A group of us from several seminaries were meeting together, and someone made a comparison between Fuller Seminary and another theological school. Someone else quickly chimed in with the observation that the comparison did not quite work because, he said, “Fuller is a movement school,” while the other seminary serves a specific denomination. I understood the point, but I also found myself experiencing a little discomfort about the idea of leading a “movement” school. My nervousness has to do with the mentality that is often associated with movements as such.

I once was invited to another campus where I had been invited to engage in a dialogue with an evangelical activist. Over a period of two and a half days we were each to present our views on some key topics having to do with political witness: the basis for Christian social action, church-state relations, military involvement, serving the poor, and so on. I had read the other person’s writings and was looking forward to an interesting exchange of ideas. But I was taken aback by his opening comments, which went something like this: “Someone said to me that they looked forward to my dialogue with Dr. Mouw. Let me say at the outset that I do not see this as a dialogue. He and I will be engaged in a batttle for the hearts and minds of this campus. God does not call us to dialogue; he calls us to put on the armor that will equip us for victory in the war against unrighteousness. That is what these sessions are really all about!”

When it was my turn to speak I told the audience that I had not come prepared for warfare. I had some ideas on the assigned topics and wanted to try them out in public conversation with the other speaker. I allowed as how I could be wrong about some of the things I would say. If our conversations convinced me of an error, I would be glad to admit it. And if that happened I did not know of any “followers” that I have who would feel cheated. I had never signed up to lead troops into battle—I saw my calling as trying out some interesting ideas about important topics.

To be sure, my differences with the other speaker had something to do with the fact that I am an academic and he is an activist. I recognize that difference and appreciate it. I am glad that not everyone who cares about issues of public life is like me. Mother Teresa would not have been very effective if she spent most of her time reading books about poverty and offering hypotheses about its causes and solutions. She was as effective as she was because she zeroed in on the concrete realities of desperate poverty. She saw dying lepers on the streets of Calcutta and she whispered the love of Jesus to them.
I have no problem with that kind of lack of tentativeness. My problem is with people who come up with a program and organize their troops around an agenda about which there never any room for a little give-and-take. And it is precisely my love for that kind of intellectual give-and-take that I am happy to be at a place that allows me to try out ideas without some people in the “movement” demanding to have their dues refunded.

Of course, evangelical Christianity is a movement. And Fuller does want to serve that movement. But we serve it best when we insist that a healthy movement needs to remind itself regularly to lighten up a bit and encourage some give-and-take on the important issues.

At a student party during my graduate school days, I had a fascinating discussion with a coleopterist. He did not use that label to describe himself in our conversation; he simply identified himself as a doctoral student in the field of entomology. But recently I read an article in the Los Angeles Times that informed me that a coleopterist is an entomologist who is devoted specifically to the study of beetles. And the world of beetles is what we talked about at that party.

The focus of this student’s doctoral research, he told me, was the beetle community that lived in a specific region of the Canadian Rockies. Indeed, he was interested only in the beetles that occupied the eastern and western slopes of one particular mountain. By every physical characteristic he could identify, he said, the eastern slope beetles were indistinguishable from the western slope habitants. There was only one problem: no matter what he and his research colleagues did, they could not get an eastern slope beetle to mate with one from the western slope. In other cases, groups of beetles with the same physical characteristics mated freely, even if they came from communities that resided at a considerable distance from each other. But these two beetle groups lived only a few miles apart—yet no sexual attraction. It was hard to avoid a social explanation, he said; it looked for all the world like the territorial difference had generated some sort of mutual hostility. But, he quickly added, the entomologists who study beetles—those folks that I now know go by the label coleopterists—were not very attracted to social explanations when it comes to beetles.

That conversation took place several decades ago. From time to time I have wondered whether he solved the puzzle of why the two groups of beetle kinfolk rejected each other. My guess is that some coleopterist has come up with a convincing explanation by now.

If the mystery has been resolved, I doubt very much that the answer came in the form of a social-psychological explanation. If so, though, I wonder whether it casts any light on parallel kinds of issues that occur in the human community.

I grew up in an extended family that was divided church-wise between two Dutch Reformed denominations. My grandmother switched from one to the other when she married my grandfather. In making the switch, she experienced no change in her theology or pattern of worship. But her birth family saw her as having crossed a wide divide—and the tensions never completely disappeared. To be sure, there were some small differences between the two groups over some issues. But the way in which those issues were taken to be matters of deep division would puzzle an outsider, even someone fairly familiar with Reformed thought and practice.

In my ecclesiastical travels I have seen similar patterns in other theological-denominational settings: Parents who come close to disowning their daughter because she left their Wisconsin-Synod Lutheran denomination to marry a husband from the Missouri-Synod Lutherans. Baptists who see another group of Baptists as their worst enemies. Wesleyan versus Wesleyan, Orthodox versus Orthodox, Mennonite versus Mennonite.

The Freudians have a label for this kind of thing: “the narcissism of minor differences”—where two individuals or groups are so close to each other that what are in reality rather small differences between them become very large in their imaginations. But, of course, the label doesn’t really explain anything. It is just another way of pointing to a puzzling pattern.

Maybe it is time for a dialogue on the subject between theologians and coleopterists!

Kavya Shivashankar,  a 13-year-old from Kansas, won the National Spelling Bee the other evening by correctly spelling “Laodicean.” That’s a good biblical word that I would also have gotten right if I were in that spelling bee. It might seem oddly self-serving—even stupidly boastful—for me to say that, so I have to explain that I always read about spelling bees with my own personal experience in mind. I was the first runner-up in the Watervliet, New York, citywide spelling bee when I was exactly Ms. Shivashankar’s age. It was a traumatic experience, still a vivid memory. The word I misspelled was “accommodate”—I left out the second “m.” I have never misspelled it since.

I was comforted to read, in the account reporting on Ms. Shivashankar’s victory, that Jill Biden, the wife of our vice president, also has some painful memories of her spelling bee past. She kicked off this year’s national event by telling about a bad case of nerves that forced her as a sixth-grader to drop out of her own local spelling bee. It is a little embarrassing to have to admit that those kinds of adolescent failures still live with us. It’s the kind of thing that a therapist would push us to probe why we can’t just “let it go.”

In my case, though, I wonder whether the prevailing memory of my failure isn’t a divine gift of sorts. I teach and write a lot about the relationship between Christian commitment and cultural context. This is a subject in which a word like “accommodate” looms large for me. Maybe my experience with misspelling that word is a providential prodding to pay special attention to dangers posed by an uncritical cultural accommodation.

If there is anything to that providence hypothesis, then I can hope that Ms. Shivashankar’s positive experience with “Laodicean” makes that a memorable word for her. I hope she investigates where the adjective comes from, and thinks long and hard about the Lord’s own message to the church at Laodicea: “I reprove and discipline those whom I love. Be earnest, therefore, and repent. Listen! I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me. To the one who conquers I will give a place with me on my throne, just as I myself conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne” (Rev. 3:19-21).  We can hope that special attention to this divine word to the Laodiceans might lead Ms. Shivashankar to show some spiritual caution in accommodating (note the correct spelling!) to the world around her!

For this reflection, see my recent posting to Duke Divinity School’s “Call and Response” blog.

A wonderful little book has just been published. The title is not likely to propel it onto the best-seller lists: Faith in the World: Mark Gibbs and Vesper Society, Being God’s Lively People, co-authored by Nelvin Vos, Daniel Pryfogle, and Melvin George, and published as a Vesper Society Imprint. Doing the book was a labor of love for Mark Gibbs, a name not very recognizable today, but a person who had a profound impact on many people, including me. I want to explain the why and how of that personal impact.

Our family spent the 1975-76 academic year in Princeton, where I had a National Endowment for the Humanities post-doctorate fellowship in Princeton University’s Sociology Department. Early in the fall of ’75, I received a call out of the blue from Mark Gibbs. It was a very strange conversation, with him addressing me in a rather curt, lecturing manner. It went something like this:  “You don’t know me, but I know about you. You probably don’t realize exactly what you are doing, but what you have written about the need for evangelical Christians to be actively involved in politics in service to Christ is really all about the ministry of the laity in the world.” Then he told me—not asked me, but told me—that I would be speaking at a conference in Dallas on the subject. To prepare for that conference, he said, I must read Hendrik Kraemer’s Theology of the Laity. And Mark would soon be coming to Princeton to tell me more.

Well, that was the beginning. He did come to Princeton, and I did speak at Dallas University, at “The Laity: a New Direction.” I was initiated there into a group of people who met regularly at various places around the country to strategize about promoting the cause of the laity: folks like James McCord, president of Princeton Seminary; Howard Blake, a retired Presbyterian pastor; Cynthia Wedel, of the World Council of Churches; Father Joseph Gremillion, of Notre Dame, Bill Diehl, president of Bethlehem Steel; and others.

Most important, though, was that Mark became a dear friend. A rather strange friend, to be sure. He was never very warm—until near the end, which I will describe soon. He was always schoolmarmish with me: “You will do this . . . you will read this.” The relationship shaped me in signficant ways. Reading Kraemer was a major theological event for me, as was the reading of a book Mark co-authored, God’s Frozen People. And I became a part of a movement, comprised in a special way by the friends-of-Gibbs, that gave direction to a lot of what I have done theologically.

Mark was, in my mind, a saint—an itinerant Franscisan-type lay friar, whose mission in life was driven by a passionate commitment to upgrading the status of the laity in the theological understanding of the church. An Anglican layman from the UK, he was an ecumenist of a special sort, and he saw me as a key link to evangelicalism. While he often derided my Dutch Calvinism, he was genuinely interested in bringing my kind of Kuyperianism into the mix. His overall strategy seemed to be to bring together various strands—post-Vatican II “Apostolate of the Laity” theology that drew on the writings of Yves Congar, the best of Lutheran vocation theology, the theological instincts that gave shape to so many vocation-specific laity groups in evangelicalism (Christian Nurses Fellowship, Christian Legal Society, Fellowship of Christian Athletes, etc.), Anglican insights about the meaning of baptism—into a rich interaction that could provide a broad-based movement to promote the cause of the laity as God’s people in the world.

The gatherings around the country were interesting. A group of us, maybe 10 or 12, would show up in some retreat center and report on what was happening in the cause of the laity. We would often read something in preparation for theological discussion. Mark always acted kind of crotchety at these events, but we all had become very affectionate toward him. Once we were at a Catholic center where another group was having a silent weekend, and their only mode of communication was to use Tinker Toys to express themselves. He was horrified. Another time, one of the denominational leaders in our group suggested an exercise where we would begin our time together answering two questions: Where would I rather be than at this meeting? And what is my worst worry about our project? People got into it, but when it was Mark’s turn, he answered the questions this way: “Where would I rather be? It is none of your d*** business! What is my worst worry? That we will have to do more of this nonsense!”

When I moved to Fuller in 1985, Mark was upset with me. He felt strongly that my teaching at Calvin College was in essence an important exercise in the education of the laity for ministry. For me to move to a seminary was, for him, my running the risk of joining the enemy. We had good arguments about this.

A few months before he died, he came to visit me in Pasadena. I had not seen him for a while, and I was shocked at how frail he was. We spent several hours together in my office, and then at lunch. While he was very weak, he was still his schoolmarmish self. Until he was ready to leave. Then he thanked me for my friendship, and told me this was probably the last time we would see each other. “There is no need to be emotional about it,” he said. But then he began to cry. “I have told you it was a mistake to come here to Fuller,” he said. “But it does not have to be. You can promote the cause here, and it can have a big impact. Promise me you will stay faithful.” I did, and I moved to give him a hug, but he turned and left.

The book tells the story of his profound mission, as well as providing a narrative about a fine Lutheran-based organization, the Vesper Society, which supported much of Mark’s work. It also includes two excellent essays by Mark. This little volume preserves memories that should not be lost, about a cause that needs to be revived!

South Africa’s Uniting Reformed Church has been debating same-sex issues, and the black theologian Allan Boesak has spoken strongly in favor of granting full rights in the church to persons who are active in same-sex relationships. Indeed, Boesak is so committed on this issue that when the church’s synod recently voted against the document he had drafted on the subject, he announced that he was resigning from his official positions in the church.

Allan Boesak is an old friend, a great inspiration to me during apartheid days. When I taught courses on social ethics I required my students to read several of the essays in his book Black and Reformed. His open letter to a government official about civil disobedience, reprinted in that collection, is in my view a classic piece of Calvinist political thought.

Boesak was also instrumental in drafting the 1986 Belhar Confession, which I welcomed at the time as an important confessional statement about race relationships. He now appeals to that document in support of his advocacy for gay-lesbian ordination. In a recent insightful blog posting, “The Belhar Confession & God’s Final Revelation,” Violet Larson argues that this is a good reason to question the theological adequacy of the Belhar Confession, precisely because of the use to which it is being put these days by proponents of full inclusion on same-sex topics. I agree with her. While that document spoke forthrightly against the injustices of apartheid, it did not explicitly appeal to biblical authority. That it can now be seen by some of its drafters as capable of being extended to the full inclusion of active gays and lesbians in ministry says something about the weaknesses of Belhar—not as an important prophetic declaration in its original context, but as a statement that can stand on its own as a normative confession.

I still think that Allan Boesak’s 1976 dissertation, a critical study of American black theology, written for his PhD at the Kampen theological faculty in the Netherlands, is a wonderful piece of work. It was published in 1977 by Orbis Books: Farewell to Innocence: A Socio-Ethical Study on Black Theology and Power. There Boesak was firm in his views on biblical authority. Affirming his own commitment to developing genuinely “black theology,” he nonetheless criticized James Cone, for example, for treating “the black situation” and “the black experience” as having revelatory status. While we do have to pay close attention to the cultural context and historical experiences of a given group, he argued, these do not “within themselves have revelational value on a par with Scripture.” For blacks, what such things provide us with, he said, is “the framework within which blacks understand the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. No more, no less” (p. 12).

That is a profound statement. Our cultural contexts are just that—they are contexts within which we receive revelation. They are “no more” than that, but they are also “no less.” This means, said Boesak in Farewell to Innocence, that a genuine Black Theology must be sure “to cultivate self-critical reflection under the Word of God within the situation of blackness” (121)—and the same holds for those who received that Word in other cultural contexts.  We need to listen and study carefully what people tell us who have received God’s Word in situations different from our own. And we need to dialogue—even argue—together about whether what we claim to have received is sound theologically.

But always under the authority of Scripture: “Black Theology must ask whether the actions of blacks for gaining their liberation are in accord with the divine will of God, a thing that can only be done if the Word of God retains its critical and fulfilling function vis-a-vis all human activity” (p. 121-122).  I can’t imagine that the Allan Boesak of the 1970s would have insisted that sexual activity should simply be treated under the vague rubric of “inclusion for all,” but must also be examined carefully under the authority of the written Word of God.

I am still a fan of the early Allan Boesak!

This piece originally appeared in The Christian Century.

I collect expressions of anti-intellectualism. I even consider myself to be a connoisseur of the sorts of things that fall within this genre. But this is no mere hobby. I was raised in a spiritual environment in which the intellectual life was regarded with suspicion, even with overt hostility at times. The anti-intellectual one-liners of my childhood still echo in my heart. “The only school anyone has to go to is the Holy Ghost’s school of the Bible!” “If you have to get educated, be sure to get the victory over it!”

There were times when those warnings hit close to home. Just before I went off to graduate school in philosophy, for example, a dear family friend sent me a letter expressing concern for my soul. He quoted Paul’s warning in Colossians 2 about not being corrupted “through philosophy and vain deceit.” In quoting the verse he spelled the key word “fool-osophy.”

I take time on occasion to remember my spiritual roots, to examine my collection of anti-intellectual expressions, and to meditate on this or that warning against the life of the mind. Testing the state of my soul against the complaints of those who view people like me—people devoted to intellectual pursuits—with suspicion has led me to practice an important personal exercise in spiritual self-examination. To be sure, that takes some discernment. By their very nature, attacks on the intellect display considerable rhetorical overkill, so in most cases I must separate the wheat from the chaff.

Here is one of my favorite overkill examples, quoted by Richard Hofstadter in his classic study, Anti-Intellectualism in American Life. Peter Cartwright was a 19th-century Methodist circuit rider who observed that he served the cause of the gospel with wonderful results without ever having darkened the door of a theological school. He and his friends, he declared, have “preached the Gospel with more success and had more seals to their ministry” than all of those “sapient, downy D.D.’s in modern times who . . . are seeking presidencies or professorships in colleges, editorships, or any agencies that have a fat salary, and are trying to create newfangled institutions where good livings can be monopolized”—and all of this “while millions of poor, dying sinners are thronging the way to hell without God, without Gospel.”

As someone who occupies both a presidency and a professorship, I take some comfort in knowing that I don’t exactly fit Cartwright’s description of the “sapient, downy” type. But there is enough of me in his account to force me to be sure that I have set my priorities right.

Some of the anti-intellectual statements in my collection force me to probe a little deeper spiritually. A case in point is on the opening page of the great devotional classic The Imitation of Christ, where Thomas à Kempis urges us to forsake the pseudowisdom of “the world” in order to render our lives wholly “conformable to Christ.” He spells out his plea with a couple of choice examples. It doesn’t do us much good, he says, to be able to argue eloquently about the Trinity if we lack the kind of humility that is pleasing to the triune God. What is the merit, he asks, of being able to define compunction if we are not “pricked in heart” by the sins we have committed? And this: “If you knew the whole Bible scientifically, and the words of the Philosophers; what good would it all be, that loveless and graceless knowledge?”

It’s easy to point out here that Thomas is presenting us with some false choices. Of course it is regrettable when a person can set forth all sorts of arguments defending the Trinity but for all of that is living a life that displeases the Trinity, and yes, it is better to experience compunction in your own soul than to offer a learned definition of the word compunction. Graceless knowledge is surely something to be avoided. But isn’t it good to have some people who are able both to speak carefully about trinitarian dogma and also to live in ways that are pleasing to the triune God? Or what about someone who not only has experienced genuine compunction in the soul but also has managed to write a book on the subject? Surely one alternative to pursuing a graceless knowing is the cultivation of gracefull knowledge.

A grace-filled life of the mind will draw on some important virtues, not the least of them being humility and a desire to serve others by showing the kind of love with which we have been loved by God. Simone Weil says somewhere in her writings that the virtues necessary to sustain the intellectual life are pretty much the same as those that are necessary to sustain the spiritual-contemplative life. Thinking carefully, then, can itself be an important exercise of the imitation of Christ. Not a bad reason for at least some of us to take on the task of “fool-osophy.”

This piece originally appeared at purposedriven.com

At a recent gathering of theological educators, I heard a series of three talks on “Money, Sex and Power.” All three presentations were excellent, but it struck me: money is the topic we pay the least attention to in our seminary programs. In the evangelical world where I spend most of my time, we certainly spend a lot of time talking about sex. We argue about it in our denominations and we preach about sexual patterns in our society. We have also become more sensitive to power topics: in recent decades we have become adept at organizing “moral majorities” and “Christian coalitions” to exercise political clout in the public arena.

Money, however, is not a favorite topic. Studies have shown that pastors do not like preaching about financial matters. Nor have they been encouraged to take these issues on by their theological mentors.

There are some obvious reasons for this. Seminary students spend their graduate school years hanging around with people who do not have much money. When they enter ministry they are often still struggling in their own lives to catch up financially, and they do not feel very confident talking about money to their parishioners. And often they come into their ministries after several years in an academic setting where simple-minded comments about “rich capitalists” occur much too frequently.

As a result, preaching about money is often been limited to the periodic sermon about the need to support church programs—so that church members come away with the impression that as long as they make their church pledges they have done their duty as good stewards.

So it is, that during this desperate time people are asking those of us who represent the church, “Where is your God in all of this? Why are you not telling us more about how we can make it through this economic storm? Isn’t it your job to speak truths about the basic issues of life?”

We need to hear these complaints. Thirty years ago, I heard a pastor preach about Jonah. Here we have a prophet of the God of Israel on a ship that has run into a dangerous storm. The prophet is having an intense religious discussion with the vessel’s crew of pagan sailors. We would expect, the preacher said, that the prophet is speaking the truth to folks who are religiously confused. But in this case, the sailors have the best of the argument. They tell the prophet, correctly, that he is being disobedient to the will of God. The preacher’s punchline: sometimes the world preaches important messages to the church.

I’ve been thinking about that punchline as the economic situation has gone from bad to worse in recent months. It isn’t just that churches are not saying enough about the present economic crisis. We have shied away from posing the basic questions about finances in general. Getting Christians to talk to each other about their spending priorities, the things they buy and sell, their attitudes toward possessions, what the Bible says about “the love of money”—in too many churches these have been the taboo topics.

A young Christian business leader told me recently that he and his friends—Christian and non-Christian—are realizing that they had gotten accustomed to putting their trust in progress and growth. They had learned to love luxury. Now all of this was coming apart, and they are being forced to think about what really gives meaning and purpose to their lives.

Those of us who are theologically trained may not be experts on economic systems and personal financial management, but we do know some important things about the underlying issues. The myth of inevitable progress is just that—a myth, and a dangerous one at that. Economic strength can be a false god; we must not give it our ultimate allegiance. Greed destroys souls. The quest for luxury cannot satisfy the deepest longings of the human spirit.

The Jonah story points to a good outcome for the church today. The prophet admitted that he’d abdicated his prophetic role and led the ship into angry waters. We should confess that we are not as prepared as we should be to offer guidance in the “money” dimension of life.

Our failure to speak at length about these matters during our long, past season of prosperity has contributed to the deep distress triggered by this present crisis. The recognition of our shortcomings, though, can be the occasion for an opportunity to new obedience. When people ask us, “Where is your God in all of this mess?” we are given a precious moment to speak words of comfort and guidance to a world that is looking for a place of true safety in the midst of the storm. We should be ready.

My friend Robert Millet wrote an interesting book two years ago, with the title What Happened to the Cross? Bob is a distinguished Mormon theologian who is extensively involved in interreligious dialogue (including the evangelical-Mormon dialogue which he and I co-chair). This book, published by the Deseret Book Company, is addressed primarily to a Latter Day Saints audience, so it is interesting to be able to listen in on what he says to his fellow Mormons about Christ’s redemptive mission.

The very title suggests that Bob wants Mormonism to pay more attention to the Cross of Christ. That the Cross is not a very visible symbol in the Mormon community Millet attributes to the fact that many early Mormon leaders had Puritan roots, and they shared Puritanism’s worries about too much visible symbolism. As he observes, the same was true for many Baptists, who only started displaying crosses when they moved into the Protestant mainstream in the 19th century.

But there is also a theological issue at stake for Mormons—the Mormon focus on what Millet describes as “the central role of Gethsemane.” Mormonism has insisted, he says, “that our Lord’s suffering there [in the Garden] was not simply an awful anticipation of Calvary but that it was redemptive in nature.”  Millet does argue, though, that the emphasis on Gethsemane should not detract from the acknowledgement that Christ’s atoning work was” consummated” on Calvary. He cites the late Gordon Hinckley in this regard. In 2005 the LDS president put it clearly: it was on the Cross of Calvary that “our Savior, our Redeemer, the Son of God, gave Himself, a vicarious sacrifice for each of us.”

Obviously there is much to discuss here with our Mormon friends. At the very least, though, it should be clear that the “counter-cult” folks have not been fair when they have insisted that for Mormonism, Christ’s redemptive mission was somehow accomplished exclusively in Gethsemane. Ed Decker and Dave Hunt, for example, are bearing false witness when they state bluntly, in The God Makers, that “Mormons have an almost fanatical aversion to the cross and the shed blood of Jesus Christ.” Bob Millet’s book provides overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Actually, there are good reasons why we evangelicals ought ourselves to pay closer attention to Gethsemane as an important stage in Christ’s redemptive mission. For anyone looking for a solid Reformed basis for that claim, here is question and answer 37 of the Heidelberg Catechism, commenting on the “he suffered” phrase in the Apostles Creed:

Q. What do you confess when you say that He suffered?

A. During all the time He lived on earth, but especially at the end, Christ bore in body and soul the wrath of God against the sin of the whole human race. Thus, by His suffering, as the only atoning sacrifice, He has redeemed our body and soul from everlasting damnation, and obtained for us the grace of God, righteousness, and eternal life.

Christ paid the debt for our sin “especially at the end,” but the transaction began much earlier. Carrying the burden of our sins in his own person was not merely a three-hour affair. It began in Bethlehem, and it certainly was experienced in an especially intense way when he sweat drops of blood in the Garden. This means that we have some common themes to build on in our dialogues with Mormons. More importantly, it means that a focus on Gethsemane can be a worthy exercise in our own spiritual formation.

In my recent Newsweek column, I described the sadness that hit me on Election Day morning when I saw angry groups gesturing angrily to each other as they waved signs for and against the California referendum on same-sex marriage. Since that column appeared, I have seen hundreds of responses to my plea for a civil discussion of the issue, some of them modeling the civility I asked for, and others from folks who continue to wave the signs in anger.

Jake from Chicago is one of the sign-wavers. On his blog he expresses his rage over the fact that Newsweek failed to print his letter criticizing me. Actually, “criticizing” is a weak description in this case. Jake uses two nouns to describe me. I won’t repeat the second one in this space, but here’s a hint: it is a compound noun beginning with “a.” The first is more printable: Jake says I am a “solipsist.”

At first I wondered how Jake knew enough about me to describe me in such specific terms. Then it occurred to me that there was a Jake that I knew in high school in New Jersey who also liked to refer to me with the “a” word. The Jake who is presently quite angry with me is from Chicago, but we all move around a lot these days. Anyway, if it is the same Jake, I take some delight in discovering that he has expanded his vocabulary. The kid I knew in New Jersey would not have been voted “Most Likely to Discover What ‘Solipsist’ Means.”

For those who may not be as versed in philosophical terminology as the present Jake, a solipsist is someone who believes that he or she is the only person that exists—everyone else is a figment of the solipsist’s imagination. One of my favorite philosophical jokes was told by Bertrand Russell, who had mentioned in a BBC interview that sometimes he was tempted to endorse solipsism. A woman wrote to Russell and told him that she was pleased to hear about his attraction to that perspective. She was a convinced solipsist, she said, and was comforted to know that there might be another one around!

In his anger toward me, Jake has actually stumbled on an important social problem. As a metaphysical theory, solipsism is not very plausible. But many of us do fall into a pattern on occasion of a kind of functional solipsism. We act like we are the only ones who have genuine experiences, and we treat others as less than real persons. That was the problem I was trying to address in my column. On both sides of the current angry exchanges over same-sex marriage, there are real people with genuine hopes and fears. It would be a good beginning in working for the common good if we could at least hear each other in talking together about our concerns. The responses to my Newsweek column have convinced me even more that such a conversation is extremely difficult. I for one, however, will struggle against the temptation to retreat into a functional solipsism on the subject. And if Jake is willing to talk calmly, I will even ignore his previous use of the “a” word!