autobiography and menlo park presbyterian church and evangelical faith and personal greatness

When I made a commitment to the Evangelical God in the late 1960s, I knew my life would be different. I would hang around with Evangelical people, I would study that religion, I would proclaim it wherever I went, I would order my life according to certain Evangelical disciplines that were taught to me. In short, I would see the world as an Evangelical. But, I hasten to add, this was before Evangelicalism had developed a rather harsh conservative political edge, which only happened in the 1980s and beyond. In the early 1970s Evangelicalism was a pretty apolitical movement, though the "old guard" was probably Ike-like in its Republicanism and the "young turks," inspired by the student protest movements, had more than a few Democrats. Jim Wallis, for example, is an instance of the latter. I was apolitical, even at Brown. I was more interested in witnessing to what I called the "transformative" power of Christ to my peers than in protesting American involvement in SE Asia.

3. I Had Been Secretly Convinced of my Greatness for Years. This is a tough one to articulate even today and was even tougher to know what to do with at age 18/19. The feeling was stronger than the sense that many people have, and which Mr. Rogers sung about, regarding one's "specialness." I think I felt from a very young age that I had something uniquely wonderful to give to the world, even as my sense of preference and choice was taken from me. But I learned quickly that you didn't go around talking to others about this. And, especially when I met up with the Evangelical God, I learned that this kind of personal self-promotion was a no-no. At least it was in my circles. Jesus blessed the poor in spirit, the humble-minded. It was the meek who would inherit the earth.

And I didn't know how to hold together these two incompatible thoughts--my own sense of destiny or greatness and the Chrsitian teaching of humility and self-sacrifice. I certainly didn't feel I could talk to anyone about it, and so I didn't. However I have memories from that period (and later) that show that I was able to evoke at times two contrary reactions from people. On the one hand I had people telling me that I was the humblest person they met, possibly because I was always interested in learning from older Evangelicals about how they understood life and the Bible. But, on the other hand, I remember several instances where older people of real sophistication and training were utterly offended by my raw arrogance. I am not quite sure I now know how that arrogance came out, but I know it did. I think it has peeked its head out from around the corner at almost every stage of my life, even as I was castigating myself for not being more "humble." I may still not know how to understand my feelings in this area.

4. I Knew I would Learn Things in My Own Way. I learned early in life that I was a knowledge-gatherer. Though I briefly flirted with both honor and money loving (to cite two other Platonic categories), I really believed then and believe now that I am a knowledge lover. I want to understand why things are the way they are. The primary method I use in this quest is a historical one. Things have histories. They don't drop from the sky or emerge from the head of someone fully-formed. I wanted to understand texts and movements and people and periods of history. But I knew that I had to do it my own way. Maybe this relates to #3 above, but it is nonetheless true.

An example will show what I mean. I began my student days at Brown as a math major but within a year was dissatisfied with that. I didn't know why I was studying math, and my religious life was taking up all my waking hours so I thought I would switch my major to religious studies in order to get "credit" for what I was doing anyway. Little did I know that the Brown Religious Studies Department was a highly-respected and rigorous department. But I dove in and did pretty well in my courses in the department. The point of importance, however, is that as I studied the Bible (I took introductory OT and NT courses my sophomore year), I began to see that the "scholarly" study of the Bible, to which I was being introduced, didn't slake my thirst for the Bible. I wanted much, much more. I wanted to pore over every verse, stopping to understand words that weren't clear, looking at maps to know the exact location of Ai or Shechem for example, writing "commentaries" of my own that would be a combination of scholarly and expository insights, memorizing texts, studying the original languages, trying to internalize the very texture of the text. I learned, then, by age 18 or 19 that I would be my best teacher and that I would be most happy in life when I was pursuing problems as I defined them. This would, alternatively, aid and hinder me in my future professional development.

Conclusion

Each of these features not only contributed to my reality in 1970/71 but continued to be defining features of my world for several years to come. Some of them have "morphed" into more socially acceptable virtues, I hope, and some of them have taken on a deeper and more lasting rootage in my life. As to which is which, I am not telling.

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