Newsletter #137
On Intellectual Influence
You Are (Partly) What and How You Think
Influence is about as fundamental to human experience as any other single concept.
Broadly understood, influence refers to how humans are shaped through all kinds of experiences. Influence can be unseen or seen. It may be momentary or enduring. It can be physical (biological, genetic), emotional (mental), intellectual, or spiritual*. It can be desirable, undesirable, or some mixture. (Aren’t most things?) But you will never escape being influenced or being an influence.
I’ll attempt a definition of intellectual influence, though it’s surely to be limited: intellectual influence refers to those persons, publications, institutions, artifacts, and/or activities which have directly or indirectly influenced how you understand the world—an arena significantly constituted and moved by ideas, concepts, theories, and philosophies. Concisely, intellectual influence is about how we’ve come to understand and narrate the world, and shape others to do the same.
(In no way can intellectual influence be neatly severed from other forms of influence, such as our emotional life, our physical circumstances, or other influences. However, I think my definition is distinct enough that we can isolate intellectual influence for the purpose of reflection.)
Lately I’ve been thinking of intellectual influences. I don’t know that these are necessarily more important than other types of influences, though they’re certainly not less important. However, when you spend a lot of time reading, writing, speaking, and teaching, you can’t help but appreciate the role of intellectual influence.
Knowing that we can influence how others think or that we can be influenced in our thinking is at once humbling, exhilarating, and sometimes a tad dreadful. It’s humbling because it implies that we don’t know everything. It’s also humbling because it reminds us that we can make a difference in other people’s lives. It’s exhilarating because it means that the arena of the mind is important, potent, and valuable. But I dare say that all of this is a bit dreadful since the notion of intellectual influence can mean that we haven’t always been taught accurately, nor have we instructed others faithfully.
No wonder there are Bible verses like James 3:1, Hebrews 13:9, et al.
Looking Back
One of the very curious aspects of intellectual formation is that so much of it is happening gradually over long periods of time. It’s a big reason why we don’t always realize how formative certain books, concepts, or people were until we look back years later.
This is, of course, not always true. Sometimes you very clearly perceive those “aha moments” in your education and learning. You have a breakthrough; an idea finally makes sense to you in a way it never has before; an author captures you with a far-reaching insight; a professor helps you to see what had been beneath the surface all along. These moments are real, gratifying, and sometimes highly memorable.
As I have recently meditated on the key influences in my intellectual development, I have noticed two larger classes of persons: those influences who were personally known to me, and those influences who I experienced from afar. (I’ll come back to these two.)
Beyond these classes or groups, I could further divide things. Some of my influences have been people within the theological studies arena. Others have been more in the general humanities or interdisciplinary studies arena. Others haven’t neatly fallen into either category.
Some of my influences were people with whom I worked very closely, either in an occupational/vocational/professional context, or in an educational/academic context.
Some influences were immediately impactful at the moment of encounter. With others, I am just now realizing how much they were forming me intellectually. Ideas are funny like that. Sometimes you reach out and receive them. Sometimes they impress themselves upon you in a way you cannot (and perhaps should not) shake. Other times they seem to emerge almost out of nowhere from within. Truly, they had to have been there all along, but a particular experience triggered them, raising them to the level of conscious awareness.
Again, we must take care with what we teach and what we’re taught. Ideas matter, and they surely can linger.
A Few of Mine
I have a fairly extensive list of those whom I characterize as “intellectual influences.” I look at the list from time to time, wondering if I’ve missed someone. Sometimes I wonder if I’ve included someone who has been highly influential, but just not in the arena of the intellect. (Again, I recognize how hard it is to distinguish this kind of influence from others. It’s not a hard and fast distinction.)
I’d love to publish that list at Churchatopia sometime, and perhaps I will. (Though, such a list couldn’t be in any kind of hierarchical order.) However, for now I will list a few who will be less known (if known at all) to readers. I choose these names for three main reasons. First, illustrations always help. Second, I think it will honor these individuals since they are likely the lesser-known people on my list. Third, I hope my brief descriptions will aid readers to reflect better on their own intellectual formation, and how that has played out over the years.
Rett Floyd: Mr. Rett was my eighth-grade history teacher. In those days they simply called it “Social Studies.” Perhaps they still do. However, the prescribed course of study for eighth grade Social Studies was a tour of South Carolina History with Mr. Rett.
I suppose he is now in his 60s, though I apologize if I’m wrong. It’s amazing to think of how young he was back then, though he had already been in the classroom many years. Mr. Rett made history come alive. To use the metaphor differently, he elicited the life already embedded in history.
South Carolina is one of the original thirteen colonies, so I suppose teaching S.C. history should be a lay-up for any competent historian. After all, you have a lot of material to work with! But when 25 years later you can still see, in your mind’s eye, your teacher pacing up and down the rows of desks, without notes, telling you how we came to be and why we became what we did, that’s impressive.
It doesn’t hurt that Mr. Rett was a deacon and teacher in my church, so we had a “dual relationship.” Did I mention that he could pass as John Stockton in a crowded theater?
Rebecca Sowell: Mrs. Sowell was one of my two Language Arts/literature teachers in high school. She isn’t a teacher I would have put on this list back when I first encountered her. The only list she would have made starts with the word “hit-.” However, it’s fascinating that one of the most influential grade-school teachers was someone who had my own father as a student in her first year of teaching.
Though I had her as a teacher on the “back nine” of her career, she was as sharp as ever. She was one of the no-nonsense types. She was structured, articulate, and demanding. She had a sense of humor, but so few of us could access it. She is the first teacher who properly introduced me to the Holocaust, Mark Twain, and much more. Her greatest influence was teaching me to take texts seriously. I still remember her spending at least 20 minutes explaining to us the irony of the title of Twain’s short story, “The Genuine Mexican Plug.”
Bruce Little: Dr. Little was my advisor and primary professor as a seminary student at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Little was distinct for his northeastern (Maine) accent, his bow ties, and sardonic wit. He led the apologetics/philosophy program on the heels of L. Russ Bush’s retirement, and he carried the baton well. He was one of those professors who managed to be both popular but also a bit frightening—not to me, but to some. I like to tell Welch College-affiliated people, “Think Darrell Holley, but with a particular kind of northeastern accent.”
I spent a lot of time with Dr. Little in my capacity as a student and assistant. He was very sympathetic to my being a Free Will Baptist. (He was strongly non-Calvinistic.) Though he is now Professor Emeritus and teaches/advises very little, he still looms large as an important voice. He built on the wonderful foundation laid by some key people at Welch College and helped me take some important next steps.
Joel Biermann: Dr. Biermann was my doctoral dissertation advisor at Concordia Seminary, where he has been teaching for over 20 years. As a long-time pastor and professor who has been publishing more and more, I have a lot of built-in appreciation for the kind of ministry Biermann has. But on a personal and academic level, he was just what I needed.
Having your first advisor leave the institution during your dissertation phase can be a major disruption. This is putting it mildly! Through a series of circumstances I won’t get into here, I ended up being assigned to Dr. Biermann. Though he wasn’t in my particular department, the graduate school permitted it since my dissertation topic coincided so well with his research, writing, and teaching load. Having had him earlier for an independent study, I knew it was just the right fit.
Not only do I owe the completion of my Ph.D. program partly to Dr. Biermann, I owe it to him for having a much better handle of Lutheran theology, some key theological concepts, and understanding the social, professional, and institutional architecture of Christian higher education.
Ken Myers: Ken Myers is arguably the best-kept secret in the entire “Christianity and culture” conversation. That’s sad, but also a great compliment to him and his wisdom. I don’t know who first told me of him during my Welch days, but I have been subscribing to Mars Hill Audio Journal, which he founded in the early 90s, ever since.
Some readers may know of his All God’s Children and Blue Suede Shoes. It’s a fine book in its own right. However, so much of his brilliance is found in his lectures, shorter articles, and especially narration of the hundreds of interviews he has released through the years. I have learned of more important authors and books from following his work than anyone else.
More importantly, I’ve learned to ask the right questions about this thing we call “culture,” and these weird creatures we call “humans.” Myers is an indispensable Christian voice addressing this complex intersection. Moreover, he’s a very nice man.
David F. Wells: Last but not least, Dr. David F. Wells. Wells is former seminary professor, best known for his many years at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. Wells wrote one of the most consequential series of books on the state of evangelicalism (and evangelical theology) ever written. That so few people today even reference them deeply saddens me.
Wells’s work introduced me to a way of reasoning and arguing theologically that I hadn’t ever encountered: bringing theology, history, sociology, and other important disciplines together in assessing the state of things. His early books came to me at a time when I was still learning to digest this kind of analysis. I grew significantly because of it.
Many years later when I finally met the man (at the Free Will Baptist Leadership Conference of all places!), I tried my best to express my gratitude. Surely, I failed, but his books still occupy a prominent place on my bookcase.
Soli Deo Gloria
Ultimately God deserves the praise and glory for every positive influence we’ve enjoyed or exerted. He intends to use all of His people as instruments or channels of blessing. That’s remarkable.
So, who has shaped you? Who has imparted that pivotal concept or insight? Who was a catalyst at a key moment in your spiritual development? Who cultivated a love in you for something otherwise unknown and/or boring and/or misunderstood?
Thank them, if you can, and thank God.
__________
*In the strict sense, the spiritual might pertain directly to those beliefs we have about ourselves as human beings before God (coram deo, as we Reformation heirs would say). In the broad sense, the “spiritual” cannot be neatly separated from these other kinds of influences as they all touch upon what it means to be image-bearers.
Follow Up:
Now and again I’ve written about the papacy and the Roman Catholic Church. Jordan Cooper has recently reflected on the interpretive authority issues surrounding Pope Francis’s recent remarks—which are tantamount to universalism (all human beings will ultimately be saved), or at best, inclusivism (all religious roads ultimately lead to the same God). This paragraph especially expresses skepticism of the common Catholic claims that Scripture alone (sola Scriptura)—the historic Protestant interpretive principle—somehow inevitably results in countless problems when it comes to the private interpretation of Scripture:
The point here is that statements like the most recent from Pope Francis show that there are interpretations of magisterial tradition that are significantly different from each other, but all claim to represent the authentic teaching of the church. And, when looking at those various interpretations of the tradition, there is no way to choose between them other than to engage in the same kind of “private interpretation” that RC apologists decry. Claims of clear interpretive authority may work well in convincing young people looking for certainty to join the RCC, but such claims simply do not align with the reality. They present a fictional idealized vision of a church and a tradition that only exists in the words of Traditionalist arguments against Protestants on social media. The reality (and the actual theologians of the RCC know this) is that questions of interpretation and epistemic certainty are ones that we all have to wrestle with, and that there is no easy escape from. This is just the reality of living in a fallen world with intellects that cannot reason with Edenic perfection. Nonetheless, at the Parousia, Christ’s light will dispel all such uncertainties.
Read the entire article here. And for any readers who may be flirting with universalism, or ministering to someone who is, I give you Michael McClymond.
Quotes of the Week:
Nowadays, parasite businesses are the largest corporations in the world. Their technologies do many harmful things, but lately they have focused on serving up fake culture, leeching off the creativity of real human artists.
Just take a look at the dominant digital platforms—and consider how little they actually create. But the amount of leeching they do is really quite stunning, especially when compared with the dominant businesses of the past.
· What does Facebook really create? Almost nothing. It relies on 3 billion users to create content (ugh!—their word, not mine), and then monetizes these people and their unpaid labor.
· What does Google really create? Almost nothing. Just look at how it destroys newspapers, while doing zero journalism itself. The comparison with a parasite could hardly be more apt. It feeds off the news, but never adds to it. Then look at every one of Alphabet’s other business units, and ask the same question. What’s getting created here by the company itself? Very little—but this enormous business is a genuine innovator in parasitical software and business models, leeching off others so successfully, that it now has a market capitalization of $2 trillion.
· What does Spotify really create? Almost nothing. One person—a single individual—recently redesigned the Spotify user interface from scratch, and came up with something better. But the folks at Spotify don’t worry about their lousy app, because they’re so busy sucking blood from the creative economy, to which they contribute not one whit. Meanwhile, their CEO is now richer than any musician in the history of the world.
· What does TikTok really create? Almost nothing. This company relies on one million creators—none of them are employees. Most of them are working for hopes and dreams. TikTok is run like a Hollywood studio, but without cast, crew, directors, scriptwriters, or any creative talent whatsoever. But that hardly matters when you’re just a parasite living off unwitting hosts.
Ted Gioia, “Are We Now Living in a Parasite Culture?”
The appeal of Rome to the minds of many is that the RCC supposedly resolves the interpretive problem of the subjectivity of the reader. Sola Scriptura, it is claimed, leads to the creation of 40,000 Protestant denominations (a complete falsehood by the way, but that’s a point for another time) because the Bible on its own is difficult to understand, and reading (let alone reflection and comprehension) is a rather subjective process. Human intellects are not objective instruments of disinterested observation that Enlightenment rationalists often envisioned. People bring their own biases of all sorts into any interpretive process, and these biases often remain unrecognized. This is true, not only of the average lay-reader, but of theologians and Biblical scholars. There is a reason why the textual scholarship of each age just so happens to recognize whatever philosophical school is most popular at the time within the Biblical text. Biases shape all of us.
Jordan Cooper, “Another Day, Another Controversial Statement from Pope Francis.”
For [T.S.] Eliot, the work of cultivating the city (including the church!) requires us to be ambidextrous. In one hand we must carry a sword, ready to defend ourselves and our fellow workers from attacks from within and from without. These could be attacks on our faith, they could be accusations that Christianity is merely a bigoted religion, they could be attacks on the unborn or religious liberty. They could be anything that keeps us from building a city that is honoring to God. Eliot then is not advocating retreatism from the public square. With one hand we must hold our swords.
But with our other hand, we must be building. Institutions, churches, schools, families, books, poems, works of art, laws—culture creation. The trowel is the tool of building, and we cannot be constantly in conflict. We must cast a positive vision of culture and pursue it, create it with our labor. It’s not enough just to defend ourselves in the culture war, we must build something beautiful, true, and good.
This is how we must build. We have no other option. Only focusing on the sword (the culture war or self defense) is anemic. It does not have a telos. It only has more fighting as the end goal. Not a finished city. And only focusing on building denies the reality of enemies within and without who will work to destroy our efforts. We must be prudent enough to see reality as it is, which in this case means recognizing that there are forces in the world deeply opposed to Christianity and the Church and the moral order it teaches. We must have an answer for those opposed to us.
O. Alan Noble, “How Must We Build? With a Sword and Trowel.”
Books I’m Reading Now/Still/Again:
Joel Biermann, Day 7: For Work, Rest, or Play.
Joshua Chatraw and Mark Allen, Apologetics at the Cross: An Introduction for Christian Witness.
Abigail Favale, The Genesis of Gender: A Christian Theory.
Richard Lischer, Open Secrets: A Memoir of Faith and Discovery.
Parting Shot:
The Free Will Baptist Theological Symposium convenes one week from today in Gallatin, Tennessee. It’s not too late to make plans to join us for this free, day and a half event. Two special events will be unique to this year’s program. In light of the recent publication of Teacher, Scholar, Shepherd: Essays in Honor of Robert E. Picirilli (eds. Bracey & Morgan), a portion of the symposium will celebrate Dr. Robert Picirilli’s contributions to Free Will Baptist scholarship. Dr. Pic will also be reading a paper. If you missed our symposium two years ago when we more fully engaged with Picirilli’s legacy throughout the entire event, this is one you won’t want to miss.
Second, I will be moderating a panel discussion on Abigail Favale’s recent, notable work, The Genesis of Gender (Ignatius, 2022).
Don’t miss out!
