As many of you know, I am an advocate of what I call “the radiant center.” The last part of the last chapter of my book The Limits of Liberalism (2010, 2020) is about seeking and advocating a radiant theological center between the extremes of fundamentalism and liberalism (see pp. 317~330).
Last month, though, a man I greatly respect published an online opinion piece criticizing centrists. Naturally, I had to think about whether that was also a criticism of my strong emphasis on seeking the radiant center.
Mitch Randall has
been CEO of Good Faith Media (GFM) since July 2020. GFM evolved from what
once was the Southern Baptist Convention’s Christian Life Commission (CLC), which
I highly evaluated and appreciated in the 1960s through the 1980s.*1
Randall began his July
20 article by asserting, “The greatest enemy of freedom is not white
Christian nationalists breaching the U.S. Capitol. It’s white moderate — now
centrist — Christian males advocating for civility over justice.” He
immediately moves to MLKing’s powerful writing 60 years ago.
On April 12, 1963, King’s “The Letter from the Birmingham
Jail” was published. In that pointed letter, King wrote that “the Negro’s great
stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White citizens’
‘Councilor’ or the Ku Klux Klanner.”
No, that stumbling block is “the white moderate who is more
devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the
absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice.”
I fully agree with King’s emphasis on positive peace and the
necessity of justice. But it seems quite clear to me that King was also a
centrist in that he was firmly between the extremes of doing nothing and of acting
violently. He did not engage in the extremism of Malcolm X or the Black Panthers.
There are some who say that it was the extremism of the
violent Blacks that made it possible for King to be so effective, but it is
hard to know whether that was so. What we do know is that King had the
“strength to love” and used those words for the title of his influential book also
published in 1963.
Since I oppose the extremes of doing nothing and violent
action, I guess I could be called a White centrist Christian. But according
to Randall, such centrists “have done more to thwart the progress of faith and
freedom than any fascist or anarchist.”
Moreover, Randall charges that such centrists “decry those
demanding justice for the isolated, marginalized and oppressed” and they brand
people like him as extreme because he advocates “for inclusion, affirmation,
and equality for all of God’s children.”
But I want to remind Randall that the center is quite wide,
and the radiant center I advocate for ethics as well as for theology includes
those things he so strongly calls for.
There are some who want the justice, the inclusion, the
affirmation, and the equality that Randall desires but who are willing to use
violent action to seek those good ends. However, I haven’t seen Randall
advocate such violence, so I would place him, just as I did MLK, in the radiant
center.
Seeking the radiant center doesn’t mean embracing “bothsideism.”
When the opposing extremes are vacuous inactivity and violent action, the radiant
center calls for “neithersideism.”*2
I have often emphasized the
importance of both/and thinking. But there are also times that the emphasis
needs to be on neither/nor. The radiant center often stresses the latter. So,
in considering the radiant center with reference to ethics as well as theology,
these words still are applicable:
The radiant center radiates the heat (passion and compassion) and light of the teachings of Jesus Christ and the gospel about Jesus. The radiant center is engaged, for light does not stay in the bulb nor heat in the radiator. Radiance entails engagement.*3
Yes, being in the radiant center means actively engaging in efforts
to produce peace and justice for all, which usually means moving to the far
left side of that center—and I appreciate Mitch Randall for criticizing those centrists
who are on the far right and are not radiant.
____
*1 When
the CLC was significantly changed (and later renamed) as a part of the conservative
takeover of the SBC, the Baptist Center for Ethics was formed in 1991 by former Southern Baptists who had established the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship the year before, and in
2017 Randall became the second director of that organization, which is now GFM.
*2 I don’t remember ever seeing/hearing
the word “neithersideism,” so I thought maybe I was coining a new word. But in
searching the Internet, I soon found that journalist Matt Labash subtitled his 4/21/22
Substack article “The case
for Neithersideism.”
*3
The
Limits of Liberalism: A Historical, Theological, and Personal Appraisal of
Christian Liberalism
(2020), p. 329.
As usual, comments are slow coming in on this Monday morning. Here is the first brief comment by local Thinking Friend Vern Barnet:
ReplyDelete"I'm with you, Leroy. And with MLK. And Gandhi. Etc."
Thanks, Vern, for reading, understanding, and agreeing with what I posted this morning.
DeleteLeroy, the "radiant center" sounds cosmic; the cosmic Creator ordering "what is" on such a scale that we struggle to define and to delimit it. But we must keep trying. The radiant center suggests multidimensionality--hear the metaphor--our societies and polities being not entities on a flat plane but, relationally, within and on the surface of the sphere. (Our planet, being real, reveals the aptness of a reality the Creator would have us to contemplate: that our planet is our sole home, all of the people, our neighbors.) At the sphere's center is the origin and engine of our existence--likened to the gravity that holds a world together, but also metaphorically the "love" whose force is balancing in multiple dimensions and directions, more centripetal than centrifugal, more spherical than planar. What keeps us together in peace? Unselfish mutual concern. What rips us apart? Lack of concern for the Other, if not malevolent concern--hatred, murder; consider all of the mortal sins. Even passive hatred is deadly. Randall's point is strong. Which is easier to do: like the "white centrists," to tolerate others, especially those in great need, while claiming moderation toward all persons in order to assure salutary peace, or to take the risk of "radical other-interestedness" in the interest of true justice and equality? Who does not see this involves sacrifice? I find Jesus and the Prophets staunchly set on this issue, and the letter of First John vocal about it. Can we ignore the radiant center?
DeleteThanks so much, Jerry, for your thought-provoking comments. I especially like your emphasis on the multidimensionality of the radiant center. I have, admittedly, often thought only of the center between the two sides of a two-dimensional spectrum.
DeleteI like your emphasis on love as "unselfish mutual concern" with the opposite being "malevolent concern." And as you importantly point out, "passive hatred is deadly" and that is the significant emphasis Randall was making. But does that justify having active hatred that results in active violence toward the passive haters? That is the extreme I don't want to affirm. Rather, I want to advocate the position of Jesus and many of his followers (such as MLKing) who were willing to be killed rather than to kill in opposition to injustice and "malevolent concern."
While working on this blog post, I thought some about the statement I have heard from time to time but am never sure exactly what it means. That statement, attributed to various sources, says that God is "an infinite sphere, whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere." That surely is the radiant sphere par excellence.
Love it!
DeleteAs I've understood your position, the radiant center you promote is about the metaphysics of theology, but it sounds like Randall is talking about social action, and I'm not sure that styles of social action are highly correlated with the metaphysics of theology, except that theological liberalism has stressed working for a just world over promoting Christianity as the only true faith.
ReplyDeleteI'm speaking here inappropriately perhaps because I'm not familiar with Randall or GFM, but we need to remember that King's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" was written from JAIL and in part as a response to other African-American clergy who were criticizing his tactics as too radical. He was in jail because he was deliberately breaking unjust laws. Gandhi served considerable time too as a lawbreaker. King and Gandhi were advocating breaking laws!
I have a nephew who is a member of the NAACP and was highly critical of the Black Lives Matter protests as self-defeating, which is what King's more centrist critics thought. I disagreed with my nephew. There has been considerable social-scientific work over the decades regarding the effectiveness of various levels and types of social protest. I've lost touch with that research, but I think findings have not consistently favored a particular type, violence, civil disobedience, or active mass protests, probably because there are numerous other social factors involved, especially the social and political context of any given social action. Insofar as Randall is talking about centrists' emphasis of civil dialogue, he might very well be right. Sprinkling MLK's ideas in my sermons and writings has never landed me a night in jail.
As a matter of fact, my Baptist church back in the 1960s was proud of me when I did a sermon that quoted King's concept of forgiveness. But when I advocated approval of interracial marriage, then I got into trouble.
Anton, thanks as always for your challenging comments, but I am not sure I fully understand your first paragraph and how to respond to what you wrote there--except to say that I am quite sure you are correct when you wrioe that Randall was talking about social action.
DeleteBut with regard to your second paragraph, I know well that King's letter in April 1963 was, indeed, written while he was in jail. But I also know that his "I Have a Dream Speech" was delivered in August of that year, and in the months between jail and the Mall and in that powerful speech King did not advocate violence. So that is the reason I include King in the radiant center that I advocate.
I identify with your nephew, for I, too, am a member of the NCAAP and even though I have a Black Lives Matter tee shirt which I occasionally wear, I am also critical of the violence protests done in their name, especially in the U.S. Northwest.
One more thing: In the early 1960s when I was a full-time seminary student in Louisville and pastor of a small-town Baptist church 50 miles away, I quoted King in a sermon one Sunday morning, but said I wanted them just to hear and think about the words and didn't want to distract from those words by identifying the person who said them. After the service, one of the younger deacons, who was one of my strongest supporters, asked me privately who said the good words I quoted. I didn't hesitate to tell him they were MLK's words. But I was taken back a bit when he quickly said, "Well, it was a good thing you didn't say in your sermon that you were quoting King!" (I took it he wasn't offended, but he knew there were many in the church who probably would have been.)
Thinking Friend Glenn Hinson commented by email, as follows:
ReplyDelete"I think your 'radiant centrism' is commendable, Leroy, but I lean more toward the 'liberal' side on most issues. I don’t see anything commendable in fundamentalism, which is basically absolutist—'I am right.' Only if you agree with me can you be right.” My education causes me to be open to discussion of various issues and to avoid the absolutism of fundamentalism. I have to think."
Thanks for your comments, Dr. Hinson, and I agree with what you said about fundamentalism. You will recall that my book "The Limits of Liberalism" was the sequel to my first book, "Fed Up with Fundamentalism." My concluding chapter of the former was about the "radiant center," and while I didn't use the word there, it was partly about "neithersideism." I was/am opposed to the extremes of both fundamentalism and liberalism, and those extremes don't belong in the radiant center I seek. But there is much in "progressive evangelicalism" (and I do not think that is an oxymoron) as well as even more in "conservative liberalism" (and that's not an oxymoron either) that belongs in the radiant center.
DeleteAnd then local Thinking Friend David Fulk sent the following thoughtful comments by email, asking for me to post them here.
ReplyDelete"Leroy, this topic is so timely. I agree with you that the center is the place to be. It's the best vantage point to talk with and listen to everyone. Randall seems to have adopted the idea that no matter what side you're on you have to proceed like a bull in a china shop to get your way. I see this as causing added polarization in society because it precludes engaged listening and talking. William Jewell taught me to listen to all sides, think, and then decide where you are. My interpretation of that was to listen to everyone. When you do that, you come closest to befriending people on all sides and truly considering their point of view...a reminder that the world doesn't revolve around me.
I work with a large group of Gen X-ers. They would agree with Randall. It minimizes the need to dialogue which I think is partly a result of devices that allow us to go through life without little face to face time with people. Perhaps I'm over generalizing, but I think there's a kernel of truth in that. It may also be true that your topic has generational implications. I wonder if the center is more valuable to older white adults (having turned 60 a couple of weeks ago, I am now in that group!).
In addition to theology, I also think the center is the place to govern. In DC several years ago I attended a coffee/conversation in Sen. Claire McCaskill's office. She told us that no one wants to compromise and that you can only compromise in the center. She shared an experience where she and Sen. Blunt wanted to work together on something, but because each one's base at home would be mad if they did, they had to schedule a nearly clandestine meeting at night in a remote place where they could discuss working together on something. What a shame.
So I don't think the radiant center is only for theology. I think it's a way to approach all things in life.
Thanks for keeping us thinking.
David, it was good to hear from you again, and I appreciate your thoughtful comments, and your broadening the concept of the radiant center to the world of politics. I am not sure who first said that "politics is the art of compromise," but there is a lot of truth in that, I think, and I was impressed by former Sen. McCaskill's statement that "you can only compromise in the center."
DeleteBut here is the tension that I think we must take seriously, and this I think is what Randall was emphasizing: many in the center do seem to want to “maintain-the-status-quo [their status quo (!)]," as thinking Friend Dick Wilson suggested in the following comments. So yes, as you suggest, the center is probably "more valuable to older white adults." But who is going to speak up for the legitimate concerns of the Black protesters in the Black Lives Matter movement? Who is going to speak out against the discriminatory words and actions making life so hard for so many LGBT people? Who is going to speak out for the great need for more help given to those who are physically poor (and hungry) and who lack adequate health care?
Randall, I think, was correctly criticizing the centrists who want to maintain the status quo and who do not speak out in support of the people I mentioned in the previous paragraph. That is the reason I want to emphasize the radiant center, not just any center, and I hope you and others give my closing paragraph in the blog article due consideration.
I was happy to receive these additional comments from David:
Delete"All interesting thoughts. I’ve read Randall’s article. I generally agree with his premise about white male Christian centrists. But it seems to me the center is made up more than just them.
"I’ve always thought there was place for the center to talk to both sides, to help each side be more empathetic of the other, help bring some thinking and action together. I dislike the idea that people in the center don’t want anything to be different.
"Do we really want the center to disappear so we are completely and absolutely polarized in everything we do? The polarization we’ve seen develop since the Moral Majority began is hardly something most people want. Is it possible to convince everyone to take a side?
"That said, I wholeheartedly agree with your last paragraph. I think those outside the center who are either right or left yell so loud about their view or are so demeaning to those opposed to their view that no one on the other side or in the center listens."
Thanks, David, for these additional comments. I like it when there is more dialogue than just my response to comments, which is often the case.
DeleteI am not sure Randall meant to imply that all centrists are the same, but I was uncomfortable with what he said as it sort of implied that centrists were all of one stripe. But as I tried to say in the blog post, the center is certainly made up of a wide variety of people and not just the type of centrists he called out. And as you say in your second paragraph, the center certainly is not composed only of people who don't want anything to be different.
And I agree with you regarding the polarization that has become so rampant in USAmerican society. On ethical issues as well as theological ones, I think we need to exert great effort in seeking to understand one another and to reason with one another. There may never be agreement, but surely we can seek a society where there is more than "warfare."
Okay Leroy, here are some thoughts evoked by your post.
ReplyDeleteWhat I hear in Randall’s words is a concern that public influencers/leaders, who label themselves as “centrist,” are “maintain-the-status-quo” [their status quo (!)] conservatives. In the present age I am inclined to share his concern. I suspect that I would be differently concerned if these “centrist” talkers were advocating the elimination of “fundamentalist” inclined people or ideas. [“Good trouble” or “Don’t rock the boat.”]
Of course, for me (and, I am sure, others) “radiant center” evokes solar system imagery. Our planet happens to be in a “sweet spot” for us. Too close, burn; too far, freeze. An image of conditions we did not create. The “radiant center” is the source of our energy not the location of our life. [Of course, “our” solar system is *not* the center (of the universe).]
Word play moment: “limits of liberalism” and “captivity of conservatism.” Liberals might benefit from the application of some constraints and conservatives from the removal of some constraints. [I am not satisfied with this quick thought. 😊]
Like the need for ballast on a ship: “chastened” liberals need to be careful not to remove too much ballast for speed, lest the ship tip over and sink; “chastened” conservatives need to be careful not to add too much ballast for stability, lest the ship wallow and sink.
I wonder if Randall’s “centrist” is someone he thinks has mistaken Aristotle’s “golden mean” for “in the middle” of supposed opposites, rather than “thoughtful/critical application of (possibly opposing) virtues.”
I wonder if our exposure to quantum physics might suggest that “the center is nowhere,” “the center is everywhere.” Messy, indeterminate, surprising happenings. I think Kierkegaard might say we are determined to choose, and we choose what we determine. 😊
“What were [are] we doing when we unchained [unchain] this earth from its sun?” [Nietzsche, *The Gay Science*, sec. 125]
Thanks, Leroy.
Shalom, Dick
Thanks as always, Dick, for your thoughtful and thought-provoking comments. I referred to the words in your first paragraph to TF David Fulk in response to his comments above. I also appreciate the intriguing comments you made about ballast. (I know so little about sailing vessels, I had to look the word up to make sure I understood what it is.) That illustrates well the importance of not going to the extreme on either "side."
DeleteI remember some years ago in a previous discussion of the radiant center I tried replying by coming up with a map of triangles around the center showing different political and economic theories. Today I am more struck by the very word "radiant." When Dr. King was in jail, he was as much in the center as anyone. His powerful book was clearly radiant. Greta Thunberg is the same way on the environment. Jesus says "Let your light so shine" and that can be centered wherever we are.
ReplyDeleteMy SS class, AKA bookclub, is currently reading Peter Enns' 1989 book "How the Bible Actually Works * *In Which I Explain How an Ancient, Ambiguous, and Diverse Book Leads Us to Wisdom Rather Than Answers--and Why That's Great News." He highlights the words "Actually" and "Wisdom" in the title. The world wants us to suck up money, fame, power, pleasure, etc. Enns thinks we should instead radiate out wisdom, love, hope, and peace. It might be an interesting challenge for each of us to draw a map of how we see ourselves radiating. Then we might get more honest and see how others around us are radiating!
Craig, not too many weeks ago I ran across the "map of triangles" that you designed, and I was impressed again by your creativity that helped elucidate the concept of the radiant center--but I can't remember where I put that so I would have it later.
DeleteMy good friend Fred Heeren has great appreciation for Peter Enns, and I keep wanting to read some of his books but haven't yet. Once again, I am sorry that I am not able to join in your SS class's discussion of another important book.
Here are pertinent comments received yesterday from local Thinking Friend Ken Grenz:
ReplyDelete"Re: the 'center,' two thoughts generally come to mind, one, Revelation 3:16: 'So, because you are lukewarm-neither hot nor cold-I am about to spit you out of my mouth.' The other is Jim Hightower’s observation, 'The only things in the middle of the road are yellow stripes and dead armadillos.'
Those quotes plus the 'smugness' of some so-called centrists make me leery of centrism.
However, I see you positing a very different sort of centrism which I can relate to. The operative word for me is in your last paragraph where you say, 'ACTIVELY engaging in efforts for peace and justice.' That posture would avert being 'spewed,' I’d say!
Thanks for your comments, Ken, and for recognizing that the radiant center is far more than and much different from a "mushy middle." In the last chapter of my book on liberalism that I introduced, I have a one-page sub-section titled "Criticism of the Center," and I quote Jim Hightower's words, which are actually the title of his book published in 1997.
DeleteAnd then this from Thinking Friend Greg Hadley in Niigata, Japan:
ReplyDelete"Just to say how much I love the metaphor of the ‘radiant center.' I think Randall is taking Martin Luther King out of context. My reading of King is that he was thinking more about the types of white philanthropic supporters who kept those like Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington in the limelight. With such support, such African American leaders had the financial means to talk, preach, make certain institutional gains, and to advocate for peaceful coexistence, but they were only allowed to go so far. Randall seems to be using King’s words out of their historical context and using them for modern rhymes of recurring problems in American society."
Thanks, Greg, for reading and sending comments regarding this blog post. And thanks for calling attention to King's historical context which was, of course, quite different from today's context--but not completely. As I tried to indicate in my closing paragraph, I appreciate Randall's important emphasis on justice in spite of the likelihood that many will take his words as a criticism of all centrists. There is a wide variety of centrists just as there are many different degrees of fundamentalism and liberalism.
DeleteGreg responded to my response with these comments:
Delete"Thanks for writing back. Yes, 'not completely' – you know that old saying that history does not repeat itself but that the present tends to rhyme with certain times in the past. We’re living in a time where those old grudges, bad beliefs, and raw selfishness among various entitled groups are working hard to undo the victories of those who presently have precedents for restricting their activities. It rhymes with the early 1900s to the 1920s, with the search for loopholes to create discriminatory laws, representations of Christians aimed at keeping them in their boxes and out of the public discourse, of reheated Foucault (ok, he’s the 50s but a man of the 20s), where one criticizes all standards as coercive – except their standard by which they deem others coercive.
"But thanks for reminding me of your belief of Randall also being in the radiant center. The bad first impression with using King’s words out of context kept me from trusting him enough to recognize that. Bad exegesis can do that to a listener/reader."
Thanks for your additional comments, Greg. They reminded me of the blog post I made on Jan. 20 last year:
Deletehttps://theviewfromthisseat.blogspot.com/2022/01/do-hope-and-history-rhyme-assessing.html