Rankin File

Another View of the Pence/Billy Graham Rule

Having read a few opinions about the hoopla over Vice-President Mike Pence’s application of the so-called Billy Graham rule, I’d like to complicate this picture with a story from my own experience.

But first:

I firmly believe in and actively support women in ordained ministry and in women operating in any walk of life to which they feel called.
In my mentoring of students (mostly undergraduates, but not entirely) over the years, I have consciously included women and men.

My purpose, then, is to think about whether or not some of the allegations about the impact of Mike Pence’s avoidance behaviors are warranted. One criticism is that Pence’s practice, although laudable from the standpoint of his putative personal temptations, etc., nonetheless risks contributing to the structural evil of sexism.

Let’s not make more of the Billy Graham/Mike Pence rule than we should. A story from my own personal experience, I think, helps to show why.

I was a very young pastor serving two rural/small town congregations. (Joni and I were married, with two small children.) One night, around 10:30, the parsonage doorbell rang and there stood a female church member with a friend who had recently started coming to our church. The friend who lived in a neighboring town a few miles away had told the church member that she had been raped that morning on her early morning walk. I asked a few questions (e.g. “Have you reported this to the police?” etc.) and went over the resources available. After doing all we could in that moment, we agreed that we would check in with the friend each day for the next few days.

After the initial steps had been taken, the woman asked if she could meet me for counseling. (Caveat: I have never used the term “counseling” for pastoral conversations with parishioners. I’m not licensed. I don’t do therapy and never did.) We met in my office at the church for these conversations. Now, because I served a small church, no one else was in the building at these times, and even though the parsonage was next door and Joni was only twenty steps away, we were in effect meeting privately.

We had a handful of conversations. I learned that, though she had informed the police, she had not contacted the women’s crisis center, nor had she gone to the doctor and did not intend to do so. She preferred to talk to me instead. I knew that my skills were limited, so I tried to nudge her toward the women’s center and other, more qualified counseling. Her responses to these suggestions alternated between mildly combative and tearfully pleading.

One afternoon after maybe three or four private sessions with the victim, I was working on a sermon in the church office and got a knock at the door. The man who stood before me told me that he was an officer with a state law enforcement agency investigating the crime and that he needed to take the typewriter (that’s how long ago it was) from this church and the one from the other church I served a few miles out in the country. The victim had reported that she was receiving obscene letters. Investigators had concluded that the letters had been typed on one of the two church typewriters.

You might be asking, how could a rapist who wants to torment his victim further get access to a church typewriter? In small town, rural culture, at least in those days, lots of people have/had access to church buildings, which are used for all manner of non-religious purposes, so it was not out of the question that someone might have access to a church typewriter without our knowing.

As the investigation narrowed its scope, the woman admitted that she had fabricated the whole account. She and her husband were having relationship troubles and the rape story was a cry for help. She had typed the letters herself on the typewriter in the country church. Although we were all relieved that she had not actually had to endure the trauma of sexual assault, it was a sad, sad situation.*

I was so naive that the implications of this scenario did not dawn on me until the investigation had ended. It then hit me: If, at any time, the woman had wanted to implicate me as the assailant, she could have done so. I had met with her privately several times. We met in a church office. The letters came from a church typewriter. If, at any time, she had wanted to implicate me as the assailant, she could have done so.

And if she had, my very young ministry would almost certainly have been finished almost before it got a good start. Even though an investigation would have shown that the allegations were baseless, doubts about my trust (the betrayal of pastoral trust is absolutely the worst of cardinal sins) would most likely never have gone away.

If Mike Pence (and his spouse) believe that applying the Billy Graham rule is appropriate for him to avoid temptation and the possibility of the appearance of evil, it obviously limits the good outcomes that might transpire if he felt more secure in meeting with women privately. It seems to me a stretch, however, to conclude that he thereby contributes to disadvantaging women and, in a sort of backhanded way, also treats them as sex objects.

I return to my earlier qualification. Over the years, I have not followed the Billy Graham rule. I have “met privately” with women in my office or in otherwise completely appropriate situations. As a United Methodist clergy who has taken ministerial ethics training, and as one who learned by personal experience very early in his ministry that some situations can go bad in completely unexpected ways, I’m exceedingly sensitive to such situations.

So, could we give Pence a pass on this one? People can find all kinds of good reasons to criticize him, as we do anyone in high-profile positions. This particular topic seems a bit of a stretch.

(*Nota bene: Let me anticipate one possible objection. By telling this story, I am in no way suggesting generally that women fabricate sexual assault stories or am I otherwise attempting to derail criticisms about patriarchy. I am only trying to show from a personal experience why I think some of the criticisms toward Pence fail.)

Reclaiming and Re-re-defining “Evangelical”

The word “evangelical” has become fraught with all kinds of difficulties. This is a sad state of affairs because it is a very good word. Nonetheless, a significant number of Christians who by their beliefs fit the term have stopped using it as a self-reference, preferring “classical” or “orthodox” or even “traditional” or maybe the hip “Christ follower” or some derivative. Every word, though, has problems because, as you know, a rose by any other name…

This post is an exercise in retrieval.

My source in this effort is a recent collection of essays edited by Candy Gunther Brown and Mark Silk, The Future of Evangelicalism in America. With an introduction and conclusion by Brown and five chapters by scholars from both private evangelical and public secular institutions, the book does a superb job of complicating the popular usage of “evangelical.” Their work is based on the American Religious Identification Survey, supplemented by information from other organizations like Pew Research.

The definition of “evangelical” that the contributors share comes from historians David Bebbington and Mark Noll. It has four parts coming from Bebbington and the fifth added by Noll:

Conversionism – Evangelicals believe that people need to experience new birth through faith in Christ, typically thought of as a kind of crisis moment that reorients one’s life.
Biblicism – the Bible is the sole and ultimate authority for Christian faith and practice.
Crucicentrism – the death of Christ on the cross (inherently linked with his bodily resurrection) is the decisive atoning work that transforms all life.
Activism – every Christian has a responsibility to share faith in Christ with others and to serve God by serving people through acts of ministry and service.
(Added by Noll) Evangelicals use non-Christian cultural resources with the aim of transforming culture.

Though evangelicals differ on how to understand and enact aspects of each of these categories, they fit these major criteria. It is an attempt to describe why disparate groups of people actually fit in the same category. Each chapter does a good job of helping the reader to see the diversity of American evangelicalism, which may surprise some people.

Here’s a taste of the book:

Introduction (Candy Gunther Brown): Demographically, evangelicals pretty much match the American population. “What these numbers suggest is that evangelicals can be found across the American social landscape, and American Christianity as a whole is becoming more evangelical in outlook.”

1 (Michael Hamilton): While holding firmly to the markers listed above, evangelicals are quick to deploy worldly entrepreneurial techniques to build powerful networks (church and para-church) of activity. This network is worldwide. Since World War II, evangelicals have gotten increasingly involved in humanitarian aid around the world. They also have dropped much anti-Catholic prejudice and their younger members are becoming more cosmopolitan in viewpoint.

2 (Chris R. Armstrong): Evangelical worship and spirituality, though varied in style, is deeply heartfelt and expressive/affective. It’s about the heart, with a deep sense of communion with God and with other members of the community. Even though rock bands and praise music have become the staple of most Protestant churches, there seems to be a trend toward “ancient-future” with a hunger for deeper spirituality and connection to the church’s historic roots.

3 (Roger E. Olson): There is such diversity in evangelical theology that it is better to think of an evangelical ethos rather than a standard set of doctrinal convictions. Anyone who knows about the arguments over inerrancy or between Wesleyan/Arminians and Reformed/Calvinist (even these sets of terms can be pulled apart for a range of nuances) knows the tensions. There are also “conservative” evangelicals and “progressive” evangelicals who agree that the Bible is our ultimate authority (biblicism), but read passages differently and come to sometimes opposite conclusions.

4 (Amy E. Black): This chapter may be of particular interest to readers because it deals with evangelicals and politics. It shows in substantial detail the complexities of the term “evangelical.” For example, “Black Protestants” easily fit the typology I summarized above, but most vote consistently for Democratic candidates and are considered “social liberals.” A significant number of white evangelicals are bolting their older generation’s concerns and tactics for more irenic engagement and a broader range of concerns to include problems like trafficking and the environment. But they remain evangelical.

5. (Timothy Tseng): This chapter shows how the demographic and cultural make-up of evangelicalism is changing in large part because of immigration and global missions (including missionaries coming from other countries to the USA). Latino evangelicals and Pentecostals provide just one example of the changing demographic in the United States. Even though evangelicals were slow to recognize the structural evils of racism, in recent years they are catching on and becoming increasingly open to shared leadership among culturally, racially and ethnically diverse evangelicals.

Conclusion (Candy Gunther Brown): Evangelicalism, though filled with all kinds of tensions and turmoils, remains a strong, vibrant movement. As Brown concludes, “Evangelicals may reinvent themselves in myriad ways, but evangelicalism is not about to disappear. The future of American evangelicalism must unfold at its own pace, but it is a future that remains tied to the future of America.”

My survey is paltry and only barely suggestive, but reading this book pays real dividends. (Wesleyans and Methodists, take great joy in the references to John and Charles Wesley and their weighty contributions to evangelicalism). Each chapter offers a succinct and helpful survey of the relevant historical developments for the chapter’s topic. The reader who knows little of the history of American Protestant Christianity in the 20th century will find much of help.

And I hope, as people read works like this one, that we can start to feel good about using the word “evangelical” again.

The Health Care Challenge and God’s Action

For some time our Sunday School class has been exploring beliefs about how God’s action intersects with human actions. Readers of the Bible know that it’s pretty easy to see God’s action there, because on every page God acts. But moving beyond the Bible to what I might call “mere history” makes this question more ambiguous. What is God doing today, in our time? What is God doing through the church? Is it just “religious stuff” that God is doing in/through us? How could we tell?

Perhaps foolishly, I’ll try something I normally avoid. I’m going to write a post about the current turmoil over proposed legislation to repeal (or modify) the Affordable Care Act in favor of the American Health Care Act. I want to try to “think Christianly” in search of a responsible conclusion. Maybe, just maybe, we Christians could discern a little bit more clearly what God is calling us to do. My effort will be no doubt a hesitant and fumbling one. I’m simply trying to be a responsible Christian citizen.

First, some points of reference that I think crucial:

Health care costs are on an unsustainable trajectory. According to a report by the Rand Corporation, health care costs have exceeded our country’s gross domestic product by more than 2% per year since 1950. We cannot continue at this rate, especially while we get sicker as a nation.
The United States far outspends other developed nations on health care and we are far less healthy than other developed nations. As a University of Michigan study states, “The U.S. has worse health outcomes than most other developed nations, despite spending almost twice as much on health care.” Whatever you think about “Obamacare” or “Trumpcare,” we together must face this problem. How do Christians address it? What is God calling us and enabling us to do?
Here is the hardest, yet probably most relevant point: poor lifestyle choices (what the industry calls “modifiable risks”) account for 25% of health care costs in the United States. (See the U. of Michigan study.) Obesity and smoking top the lists of lifestyle-related concerns. According to the Harvard School of Public Health, a healthy Body Mass Index (ratio of height and weight) is between 18% and 25%. One is overweight if one’s BMI is 25%-30% and one is obese if one’s BMI is more than 30%. The US Health and Human Services agency states that more than 2/3 of American adults are overweight or obese and more than 1/3 of our children are, too. Heart disease and diabetes are two major problems related to weight and obesity.
The Congressional Budget Office evaluation of the currently-prosed legislation offers a tentative and nuanced projection of the economic effect of implementing the bill. It took me about fifteen or twenty minutes to read and try to digest it. It is worth the effort, even if it did not provide me a set of easy conclusions. It did me remind me to avoid cherry-picking facts to buttress bias and political loyalties.

Please note, I did not use one popular “news” source or opinion piece. I am a reasonably intelligent Christian citizen trying to figure out what he thinks about how best to address healthcare challenges. While the government sorts out its policies, Christians (and people of faith more generally) can and should do something. Of course, many Christian churches and organizations across the country already are doing what I will suggest below. If the numbers stated above are any indication, however, we need more concentrated effort, especially in view of government gridlock.

What should we do?

We have to act responsibly as citizens. Learn what you can, make your decision about the AHCA, advocate for the best policy with your legislative representatives and pray for God’s kingdom to come and God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Congregations must hold ourselves accountable to good health practices. United Methodist clergy, I’m calling us out on this one. As a lot, we are unhealthy because we are too busy, we have poor diets and we don’t exercise. This is a spiritual and moral problem. (If you are UM clergy and you do exercise and eat healthy, God bless you. You don’t fit my generalization, so don’t take it personally. If your doctor has told you that you need to lose weight and exercise, i.e. take better care of yourself, don’t make excuses.)
Local congregations, many of whom have medical professionals as active members, can do some very significant work to mitigate the “modifiable risks” part of the health care cost picture. What if we started here within our congregations and communities? I know this is a complex topic. If a person is working two jobs to make ends meet, how does s/he find time to exercise? Just because the problem is complex does not mean we should abdicate responsibility to someone else to figure out solutions. If modifiable risks are a huge and costly problem, they are nonetheless to a significant degree under our control. Let’s think creatively and try something. Congregations can work with local medical clinics and health and fitness agencies to think creatively about how to offer wellness practices to community members, including and especially those who are falling through our system’s cracks. We need collaborative teams on the ground to make a difference.
To make progress on #3, not only should we be honest with ourselves (see #2) about our own unhealthy lifestyles, we’ll have to risk “intruding” in other people’s lives. A congregation has a sphere of influence and a responsibility to know the situations of people within theirs. We have to have the courage to offer help and support in an area of a person’s “private” life. (Can we see how “private” and “public” overlap?)

Is God concerned about health? Is God acting to make good health attainable for a larger number of Americans? The scriptures make clear that God has chosen people as instruments, as means of divine action. I do not believe God “needs” any of us, but the Bible makes clear that we have a vocation, called by God, to serve the present age. And in the present age, we have serious health problems that need a different kind of attention.

Christians make up (still) roughly 70% of the American population. To our great shame, we are badly polarized along political lines. In this post, I have tried to “think Christianly” about a deeply important subject. I have tried to understand the big picture, which is why I included the “lifestyle” issues related to health care.

If we Christians rely only on the usual popular “news” sources and allow political polarization to control our perspectives, then we could very well miss how God is active in the world and what God calls us to do. If we miss God’s call, then we deserve God’s judgment.

Winning Strength Out of Weakness

(I preached the following sermon at the annual Lifewatch Service [lifewatch.org] yesterday in Simpson Chapel in the United Methodist Building in Washington, DC. It is based on the scripture text, Hebrews 11:32-28.)

The Apostle Paul, in the fourth chapter of Second Corinthians, summarizes the experience he and his traveling companions had as witnesses and ministers to Christ: “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed.” In spite of the qualifiers in this statement, most us would likely look at it and conclude, “I’m not up to that kind of witness.” But Paul went a step further, even boasting in his weakness.

Paul’s witness challenges us to stiffen our spines and renew our resolve. In the West, the church looks weak, weary, worn out, broken down, seemingly on the verge of defeat. We struggle to persist in living fully as Christ’s followers in what seems like an increasingly hostile culture. Some of us (many?) feel like the proverbial ninety eight-pound weakling. While we seek to do good, sooner or later someone comes along and kicks sand in our faces and makes us feel like, whatever it is we’re trying to do, we’re not very effective. The recent women’s march on Washington, which scorned the participation of pro-life women, is only one such example. If one were to pay attention to the dominant news stories about the church, it looks like bad news all the time.

But then, a Washington Post article indicates that the number of abortions performed in this country has fallen to its lowest level since the institution of Roe v. Wade. I’ll leave it to brighter minds to decipher the reliability of the statistics, but any reduction of this tragic practice surely is good news and we rejoice and give thanks to God for his great mercy.

Always Struggling, Always Advancing

It seems that the Christian faith is always struggling against apparently much stronger forces, always losing ground to the much better resourced powers. And then we look up and find that, in fact, the Body of Christ, filled with and led by the Spirit, constantly advances.

From the beginning, followers of our crucified and resurrected Lord faced opposition. In the early phases of the spread of that strange and, to many, loathsome faith, these fledgling congregations did things that neighbors found strange. They would take as their own the newborn babies, exposed and left to die, that others had discarded. When people fled Rome in the 160s because of an outbreak of plague, Christians stayed behind and nursed the sick, risking their own lives for the sake of sometimes total strangers. They provided loving care for the dying, but their simple ministrations also helped a significant number survive. The steadfastness of their faith under great pressures and the winsomeness of their witness bore fruit in every place such that by the middle of the fourth century, so many people had joined the faith that Christians made up more than half of the entire population of the Roman Empire. For the vast majority of those centuries, however, it would have looked as if the church were failing.

During another crucial time in the early 700s, St. Boniface, the apostle to the Germans, led his team deep into areas yet to be evangelized. Sometimes the locals were none too happy with Boniface proclaiming a rival god who came to displace their local deities. He stayed with it. He and his co-workers faced the risk and danger of the mission, until hundreds of new congregations had begun and many thousands of people were baptized into the faith. In 754, bandits murdered the aged Boniface and his fellow servants. Expecting to find gold or silver and other valuables, the thieves opened the trunks that and found nothing but books – the scriptures that announce Jesus as Lord and other writings to help catechize new believers.

Our Wesleyan tradition is replete with examples of faithful witnesses, who, though they were weak, were made strong. John Nelson, a bricklayer and early convert of John Wesley, became a bold and effective preacher. Though he refused on principle to fight in war, he was press-ganged (basically kidnapped) into military service. Since he refused to fight, he was held in camp as a prisoner. He continued to share the love of Christ with anyone who would listen, so much so that the commanding officer finally let him go just to get rid of him!

And in our generation, Dr. Fenggang Yang, director of the Center for Religion and Society in China at Purdue University has projected that, in view of current growth trends, the number of Christians in China could reach a quarter of a billion people by 2030.[1] At the ascent of the Maoist revolution, the church in that great nation appeared to be all but obliterated. Now look at things!

The church has always struggled and it has always advanced. Around the world, at this very moment, faithful Christians are winsomely sharing the powerful love of Christ, many of them at great cost to life and limb. Out of weakness they share, but Christ’s power is made perfect in their weakness.

Strength Through Weakness

The Christians to whom the writer of Hebrews addresses his book were struggling to remain faithful. Some were flagging in their faith. They had begun to worry about whether Jesus was really the Christ, whether their faithfulness was worth the hassle, whether the pressures they were feeling from a hostile culture made their faith worth maintaining. The writer reminds them of all those who, by God’s grace persevered in the work, and won strength through their very weakness.

Some years ago the Christian artist Michael Card beautifully captured this mysterious outcome of strength won through weakness portrayed in Hebrews 11:

By faith one was commended for the sacrifice he made

Another out of holy fear built an ark the world to save

Another left his homeland and as a stranger he’d reside

But none received the promise then and so, in faith, they died.

Others conquered kingdoms, quenched the fury of the flames.

Some made strong in battle, some were raised to life again.

Many more were martyred midst the crowd’s loud clamoring.

By faith they would not bow the knee or kiss the emperor’s ring[2]

They would not bow the knee to idols. They would not stop living for Christ and talking about Christ. They wandered in deserts and lived in caves, people of whom the world was not worthy. They suffered and won strength out of weakness.

Why? How? Because God is 100% faithful to his promises. This they knew. This we know. Let us never forget.

For Us, It is the Same

The witness that knows the strength won through weakness is as pressing as ever. This is a particular kind of knowing. We don’t expect service to be easy. In a sense, opposition to the Gospel and interference from many quarters is regarded as par for the course. No matter the resistance or the feeling of weakness that creeps upon us, we will not stop. At stake are the lives of many precious people.

To illustrate this point let me turn, if I may, to the context for my own ministry: college students. For a couple of years at least, we have been hearing about the “nones,” those persons who no longer claim a religious identity. Not just a religious preference, but literally no religious identity at all. Among those in the age range of eighteen to thirty five, that percentage of “nones” may rise as high as three in ten or more. Lay this statistic alongside those who claim the Christian faith, but who do almost nothing to foster and grow that faith, the picture looks pretty daunting.

But, as the research also indicates, marking “none” for religious identity does not mean that one is an atheist or an agnostic. Many “nones” believe in God, pray sometimes, read their Bibles and even on occasion, attend worship. We have in front of us, then, a generation desperately hungry for God. Let’s not let them down.

And there are many of them. More than 20 million students attend college in this country. Counting those in the same age range, but not going to college, the number swells to close to forty million people. They are, as one book title puts it, a generation on a tightrope.[3]

If you spend significant time with young people, you will find some of the attitudes and behaviors that are the stuff of caricature. And caricatures work because they are partly true. Many emerging adults, as they are now known, drink too much and party too hard. There is such a thing as “hookup culture,” with young people engaging in risky activity even though they have had the “safe sex” training. Too many of them are anxious to the point of distraction. They seem to lack grit. They don’t know how to persevere through disappointments. They desperately fear “looking stupid.”

At the same time, a full twenty percent of college students do not drink alcohol at all. They know how to avoid the risks associated with party culture. The ones who get involved with campus ministries, who attend worship regularly and read their Bibles and pray and have fellowship with other believers, do much better than their cohort who do not. The young people who know Christ, who have adult mentors in their lives, who walk in integrity, you will not be surprised to know, are happier than their peers. They handle stress and disappointment more effectively. And they want to live lives of purpose.

These generalizations point to the need for us who are older to invest in our young. The faith that has been committed to us, we must pass on to them, just as our forbears in the faith handed on their faith to us. Those faithful witnesses on whose broad shoulders we now stand have shown us time and again that our strength will be won through weakness. If we risk letting our hearts to be broken by the brokenness around us, inevitably we will feel desperately inadequate. At times we will feel our energy flag and our vision go out of focus. Nevertheless, let us not grow weary. Let us not grow faint in the struggle. Let us continue to fight the good fight.

And let us always remember that in our weakness, Christ’s strength is made perfect. We are never alone and never left to our own resources. Ever. Thanks be to God.

[1] https://www.purdue.edu/crcs/

[2] Michael Card, “Soul Anchor” (2000).

[3] Arthur Levine and Diane Dean, Generation on a Tightrope: A Portrait of Today’s College Student, (2012).

What Makes Someone An Intellectual?

I had a stimulating phone conversation with a friend today. She recounted that an acquaintance of hers, hearing a talk I gave some time back, described it as “not very intellectual.” As is often the case, the conversation has sent me down the pathway of pondering. What makes someone an intellectual?

Let’s start with the usual starting place – the dictionary.

(If I use the Merriam-Webster online rather than the Oxford Dictionary of the English Language, does that prove I’m not an intellectual? Or does it show that I’m too cheap to pay the subscription?)

Intellectual – The Merriam-Webster definition has three parts:

(1) “Of or relating to the ability to think in a logical way.” OK, this is good in so far as it goes, but I think it is somewhat misleading on its own. I have family members who would not refer to themselves as intellectuals at all, but who think very logically, especially about mechanical problems they need to solve. I imagine very few people would think of them as intellectuals and they themselves might even be somewhat disgusted by the term, but they clearly know how to think very logically.

(2) “Involving serious study and thought.” Ah, this is progress. I imagine the word “serious” also implies “sustained.” In other words, intellectuals study and think about topics over a period of time. They stay engaged with a subject until they have the sense that they know the subject adequately.

(3) “Smart and enjoying serious study and thought.” I think the property of enjoyment is very important. Some people are smart, but not intellectually curious. They are happy with what they think, maybe even to the point of complacency or laziness. More than once I have heard someone say – knowingly, I might add – that they “took a course” back in college and now feel as if they know all they need to know about the topic. This attitude is especially a problem when it comes to Christian theology.

What I don’t see in this definition of “intellectual” are “PhD,” or “academic.” Certainly, those who work in the academy as researchers or professors and who have this terminal degree likely would be called intellectuals. But simply working in the academy or having a terminal degree does not automatically qualify one as an intellectual.

Let’s move to the other side of the ledger. What does it mean to be “anti-intellectual?” Out of the denominational history that I know, certain parts of the Methodist movement and its various denominations have been labeled as anti-intellectual. There is a grain of truth to this characterization, but it also is the case that class interest can so color a person’s perspective that s/he mistakes “not formally educated” with “anti-intellectual.” As one who came from prairie pioneer people, I’ve always been a tad sensitive to this snobbery. But on to the definition.

Anti-intellectual – “Opposing or hostile to intellectuals or to an intellectual view or approach.”

Let’s see if we can fill in a couple of blanks. Going back to the first set of definitions, an anti-intellectual might be considered to be lacking in the facility of thinking logically, or lacking the desire to engage in serious study and thought or, finally, one who does not enjoy serious study and thought.

What I don’t see in the definitions of intellectual or anti-intellectual is “conservative” or “liberal” or “Centrist” or “Moderate” or “progressive” or “Republican” or “Democrat” or “Independent” or “Libertarian” or “Anarchist” or “Postcolonial” or “Socialist” or “Marxist” or (insert the label)…

If you truly care about the Common Good; if you truly desire justice to come upon the earth; if you want to live at peace with your neighbor and make your contribution to society, then I pray that you will ignore the silly pretensions of pseudo-intellectuals, who confuse using polysyllabic abstractions with intellectual power or who think that a string of academic degrees satisfies the definition. Practice, at least on some regular basis, ignoring the unhelpful labels we give to each other’s opinions. Read widely, not only the stuff you’re fed because Facebook or some other social media algorithm has placed you in a certain demographic. Read widely and thoughtfully and gain wisdom. And hope. If you read widely, you will find yourself a more hopeful person.

And you will qualify as an intellectual.