how much light to shine on?
Noam Chomsky* turns 93 today. Anu Garb honors the outspoken thinker by quoting from him with A Thought For Today,
The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum -- even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate. -Noam Chomsky, linguistics professor and political activist (b. 7 Dec 1928)
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and I am long and ongoingly aware that the sentiment applies as well to religion as to government and other areas of Chomsky's interest. On graduating theological seminary, we newly ordained into Christian ministry were challenged not only to keep on studying and learning, but to make a practice of sharing all that we had learned with folks in our parishes. But like government and the rest, religion is an enterprise, and integrity evaporates when one's livelihood is a factor, so what gets shared is within what Chomsky calls "the spectrum of acceptable opinion" and "allow very lively debate within that spectrum" such that even we ourselves believe we are free thinkers and encouraging open inquiry and nothing-off-limits discussion.
Classic for me: Fr John Claypool's experience growing up as a boy in a faithful Christian household. One year his family hosted a foreign exchange student, a boy about John's age who was a devout Muslim. John writes that one day during a religious chat, he reached for his "soul-winners Bible" intending and expecting to lead the boy to Jesus and convert him to Christianity. But seeing John pick up his Bible, the boy picked up his Quran and clarified for John that this, his own holy book, was his truth.
John was stumped and bewildered. In Sunday school class the following Sunday morning, he asked his Sunday school teacher, "How can we know that the Bible is true, and not the Quran?" Startled, taken aback, suddenly red in the face, the teacher responded, "How can you ask such a question, with a mother like yours?"
Even as a boy, John realized the irrelevance of what she said to him. And as to Chomsky's point, John had tried to think outside the limits of the spectrum.
Just so today, having taken the risk of opening a class discussion of two church doctrines, The Second Coming and The Virgin Birth, what is one to say when a class member challenges, "What do YOU believe?"
How much light to shine on? Does one retreat within the limits of the spectrum, or shall one risk having one's faculties suspended? The answer may be the price of integrity itself.
And the notion occurs that one might have been well advised to instead have read and discussed Episcopal scholar Clement Moore's** poem
A Visit from St. Nicholas
Clement Clarke Moore - 1779-1863
'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;
The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;
And mamma in her ’kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long winter’s nap,
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.
The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow
Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below,
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer,
With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name;
"Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! on, Cupid! on, Donder and Blitzen!
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!"
As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky;
So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,
With the sleigh full of Toys, and St. Nicholas too.
And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.
He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;
A bundle of Toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a pedler just opening his pack.
His eyes—how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow
And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow;
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath;
He had a broad face and a little round belly,
That shook when he laughed, like a bowlful of jelly.
He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself;
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread;
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk,
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose;
He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle,
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight,
"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night."
