Where Necessary Use Words…

There’s an adage attributed to St. Francis of Assisi which runs “Preach the Gospel at all times, where necessary use words.” [1] Quite a few times I have heard this cited as though it meant words are never necessary, that all we need to do is “preach” the Gospel by our actions. Which draws an inevitable reaction from those who appreciate the fundamental importance of propositional truth and therefore of a clear articulation of the message of the Gospel. It’s as if people have in mind a choice between either living as a Christian or proclaiming the message of the Gospel, but never doing both together.

Put so starkly, I think most people will recognize a false dichotomy at play. We know, even if only in our guts, that the Christian life and the Christian message just can’t be torn apart in that sort of way. In a recent interview musician David Bazan articulated the connection between life and message perhaps as well as anyone I have ever encountered.  That he did so “from the outside” makes his remarks all the more poignant.

GM4: Straw-men and Idols

This post is part of the series; God: Merciful? Maniac? Mass-Murderer? (GM4)

If you’ve seen the movie The Last Samurai you’ll be familiar with the scene in which US military advisor, Nathan Algren (Tom Cruise) is ordered to lead a force of raw conscripts against battle-hardened Japanese Samurai. Protesting the recruits’ lack of readiness, Algren demonstrates the point by instructing one of the recruits to shoot him. The catch is that Algren has drawn his pistol and informed the startled young man that if he doesn’t shoot, he will himself be shot. After Algren fires off a couple of rounds by way of “encouragement” the now utterly panicked soldier fires at Algren and misses by the proverbial country mile.

The point? Well simply to introduce the idea of “arguing a straw-man.” Some suggest this metaphor comes from the military using straw dummies for target and bayonet practice, but whether that’s so, it certainly carries the idea of  setting up a target that’s nice and easy to attack precisely because it’s a simplified version of the real thing. And just as the hapless recruit in The Last Samurai found stationary targets on the firing range much easier to shoot at than somebody who shoots back, so people find simplified, even distorted, versions of Christianity a far easier target to attack than the real thing.