#500: Adoption/Contraception, Deconstruction, and More

And Why Your Questions to Me are the Best Part of this Newsletter

This is the 500th issue of this newsletter. I started it a few years ago, over on Revue (RIP). Thanks to those of you who have been with me the whole time and to those who are new around here. I am grateful for your interest. I have had a grand time writing here, and hope to keep on for a long time to come.

This issue is dominated by Called into Questions, which perhaps is fitting: Called into Questions more-or-less explains what I am trying to do in this newsletter. So perhaps you will excuse me and read ahead anyway.

Out and About

I did not anticipate having so much fun talking about this book in public, but it has been a blast. A few readers have begun working through it. If you are on Twitter and want to get a snapshot of the book, Keith Plummer has been grabbing many of his favorite quotes.

I finally went on Preston Sprinkle’s very popular podcast. (It’s available on podcast platforms as well.) I thought we would probably talk about the book but, uh, we did not. I did not come prepared to class, so I would give myself a B-. But it was a lively conversation that will, I suspect, provoke a question or two.

Speaking of interviews, I went on “Kurt and Kate in the Morning” to talk about the book. Most of these are not especially interesting, but Kate got me to talk about some of the book’s central themes. (Their website is here.)

A Request

Like it or not, the Amazon algorithm drives a ton of book sales—and reviews from readers matter a lot for it. If you have received and read the book, would you be willing to leave an honest review on Amazon and Goodreads? (And send me your critiques!)

I don’t really have any more ‘arrows’ in my marketing quiver beyond what I have done so far, so I am afraid that the rest of getting word out might be up to you.

The Brad East Interview, Round Two 

Brad asked me more questions that I left out of the first round, so I thought I would answer a few more about the book here. Reminder: you can read more from Brad here.

Brad: You insist that we need the church—not only as followers of Christ, but as faithful askers of good questions. How does the church fail question-asking Christians? How can the church be a hospitable place for such persons?

I am really opposed to prefabricated questions, which are prevalent in many Christian bible study contexts. I understand that people might need aids to get a conversation in a small group going, but there are many respects in which the things that are hardest or most awkward in a bible study are best for us. I was recently with a group who read Nehemiah out loud, which took about an hour to do—and then we spent another hour thinking together about it. The experience of hearing so much Scripture in one go meant that we all had questions about what we had heard. That is an unusual experience in our churches, I know, but it shouldn’t be. 

I also want churches to give people thick intellectual formation by retrieving catechesis as a practice. The paradox of questioning well is that the more we learn, the better we can question. Churches that offer thin intellectual formation will breed people who question badly, because they will be ill-equipped to handle the difficulties that genuinely beset the faith we adhere to without collapsing.

Brad: Based on the book and your earlier answer, your seem to understand the Christian life both in via and in heaven along the lines of epektasis—a term associated with Saint Gregory of Nyssa typically used to describe a kind of perpetual, endless, infinite movement and growth into the boundless life and glory (and knowledge!) of God. Is that right? What would you add?

Yes, I think something like this is probably right, only I am not sure I would want to go in some of the directions Gregory’s account is sometimes conscripted into these days. The puzzle of how desires can be satisfied by an end without leading to stasis has interested me since I was an undergraduate and trying to decide why I should not simply be a pure Platonist rather than a Christian. Ultimately, I think a picture of endless questioning without answers is no more satisfying than one where we have answers that dissolve or undo questions. I probably have Chesterton’s picture of Christian orthodoxy as a paradox that simultaneously affirms two apparently incompatible truths, rather than blurring them together or softening one—but then, that stance is so intellectually satisfying that it is hard to avoid. 

Brad: On balance, has the phenomenon of "deconstruction" been good or bad for Christians in the American context? How do you parse it out?

I tried to avoid doing amateur sociology as much as I could in the book, in part because such efforts always invite people to dismiss the author if their experience does not align. While I suggest that deconstruction might be the fruit of a dubious, unhealthy tree, I also think that there are limits to such a story. A decade ago, defending “doubt” as a central part of the faith was the rage among many of the Highly Online people. I was wary of that trend then, and tried to resist it. Many of its defenders now seem to have embraced the more programmatic process of “deconstructing” in ways that hav become tacitly or openly hostile to core elements of the faith. How can we praise such a movement? How can we not grieve? 

Brad: On one hand, you have harsh words to say about social media and streaming platforms. On the other, like everyone else today, especially writers and speakers, you have an online presence, a website, a Substack, a Twitter account, a podcast. How do question-seeking, question-asking Christians form faithful digital habits that encourage, rather than stunt, their pursuit of the truth? How can we be online at all without inevitably succumbing to curiositas?

I have friends who regularly invite me to quit these platforms, including some who think that they are pornography! I do have such outlets, though my Twitter game is so weak and I am (at this point) so inconsistent at using it that I have been significantly discounted in the algorithm. I think that people should use such tools sparingly, if at all, especially on their phones, which is where I think we are especially susceptible to seeing little bits of time eaten away. For my part, I leave Facebook and Twitter completely twice a year—for four weeks at Advent and six weeks during Lent. That is almost 20% of the year, which radically disrupts my attachment to the platform. I would strongly recommend doing at least that, to anyone, including and especially those who think they might need to be on them for some professional reasons (as I tell myself I am, though really, I just like them). 

The newsletter trend is a different animal, of course. It reminds me of the early years of blogging, which I was around to witness. (Sometimes people forget how much history I have on the internet!) I am more optimistic about the place such reading can have within an intellectual life, though I am always concerned about saturating our minds with shorter pieces rather than filling them with ideas and words that are capable of helping us reach real depths. I have found myself reading fewer and fewer essays over the past two years (which has made the ‘around the web’ section of this newsletter much less interesting and meant fewer ‘Clips and Comments’ issues than before). So here, too, I struggle. But one advantage of newsletters is that they allow us forums to think with others about contentious issues, which many of us need. I want to be optimistic about them for that reason alone. 

Brad: You recur to the Augustinian line (rooted in the New Testament) that Christ is both our end and the path there—our road and our destination alike. How does this truth about Christ ground, structure, and govern the Christian questioning life?

This is a wonderful question, which goes straight to the heart of how I have come to think about questioning. For Augustine, the meaning of Christ’s role as our ‘path’ is governed by his humility, his willingness to enter into a way of dispossession for the sake of others. I think that comes very close to describing what a question is: it’s a form of intellectual poverty, a recognition that we do not have an answer. Our willingness to ask is a sign of our humility, as we show ourselves willing to become beggars for the sake of growing into understanding. Moreover, in its most Christian form, we pursue questions for the sake of others, not only ourselves, as Christ embraced His poverty for our sake. If I may say so, this is the main reason why I love the Q&A portion of any talk and why reader questions in this newsletter are unequivocally my favorite part (send more, dear readers!). Thinking about another’s question with and for them is the most satisfying work of intellectual charity we can perform. 

But Christ’s descent is not the final word: His path is not one of permanent negation or self-denial. Christ rises again. He is the answer to His own question; He reveals His glory, which perfects His humility. In a similar manner, the dispossession and poverty of asking a question needs an answer, or we will be consigned to the permanent frustration and misery of ignorance. There is nothing we can do to bring about answers to our own questions. Like the disciples on Holy Saturday, we can only wait for answers, as we look for and anticipate the revelation of God’s gift to us. But God really will give it. This is one meaning of the resurrection, and one reason why we can question in hope. 

There is more to be said about how Christ might structure the questioning life. But perhaps this is enough to evoke more questions by itself.

The Next 500 Issues

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The Penultimate Word

“There are people, you see, who think they are bearing sins and say nothing to the sinners. Now this kind of self-deception is absolutely to be avoided. Bear with sinners, not by loving their sin, but by attacking their sin for their sake. Love sinners, not as sinners but as people. Just as if you love a sick person you attack the fever; if you spare the fever, you don't love the sick person. So tell your brother what the truth is, don't keep silent. What else am I doing but telling you what the truth is? Don't do it with little lies; tell him what the truth is openly and frankly—but until he corrects himself, he must be borne with.” — Augustine