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What is an Evangelical? Mini-Essay IV

Bill Long

Second, my Evangelical beliefs skewed rather than encouraged the formation of healthy interpersonal relationships. Because I believed in the kairotic view of time, I considered every conversation to be a potential carrier of the fulness of divine goodness and revelation. It was not as if I required that each person with whom I talked had a commitment to the same understanding of time or of God that I did; indeed, very few if any would have had it at Reed College and Stoel Rives LLP.

Rather, I sought conversations that wanted to probe to the "deep" things of life; "deep" understanding of texts, classical, literary, philosophical, biblical; "deep" observations about personal motivations; "deep" insights into institutional dysfunctions or commitments to the future; "deep" commitment to languages and felicitous expression of the English language; "deep" awareness of the emotional/sensual side of life as well as the intellectual side; "deep" commitment to the rhetoric of secular revival and energetic transformation of institutions. Every conversation had to be an exercise in personal improvement and more refined development of personal characteristics or understanding that would aid in the transformation of an institution or the world.

As might be expected (from the perspective of 2004), I did not develop many friendships. I might have been able to find someone with whom I could talk about Plato for a while, but then I would become restless and want to probe the Book of Job, and I would need to find someone else with whom to talk, since the "expert" on Plato was not an "expert" on Job. But then I wanted to engage in politics, and the political pundits didn't seem to know either Job or Plato, or care that either had existed. And then, when I sought theological companionship, I could talk to people about Karl Barth or liberation theology, but they couldn't talk to me about Syriac or deconstruction or architectural developments in housing in the 1890s in Portland, Oregon.

I became almost frantic as I tried to cultivate many people for their specialized knowledge in one small area in which I had some interest, but never could feel that any of my conversations were related to any other conversation. My mind was divided, Balkanized, severed into countless small compartments. People only entered in if they could give energy to a particular point I was interested in at any moment. I grew very weary and even desperate, for I did not know how people should or could play a role in my life.

Third, my Evangelical beliefs made me completely unable to explain, understand or bear the inevitable personal defeats that came my way in my 30s and 40s. Because of my strong commitment to God's being RIGHT THERE and necessarily working for my good in all situations, I could not accept the fact that I could experience defeat, or if I experienced it, that it could last more than temporarily or that it could be anything but a stepping stone to the great victory that would soon come to all of those who loved and served the Evangelical God. That is, Evangelicalism bred in me the sense that the "victorious life" was the life that was easily within my grasp; that as Joshua mowed down the enemies of God before taking the land of Canaan, so I would, figuratively speaking, mow down all forces in front of me and settle down into the victorious life of the Promised Land. Not only did God work all things for good to those who loved Him and were called according to His purpose, but this God gave formulas for personal success throughout the Bible. One of those formulas was found in Joshua--that the Book of the Law (i.e., the Bible) should not depart out of my mouth, but that I should meditate on it day and night in order to get good success. I spent seven years memorizing the Bible and mastering it to such an extent that I got the highest score ever on the Bible Content Exam for prospective Presbyterian ministers when I took that test in 1977. Thus, success was assured.

But, in fact, I experienced a predictable number of personal setbacks in my 30s and 40s and was fully unable to understand or accept them. As a result, I plunged into a period of prolonged anger and personal melancholy which lasted more than a decade. Again, only in the past year have I felt that I am extricating myself from the extremely tangled web of Evangelical beliefs and their residue. The process has been arduous and frustrating; events have happened in my personal life that have made it necessary for me to reconstruct my entire intellectual, spiritual and emotional apparatus. But, thanks to some friends and some ability to remove myself from this pattern of thinking, I have not felt happier with myself and my life than I am now. I believe that my commitment to the Evangelical God as detailed in III and IV above was a major factor in my inability to realize realistic professional goals that I set before myself from teen years. But now I have a new life, and I discover it each day. Never have people been as important to me as they are now; never have I taken the opportunity to write in as many areas as I do now; never have I been as comfortable in stating what I perceive are my interests as I am right now. I am learning to live with gratitude. How can you beat that?