently but insistently point out places where the Scriptures disagreed with each other. In short, my castle of simplicity was gradually collapsing right in front of me, even as I tried to shore it up with some emergency pilings and scaffolding.

Awash in Complexity

I don't believe I had enough confidence in myself to admit how confused I was. I gamely continued to explain the world through the simple lenses that Norm had given me years before. But my answers began to sound more and more hollow to me. And to make things worse, I began to study history more earnestly, and I realized that Norm's advice on simplicity was itself captive to his own historical "moment." That is, he was nurtured in the Plymouth Brethren movement. Begun by John Nelson Darby in the early 19th century, the Brethren were mostly cobblers, shopkeepers and simple artisans. They stood for a reading of the Bible that was literal, straightforward, without the falderol and pomp of the dominant Anglican communion. Thus, it dawned on me that his advice to me in college really came out of a history that he really didn't know, and from the Brethren's long internal struggle to differentiate themselves from the Anglicans.

Yet, in the meantime I had developed a method of presentation that would forever endear me to conservatives. That is, I know how to outline a problem, present it in three bite-sized pieces, shore it up with simple, Scriptural and catchy illustrations, smile broadly as I am making the presentation, and then triumphantly end with some kind of rhetorical flourish I picked up over the years.

But the method belied the uncertainty in my heart. As decade turned to decade I realized that, in fact, I didn't believe in simplicity anymore. Everything was difficult for me--from dealing with my wife (married in 1977; divorced in 2001); raising children; relating to colleagues; trying to handle the conflicting feelings of ambition and service to others; knowing how to handle conflict with others, etc. And then, when my house of cards collapsed completely beginning in 1986 (more of that in other essays), I felt as if there were no answers to anything. Simply that.

Embracing Complexity--in a Simple Style

So, these experiences left me as the person I now am. I don't know what I "believe" about faith or God. I am still battered internally by conflicts between my ambitions and my willingness to accept whatever comes my way. But I present these complexities in such nicely packaged classes and presentations, in whatever field I enter, that people always commend me for the clarity and simplicity of my presentation. Even this essay has a nice three-fold structure, doesn't it? Well, thank Norm for it. He gave me a way of trying to see the world as simple. And I tried very hard for many years to be faithful to that vision. But, I am afraid, I have forever forsworn simplicity. Except when someone asks me to clarify something.

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