Paradigm Blindness

“But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son,^[a] but only the Father.”  Matthew 24:36  NIV

No one knows – Theological paradigms are just as resistant to challenge as any other paradigm, perhaps even more so.  In the history of science we often find great thinkers making terrible mistakes when they are unwilling to entertain counterevidence to the prevailing paradigm.  Thomas S. Kuhn wrote the seminal work on this subject.[1]  He hinted that moving from one paradigm to another—in the hard sciences—is more like a religious conversion than an acknowledgement of new facts.  With this resistance to change, we shouldn’t be surprised when theological renegades within the Christian community still retain fundamental tenets of the Christian worldview despite being branded as radical.  A certain latitude is allowed within the great Christian paradigm.  You only become a true heretic when you challenge the fundamentals.

Such is the case with the late Rachel Held Evans, described as “a progressive Christian author whose writing challenged traditional evangelical views on politics and the role of women and LGBTQ members of the church.”[2]  The traditional evangelical world often reacted to her challenges but didn’t “burn her at the stake” because the real girders of the paradigm were never questioned.  Thus, she writes:

“Despite boasting infinite wisdom and limitless knowledge, Jesus chose not to overtly address religious pluralism, the problem of evil, hermeneutics, science or homosexuality.”[3]

Do you find this a bit strange?  When did Jesus ever boast infinite wisdom and limitless knowledge?  The Second Person of the Trinity (who is God) might be described this way because “He” is divine but that is a far cry from the recorded words of the Messiah.  In fact, this verse in Matthew explicitly says he doesn’t have “infinite wisdom and limitless knowledge.”[4]

That isn’t the only place where Evans’ paradigmatic Christian theology shows up.  She buys the incarnational view of Jesus without challenge:

“It is about living as an incarnation of Jesus, as Jesus lived as an incarnation of God.”^[5]

She describes Jesus as one who “associated with sinners,” “broke rules,” “gravitated toward the sick,” “preferred story to exposition,” “answered questions with more questions,” “had no list of beliefs to check off,” and “healed after being hurt,” but it never crosses her mind that this is a Jewish view of the Messiah.^[6]  In fact, she calls Jesus “God in sandals.”^[7]

Her second book, A Year of Biblical Womanhood, recounted her experience trying to follow the Bible’s standards for women, which included submitting to her husband’s authority.  It’s unfortunate she didn’t read the Genesis account in Hebrew.  Once again we see that she didn’t challenge the fundamental Christian exegesis, only the peripheral, accepted implications.

Like a lot of “radical” Evangelicals, Evans is still well within the fold.  She might question Christian traditional thinking on politics and women, but she never asked the really important theological questions like, “Is Jesus really God?” or “If Jesus is Jewish, what does that say about Christianity?”  In the end, Evans is a paradigm thinker just like those scientists who desperately tried to reconcile the retrograde motion of Jupiter with a geocentric view of the solar system.  Until you’re branded as a heretic, you probably haven’t left the paradigm.

Topical Index:  Rachel Held Evans, Trinity, paradigm, heretic, radical, Matthew 24:36

[1] Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

[2] https://www.npr.org/2019/05/04/720298646/rachel-held-evans-christian-writer-who-questioned-evangelical-beliefs-dies-at-37

[3] Rachel Held Evans, Faith Unraveled, p. 103.

[4] The NIV footnote adds a further complication when it says, “Some manuscripts do not have nor the Son.”

[5] Op. Cit., p. 108.

[6] Ibid., p. 107.

[7] Ibid.