There are religious and political fundamentalists.  Some people are both.  Right now, many people are of the latter.

Based on the works of Ernest Becker, a connection can be made between death and fundamentalism.  Richard Beck, in his book The Authenticity of Faith (which I’ve been reading of late), writes this about the relationship between death and fundies.  This quote is like ice cream … if you eat it too fast, you’ll get a brain freeze, but if you eat it slow, you may find it delightful.

Human personality and culture are inherently about the denial of death, about helping the human animal achieve day-to-day equanimity in the face of our existential burden and helping us manage our instinct for self-preservation in the face of a cognitive awareness that we are bound for death, that we cannot run away or escape our fate.  Death activates a fight or flight response in us, but we have nowhere to run.  No one to fight.  So the anxiety just sits there, churning away.  To handle this anxiety, we repress death awareness or sublimate the anxiety it causes by working on projects our culture deems significant and valuable.  Through these efforts we attach our life stories to goods that can outlive us.  And by doing so, we achieve both self-esteem and a symbolic immortality. We feel that we made a difference.  And our culture declares our life meaningful.

…. This daily exposure to alternate hero systems threatens our belief that our particular cultural heroics, our way of life are eternal and timeless.  As noted earlier, in our modern, pluralistic society there is a fragility of meaning.  We see now that this is largely due to the clash of worldviews we encounter on a daily basis.  Pluralism hints that worldviews are relative and not timeless and eternal.  And if this is so, is anything to be counted on?  Where am I to find meaning, truth, and significance in the face death if the foundations have all turned to sand?

The fear inherent within modernity, the anxiety that the ideological Other calls my worldview into question, is one explanation for rise of fundamentalism in the modern ear.

Religious and ideological fundamentalism, then, appears within modernity (perhaps paradoxically) as a defense against these questions.  Fundamentalism, of all strips, is the individual and collective effort to defend the truth of your worldview against the relativization inherent in the existence of the Other.  Becoming a true believer is one way to defend against the existential predicament of modern day pluralism.  And this leads to a surprising conclusion.  Rather than making humanity less religious, as Freud believed, secularlism is driving an increase in religious fundamentalism and often violent fundamentalism.  Modernity is shaping up to be less an age of reason than a violent battle between ideologies, ways of life and worldviews. Pages 75 – 77

Vote Romney.

Vote Obama.

Support your symbolic immortality.

I recently had a featured piece on RELEVANT Magazine’s website.  Somehow or another, Margie Phelps (one of the daughters of Fred Phelps, who is the founder of Westboro Baptist Church) decided she’d let me know what she thought about my article.  Below is the twitter conversation that ensued.

Twitter conversations are rarely clear.  This one is no exception.  My last question is an attempt to lodge a piece of dirt in her clammed absolutism.  Obviously, she thinks I’m wrong.  And, I don’t think I have to read into the tweet too much to gather that she’d probably put me on the other side of heaven.  But … would she admit that I could love God and still be slightly “misguided”?

Unfortunately, she never answered my last question.

********

I’ve often noticed that religious extremists are *usually* also absolutists (when they’re not absolutist, they’re probably either narcissistic, exhibitionists, or psychotic).  They either become religious extremists because they’ve convinced themselves that they’re absolutely right; or they become absolutists to justify their religious extremism.  And this is the reason why you’ll probably never convince a religious extremist to change their mind; because they probably believe they have a corner on truth and, well, you don’t.

But, I know as a matter of experience that a person who it walking in the direction of religious extremism can be forestalled by a view of multiplicity and plurality … and a view of the Trinity.

With Ms. Phelps, I was hoping to challenge her black and white world by suggesting that I too love God and yet I see the world differently than her … that there’s some type of color to the world and God’s peoples.  But, assuming she’s already an absolutist and extremist, I probably didn’t do much of anything.

********

This probably won’t be the last time my paths cross with the Phelps, so the next time I have a chance to talk to them … what should I say or do?  Is there anything I can say or do that will actually change their minds? Should we just ignore such people?

Maybe you’re a former extremist; or maybe you know extremists … please, if you would, share your story.

Let me know what you think here.  Thanks.

This photo is for Rachel Held Evans "Rally To Restore Unity" that's taking place right now over at http://rachelheldevans.com.

My grandfather won’t buy Japanese Cars.  I have two: a Toyota Avalon and a Rav4.  He won’t buy Japanese cars because he remembers the Japanese of WWII.  It’s still fresh in his mind.  I, on the other hand, even though I understand why he still has animosity towards the Japanese, right now, my heart is bleeding for them and their current situation.

And there’s a sense where both positions are right, as different eras bring different thoughts and sentiments.

For my grandfather, it was HIS friends that were fighting over in the Pacific Theater.  People he knew, neighbors, and friends were laying their lives on the line against an enemy that provoked us, and some of his friends didn’t return.  In his mind, fighting the Japanese was one of the most righteous things to do.  And I’m sure, if I were in his shoes, in his era, with my friends, family and neighbors fighting over seas, I would have felt the same way.

But that battles over.  That war has ended.  We’re not fighting it anymore; in fact, over the last couple months, Americans have volunteered their time, money and prayers for a nation that has been ravaged by earthquakes, a devastating tsunami and a pending (?) nuclear meltdown.

Times have changed.  And I have to be honest, even though my grandfather doesn’t like me driving “Japanese” cars, I love them!  For my grandfather, not driving a car made in Japan is an essential (in his mind, he doesn’t want to support a nation that killed people he personally knew), but for me … that thought doesn’t even enter my mind.

He lived through war time.  I didn’t.  And his generation fought a battle that gives us younger guys some of the benefits we have today. We need to honor and respect that, but I’m not him.

___________________________________________________

In light of the whole division that Rob Bell has highlighted – a division that already existed, but was brought to light by Bell’s recent book – Rachel Held Evans has created the Rally to Restore Unity.

Rachel writes this:

The goal is to lightheartedly combat some of the vitriol coming out of the online Christian community by celebrating what we have in common and demonstrating that we can have a sense of humor when it comes to non-essential theological disagreements.

I love the heart behind Rachel’s idea, I love the church, I love the diversity of the people who make up God’s bride and I LOVE UNITY, but I’m just not sure we can have “a sense of humor when it comes to non-essential theological disagreement” because defining the non-essentials is no laughing matter.

What are the “non-essentials”?  Who gets to decide what is essential and what is non-essential?

We have different people from different eras feeling like they’re fighting different battles.  For many of us younger groups, the liberal vs. conservative battle is over.  I’m just not too interested in that discussion; but for other evangelicals, this battle is still raging.

For me, inerrancy is a non-essential; but for others, it’s so essential they’ll stake their whole faith on the subject … which is why, when some of us younger guys question inerrancy, some other guys think that we’re questioning the WHOLE faith.  Of course, I love the Bible … in fact, I can honestly say that I hunger for it.  I believe it’s God’s Word to His people.  But Warfield inerrancy?

And maybe we’re both right.  And maybe we just need to acknowledge that there’s relativity in some of these discussions.  A relativity of age, a relativity of generations and a relativity of context.  Just like my grandfather and I with Toyotas, we have different opinions that were defined by different eras.  And he’s told me before that he doesn’t like my “Japanese cars”, but he also has enough grace with me to know that I’m still someone who appreciates his generation’s sacrifice … I still love the United States.

It really just comes down to grace and love.  Pop pop and I get along because of grace and because we love each other.

Maybe the problem is that we love our battles more than our brothers and sisters?

Count Zinzendorf

After today, this Christian history “series” of sorts will be over … and on Monday I’ll be back to writing stuff that’s more engaging.  I know some of you enjoy history and some of you don’t.  Personally, I’d rather read church history than eat gourmet pizza and hot wings.

Especially for us younger types, who have/are using new forms of media and tech, and confronting new phenomena like globalization, we like to think we’re entering a new world, trekking where “no man has gone before.”

Wrong.

History is full of people confronting similar challenges wrapped in different paper, contexts and languages.  And if we can’t learn from em we’ll pay the stupid tax.  I’ve paid that tax before and will pay it again, but with a history book at my side, I feel pretty thrifty.

——————————————————————-

Yesterday I looked at one historical reaction (the Quakers) to the intolerance and dogmatism of the church.  Today, I want to look at another approach: The Pietists.

Strictly speaking, Pietism deals mainly with the Germans, Philip Spener (1635 – 1705) and Spener’s follower, August Hermann Francke.  Yet, even though these two are credited with starting Pietism, Justo Gonzolaz argues that both Zinzendorf and the Moravians, as well as John Wesley share in the spiritual heritage of the Pietists.

Spener came from a wealthy German Lutheran family (many Christian movements seem to come from money), attended the top Protestant universities and, after he earned his doctorate in theology, became a pastor.  At the time, the pastors were financially supported by the state and were considered arms of the government.  This bred a sense of complacency in the clergy who felt their main responsibilities were to preach and administer the sacraments.  Spener’s conscience told him that his tasks as a pastor went far beyond this, as he believed he was to foster the “personal faith of his parishioners” (Gonzalez; 259).  Thus, he started study groups that he called “colleges of piety.”

In his book Pia desideria Spener builds on Luther’s idea of the priesthood of all believers.  He suggests that the division between clergy and laity is an unnecessary division and that all Christians should have a common responsibility.  This trajectory that Spener was moving in also helped him encourage other pastors to lessen their academic tone – as preaching was not a means for them to show their doctrinal knowledge — and rather call their parishioners to obedience to God.  He essentially suggested that personal transformation trumps dogmatic information, for the lack of growth in a believer is to be feared moreso than the potential for doctrinal error.

Luther had focused on justification, while Spener was focusing on sanctification.

Francke, Spener’s ardent follower, had a similar background as Spener in that he was from a wealthy background and highly educated … Francke was a Prof. at the University of Halle, which he eventually directed to become a training center for missionaries.

While the emphasis on the need for “personal faith” of all believers still pervades the evangelical church today, the “most significant contribution of Pietism to the story of Christianity was the birth of Protestant missions” (262).  At that time, some within Protestantism believed that the commandment of preaching to the nations was only for the Apostles and not for their church.  The Pietists disagreed.

The missionary trajectory that began in the Pietists was eventually grasped by the Pietist, Count Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf, who was Spener’s godson.  After his education, Zinzendorf served in the court of Dresden which is where he met a group of pietist exiles from Moravia that would change his life.

Zinzendorf and the Moravian exiles mutually stoked each other’s desire for world missions.  Gonzolaz writes that “within a period of twenty years a movement that had begun with two hundred (Moravian) refugees had more missionaries overseas than had been sent out by all Protestant churches since the Protestant Reformation two centuries earlier” (263).

Not only were the Moravians the beginning of the Protestant mission movement, they were also the main impetus in the conversion of John Wesley.  Again, most of this came out of the reaction of a group of people against the dogmatism and intolerance within the church.

George Fox

If you’ve been a Christian for a while, you may have picked up on the tendency for Christians to fight among themselves over doctrinal issues, usually resulting in labeling and a general intolerance towards other Christians we consider “wrong.”  The labeling (“I’m a dispensationalist” or “I’m a five point Calvinist” or “I’m a seven point Calvinist” [yes, they exist] or “I’m a Charismatic” “I’m a Methodist”) has the tendency to make our particular persuasions and/or denominations more important than our desire to be called “son” or “daughter” by God.

The dogmatism and intolerance that is seen today is rather tame to what existed a couple hundred years ago.  Today we write nasty blogs back and forth without the fear of being killed for our differences.  For instance, Servetus  — considered a heretic in both Protestant and Catholic camps – was passing through John Calvin’s Geneva after escaping from his Inquisition imprisoners.  His identity was exposed in Geneva and Calvin himself offered 38 accusations against Servetus, who was then burned at the stake.  Few Christian leaders in this time period are clean of the blood stains of supposed “heretics”.  Certainly — on a larger scale — the Spanish (1478–1834) and Portuguese (1536–1821) Inquisitions are a major blemish in the history of the Church.

The strong emphasis on doctrine worked in favor of the rich who were able to afford education.  Justo Gonzalez (who’s two volumes on “The Story of Christianity” have been hard to put down over the last couple months) writes that “Those who did not have such opportunities, and who therefore could not discuss complicated matters of theology, were seen as children, needing someone to guild them through the intricacies of dogma in order not to fall into error.”

Like today, there were reactions against the absolutism, intolerance and theological aristocracy of these dogmatic believers.  The reaction was exemplified in both the Spiritualists and the Pietists.

The Spiritualists attracted two types of people: well cultured people who didn’t appreciate the dogmatism and those who had little education that wanted the freedom to express their relationship with God.  Probably the most known figure in the Spiritualist movement was George Fox, the founder of the Quakers … who were called such by their opponents because their “religious enthusiasm was such that they would tremble” (Gonzalez; 253).  George Fox himself preferred that his group be called “friends” because of the egalitarian nature of their movement, so that today they’re called, “The Society of Friends.”

One major feature of the Quakers that aided in their ability to lesson dogmatism and intolerance is their emphasis on the “inner light.”  Although today the term sounds eastern, Fox’s sense of the term was in opposition to Calvin’s doctrine of “total depravity” and in opposition to the “natural reason” of the Deists.  Instead of believing that man is innately corrupt or naturally endowed with a compass that points to God, Fox believed that man had the “capability … to recognize and accept the presence of God.”  And thus, all men had the ability to legitimately speak about God.

The “inner light” lead to the “spirit lead” types of services that marked the “friends meeting.”  This belief that all were equal and so all could engage in God talk, lead to Quakers not addressing their superiors “properly” nor respecting social tiers and statuses.  These practices, as well as others, caused the Quakers to receive numerous types of persecutions.  George Fox’s first beating came when he countered a preacher who was saying that ultimate truth is found in scripture.  Fox stated that ultimate truth was the Spirit who inspired scripture and was consequently beaten.  He spent years in prison, as did his wife and many of his followers.

The most famous of Quakers was William Penn, who founded our great Commonwealth.  Gonzalez writes of Penn, “He was convinced that the Indians, and not the crown, were the legitimate owners of the land.  And he hoped to establish such cordial relations with them that the settlers would have not need to defend themselves by force of arms” (256).  Such cultural respect, that arose in reaction to the dogmatism and intolerance of their time, can be traced back to the Quakers deep sense that all men have something to share from God.

Most Churches failed in defending slaves.  For instance, the Church of England held a common belief that white Christians couldn’t hold baptized believers as slaves.  So most white Christians and slave masters preferred that their slaves weren’t baptized; until a law was passed in 1667 that removed their difficulty for owning baptized slaves: it declared baptism didn’t change the status of a slave.  For all the abuses of the church, it was the Quakers who asserted that slavery was wrong and they stand as one of the lone shining lights of grace and freedom during the legality of slavery in the United States and Europe.

Dogmatism on Parade - Click to Enlarge

Weston McCarron lives in Idaho.  He’s married to my cousin, Rachel.  He’s also been reading and commenting on my blog from ages back.  Respect … Ali-G style with double handed finger snap.

Along with Napoleon Dynamite and potatoes, Weston is proof that Idaho contributes to the global awesomeness of the United States.  He’s smart, honest and asks better questions than anyone I know.

I love questions and I’m rarely taken back by them, no matter what the questions take aim at.  So, when Weston responded to my post on Tim Keller’s absolutes, I thought, “These are great thoughts and questions, let’s make them a blog.”  Weston agreed and here we are.

————————————————————————————————

Within the fairly recent past I held a handful of assumptions that each seem to be fairly ubiquitous within American Christianity and which, once considered seriously, compelled me to arrogantly and dogmatically villify multitudes of human beings that in reality I knew nothing about.

Here are those assumptions:

1. Everyone in the world will spend eternity in torment unless he or she is saved.
2. A requirement for being saved is to believe the right things (including at bare minimum some basic ideas about Jesus’ death and resurrection and divinity)
3. God is perfectly good and just and wants to save people, but allows for people’s own free wills to exclude them from His salvation. This entails that:
   • Any punishment God inflicts is fully deserved and just
   • Anyone’s failure to be saved is his or her own fault and due to his or her deliberate rebellion against God’s will.

If these assumptions are correct, then anyone who does not believe the Right Things (however broad or narrow that list may be) is not saved and anyone who is not saved has chosen to be not saved by rebelling against God’s will.

Conclusion: Anyone who does not believe the Right Things must be in willful rebellion to God, and hence also in rebellion to love and to goodness, and will experience a fully deserved eternal punishment.

Does not this conclusion strictly follow from these assumptions?

Is not this conclusion an explicit intellectual commitment to demonizing everyone who believes sufficiently differently from oneself, even while knowing absolutely nothing else about them?

If so, then wouldn’t this imply that either (1) it’s a good and reasonable thing to dogmatically villify and condemn all outsiders and assume we already know everything important about them and their motivations, or… (2) there’s possibly something wrong with one or more of those assumptions?

Or did I totally miss something here?

Saint Thomas Aquinas

The thirteenth century saw the height of papal power and the rise of medieval scholasticism.

Two developments occurred in Christendom due to scholasticism: the expansion of universities and the reestablishment of the Aristotle’s teachings in the West.  With the expansion of the university and the theological technicalities that came with aristotelianism, “knowing God” and “God talk” became the privilege of the rich and well placed in society.

Before the rise of scholasticism and its employment of aristotelianism, most of the western Christian theologians integrated platonic philosophy into their view of God, which created a stark distinction between this world and the next, causing theologians to focus more so on the otherworldly Word of God than on the historical Jesus Christ.  Yet, Platonism and Neo-Platonism tended to be cynical towards human reason and human senses as a source of knowledge because of their worldly nature.   St. Thomas Aquinas – who’s Summa represented the apex of scholastic theology — came on the scene and synthesized the Aristotelian emphasis on reason and the Christian emphasis on faith.

As a result of this new Aristotelian spin on Christianity during scholasticism, Christian scholastic theology had a constant search for deeper and deeper technical questions, which resulted in a highly technical language that only the highly initiated could engage in.

It is out of this background of scholastic theology that the dogmatism and intolerance of Protestants occurred soon after the Reformation began, a dogmatism that was called “Reformed Orthodoxy.”  Justo Gonzalez writes, concerning the Reformed Orthodoxy of early Protestantism, that is was characterized by it’s “attention to theological detail, seeking to clarify and discuss every possible subject, by their reinstatement of Aristotle as a tool of theology – which Luther had categorically rejected – and by a theological method in which words from Scripture were used as building blocks with which one could built vast theological systems” (224).

Abraham Calovius, a defender of Lutheran orthodoxy, stated that everything that God has revealed in scripture is absolutely necessary and that anyone who rejects any iota of biblical dogma rejects God himself.

Gonzolaz concludes that:

“it was clear that the orthodox theologians of each confession where becoming increasingly entrenched in their positions, as if only those who agreed with them on every point of doctrine properly deserved to be called Christians.  Such dogmatism, while bolstering the conviction of some, also gave rise to increasing doubts about the truth of Christianity, or at least about the value of theology and doctrine” 228

The next two days I’ll look at historical Christian reactions to the dogmatism of reformed orthodoxy.

When we can accept that within our tradition there are things that are nonnegotiable, but many ideas that are negotiable, I think we can start to have THEOLOGICAL CONVERSATION!

In other words, you have to understand that YOU don’t have ALL THE ANSWERS, but YOU do have valuable input!

There are sacred questions.  Questions that are like a river … having a name, but always changing … always moving.

But some people like to dam that river up.  Or freeze it over.  I don’t know about you, but I love it when somebody has an answer for every question I have.  Man, I go to him/her like dope.  Like the Bible Answer man.  I need to buy me on of them!

Just kidding.

Quick answers SHUT DOWN conversation.  If you’re a guy or girl who finds comfort in having that quick answer … or that summarizing one liner … you’re also a guy or girl who won’t have many conversation partners.  Do you study alone?  Yeah.  You might not be a good conversationalist.

Another thing that helps in theological conversation is that God has a history, but he’s not an object!

Let me unpack that.

Cars are objects.  And the people who understand those “objects” the best are the automotive engineers and the mechanics.  If God were an object, then the people who would know him the best would be the THEOLOGIANS and the CLERGY!  But, God is a subject.  He is a person.  And he chooses to reveal himself not to the smartest, but to the humble.  So that a stay at home mom can actually know God better than the double doctor who holds a chair at Princeton Theological Seminary.

Yet, for those of you who want to jump on the high horse because all of a sudden I’ve empowered you in your theological illiteracy, GOD HAS A HISTORY!  Yes, you might be walking with him NOW, but you aren’t the only one he’s walked with.  And theologians and clergy often know that history better than you!

If we understand that God has a history, but he’s not an object, I think it can help with the pride that occurs among us.  If the greatest theologian believes he can learn something from the stay at home mom and the stay at home mom believes she can learn something from the theologians, do you think it will help in conversation?

A big thing that helps a Christian to stay away from the whole mean spirited theological discussions is the prioritizing of your doctrines.  In ecumenical (nice) irenic theological discussions, it helps to have your theological ideas categorized in three spheres:

1.)    Primary doctrines (dogma).  These are the doctrines that make a Christian a Christian.  These are the MAIN ideas that without which you couldn’t really call yourself a Christian.  Some people will say that the Apostles Creed represents the traditional agreed upon “Primaries” of Christianity.

2.)    Secondary doctrines (beliefs).  These are those ideas that are valuable, but aren’t necessary for one to be a Christian.  For instance, what is your theory on sinful nature?  What are your thoughts on the Holy Spirit?  The atonement?  Sure, it’s important to think about these things (and if you haven’t, it’s always a good time to start), but these are in NO WAY A NECESSARY PRECONDITION FOR FELLOWSHIP!

3.)    Tertiary doctrines (opinions).  These are ideas that are really just opinion.  Like styles of worship.  Like Bible translations.  Ironically, these are the things that Christians will usually fight over.  Technical difficulty.

As you can probably surmise, most churches, traditions and individual Christians will have a different opinion on what defines a “primary doctrine”, what defines “secondary doctrines” and what defines “tertiary opinions.”

As a way of generalizations, hardcore conservatives will lump all three of these areas into the primary areas … in other words, they’ll fight over anything!  Whereas hardcore liberals won’t fight over anything.  They move all their doctrines into the “tertiary” area.

When we can accept that withing our tradition there are things that are nonnegotiable, but many ideas that are negotiable, I think we can start have THEOLOGICAL CONVERSATION!

So, does this help?  Do you think that by categorizing ideas, it can help in ecumenical discussions?

Have you ever noticed that you’ll fight with those you’re closest to?  You’ll fight with your brother or your sister … you might fight with your neighbor (but it’s unlikely) … but, unless you’re in a gang, you probably won’t fight with the people across town (West Side Represent!).  We also give less grace to those we’re closest to.  Like our spouses.  Am I the only one who’s noticed this?

It’s the same way with theology.  For the most part, those that we agree the most with concerning theology are also the ones we like to fight with the most … over the little things.  Like if your pastor has taught you a certain brand of theology and you start to disagree with some aspects of that brand.  Like when you drop one  or two of the letters of TULIP and maybe become just a LIP.

I don’t know the reason for this “closer you are the wronger you can be” phenomenon, or for the WHOLE theological fighting thing, but I have my theories:

1.) The only conspiracy theory that I hold to is this (wait for it) … we are actually more selfish than we realize.  I’m sort of a Freudian when it comes to selfishness.  Damn Id.  This selfishness and pride likes to believe that WE are actually – although we won’t say it – closer to the TRUTH than anybody else.  So, when somebody close to us starts to stray from our ideas the id kicks in and we get agitated.  Arg!  Monster you is unleased!

2.)  Or, we may – with good intent – actually believe we HAVE THE truth.  And when we see someone start to stray that whole brother-to-sister fight switch is hit.

3.) We’re the most comfortable with THAT set of TRUTH and we’re uncomfortable with other SETS of TRUTH.  So when someone close to us starts to believe the OTHER set, we get all funny, uncomfortable, start seeing the fires of hell.

4.)  I know tribalism is a part of the equation.  When we feel connected to a group by our idea sets and we start to value that group, we become protective gatekeepers who like to keep out those that might ruin the group with their erroneous thoughts.

5.) Lastly, like your annoying brother or sister, those closest to you know where to poke you.  For instance, let’s say you’re a pastor and your big theological thrust is something like the Satisfaction Theory of the atonement.  What happens when someone in your congregation starts to think differently?  They usually start pushing back (dialectially) against the things you pushed.  A better “for instance” would be the whole modern and postmodern thing that’s going on in the broader culture and in churches.

For older pastors and Christians, the modern emphasis on absolute truth — defined in modern terms — is being pushed back against by postmodern who don’t like all the associations that go along with “absolute truth.”   When you’ve been taught by someone, or you’re church teaches a set of ideas, when you or someone else begins to change in their thinking, they usually change in the emphasized areas of the church.  So moderns produce postmoderns and those postmoderns literally annoy the hell out of the moderns and vice versa (we’re going all Hegelian here).  Does that make sense?  You can only “rebel” against things you know.  And so, the “rebel” becomes like the little sister who knows where to push your buttons.  What do they call a rebel who rebels against nothing?  An innovator.  But, most of us aren’t innovators.

I know that doesn’t cover all the bases.  Any other thoughts as to why theology makes people fight?  I know there’s ones that I missed!