Disconnect between belief and practice
20 Feb 2007
I’ve been reading some Michael Foucault (or trying to!) and his perspective on how our actions are formed by forces that lie beneath/below the surface of our beliefs. For Foucault we can have conscious beliefs we espouse yet they fail to inform our actions.
Some would say it’s because we have other beliefs that are deeper, less conscious that we really live out of, but writers like Foucault suggest that something else is going on. Our real beliefs are abstracted and disconnected from the world of action*.
For example, ask most christians if care for the poor and social justice are part of the Gospel and most will say yes. But ask the same group of people if and how often they engage in activities that support that belief, the figure will certainly be much lower.
If we were in a shop and were faced with buying a product knowing who made it, for so little in heart breaking situations of economic slavery, most of us wouldn’t do so. Even though we know of the likelihood of someone ‘paying the price’ through aweful working conditions to bring us our cheap goods, we are still able to buy them without thinking about their production context, whilst at the same time condemning such conditions as wrong.
And in terms of church life, we affirm major doctrines as the most important, the trinity, the divinity of Jesus, yet it often seem that the smaller doctrines for example ordination of women, cause us to do something (anger in favour or against) and to take action far more than the major beliefs we hold.
There is a disconnect between belief and practice at the heart of our consumer culture, that a problem for our church life be it traditional or emerging. It’s why I can describe myself as missional, believe in missional/emerging church, yet still not really ever engage in giving time, energy and money to real mission.
So often we try to get the correct beliefs, theology and meaning to counter culture, and all that happens is that our beliefs and convictions are re-consumed, and left inacted. It’s this issue that is at the heart of my ongoing research. Why do we persist in trying to move from theory to practice (or undertake practice without thinking, something we are equally good/bad at), when our culture disables us from action around our new convictions, and what if anything can we do about it?
*If you want a good introduction to this topic see Vincent Miller, Consuming Religion.
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Comment by steven hamilton
1.34 pm on 20 Feb 2007
true jason – there is a disconnect [or is it more a wide gap?] between belief and practice…which is utterly ironic to me, since the gospels in our scriptures are purposeful in word-deed complexes for what Jesus was doing. somehow that’s been ‘lost in translation’.
*shrugs*
how did we get here from there? has Christianity utterly disconnected from the worldview it was birthed in…which did not have the false dicotomy that flows from the Greek thought life, but was Hebraic and unified. how do we re-dig the wells on a large scale so that we are known for doing the stuff of Jesus, and not just being a bunch of poseurs?
what if we just did the next good thing…what if we tried to gain the same reputation Peter says Jesus had when in Acts he went to see Cornelius: ‘He went about doing good to all kinds of people…’
i think that is where i might begin while inviting one and all to join in…
peace
steven
Comment by Jason
7.58 pm on 20 Feb 2007
Thanks Steve, how did we get here indeed ? :-( Yet even the jews didn’t live up to what they believed, I thinK Jesus had to challenge them on that alot ;-)
Comment by fernando
1.42 pm on 20 Feb 2007
Actions play a greater role in shaping beliefs than the role beliefs play in shaping actions. It’s something that marketers and advertising people understand far better than most church thinkers and theologians. Of course, the institional/evangelical church has an aweful lot invested in the beliefs-shape-actions paradigm, so it isn’t about to argue against it without a big push.
An amusing consequence of this (well amusing to me now, a few years back I used to find it irritating in the extreme), is the way church thinkers read beliefs-shape-actions back onto cultural trends.
Not sure if this is quite on your topic, but its where my mind immediately went reading your thoughts.
Comment by Helen
2.18 pm on 20 Feb 2007
Fernando, I agree – it often seems to me that marketers and advertisers have a better understanding of humans than church thinkers and theologians.
Probably because marketers and advertisers are free to simply observe and draw conclusions from what they see; whereas church thinkers and theologians are invested in making what they see fit their a priori beliefs. As you indicated.
Comment by Jason
8.04 pm on 20 Feb 2007
Hi Fernando. Maybe that’s at the problem, we still think in binary terms of action shaping belief, and belief leading to action. Both are true, but maybe something else is happening. For example, we can say the reason people don’t practice what they belief is because they have deeper beliefs that cause their behaviour. Or we can say people act first, and beliefs come along later, and secondary. I’m sure it’s both/and.
Yet what if we really do have beliefs, about who God is, and Jesus, and what action we should take from those beliefs, yet are unable to act, because those beliefs have been abstracted by a cultural hermeneutic of commodification?
We consume in abstraction, and the image attached or experience to the belief seems valid, yet we have done nothing? The signifier has become completely separated from any action/assigment?
So we keep thinking of church in new idealised forms rather than do anything subtantively different. Or we pull out a new post-modern aesthetic in our best Marshall the medium is the message style, and consume the aesthetic as action, but do not change our beliefs or orientation from our habits?
Comment by steven hamilton
1.57 pm on 20 Feb 2007
fernando (2) – spot on! it goes to how Jesus Himself presented things as we are told in scripture. He does as much action-to-statement-on-belief than belief-to-action.
i think one of the keys is that He was always looking for opportunities and really discerning…what’s going on here? what is happening in/with this person/people…what is the Father doing?
i pray a grace of discernment is let loose on us all…
peace
ok, let me throw a little wordcraft at this one, based on a word flowing out of South Africa: ubuntu
a thunderous truth springs forth from the heavens,
and the earth shudders under His significance
confusion rests on their faces
stirs their very souls…
having laboured in chains for so long
is this hope at last on the horizon?
restless now the malevolent ones
to have their final say…
to impart their last burdensome kiss
yet He will let them roam no more…
the time has come: redemption draws near
confession shall be uttered
a simple word of ownership…
for the path of liberation stands before us even now
shall we stand together?
this people…this life…
bound through solidarity in our profession…
for if truth be told i cannot be who i am unless you can be who you are
as we are given over to each other
it is no wishing well before which we stand
tis the very precipice of eternity
will indeed shame be our legacy
or shall we take up redemption and leave the weight of glory in our wake?
Comment by Helen
2.20 pm on 20 Feb 2007
Steven – fyi: if you are replying to a particular comment, click on ‘reply to this comment’ in the box their comment is in. Then your reply will appear right under his/hers.
That’s what I did to reply to you and look where my comment showed up – in the box yours is in.
It’s a neat feature of Jason’s new website design.
Comment by steven hamilton
8.57 pm on 20 Feb 2007
nifty
Comment by Helen
2.08 pm on 20 Feb 2007
Jason wrote:
And in terms of church life, we affirm major doctrines as the most important, the trinity, the divinity of Jesus, yet it often seem that the smaller doctrines for example ordination of women, cause us to do something (anger in favour or against) and to take action far more than the major beliefs we hold.
Jason, I don’t agree with your separation of ‘major doctrines’ and ’smaller onces’ where the ordination of women is a smaller one.
In my opinion the ordination of women is inextricably linked with the most major, foundational doctrines about God and humanity. Like, the very nature of God and the very nature of humankind.
If you want to argue that people disproportionately spend effort on that issue when people are dying of starvation, etc then – fair enough; I won’t dispute that.
But if you’re in the realm of ‘doctrine’ then I don’t see it as ’smaller’ but rather, a direct corollary/ramification of what is most core, essential, foundational, major.
Having said that I agree in general that the compartmentalization of belief and practice causing them to diverge so often is a huge problem. With Foucault and what ’some say’ I think it’s a both/and. When it comes to “I do what I do not want to do” (Romans 7) I sense there’s a large subconscious driving force factor coming into play. Mostly along the lines of “my head says do this but my emotions which drive me to value immediate comfort and relief over short-term discomfort and longer-term reward keep winning.”
The way we are helped to go against our values because we don’t see the injustice which helped create what we are buying, is an excellent point. Of course this is what people who care about profit not justice want.
Comment by Jason
8.11 pm on 20 Feb 2007
Hi Helen, I know you left a church, and probably did so due to beliefs they held that you disagreed with, that you probably thought were second order to bigger values and beliefs. In that sense, I meant that believing in God, and Jesus as the son of God are more important than ordaining women, or men. And by that I am not saying or denegrating women being ordained, I believe in that very strongly.
So I might go to the mat to support you if you were a christian wanting to be ordained, but not if you didn’t believe in God and jesus in the orthodox christian sense.
Or put it another way if I can, I’m sure you don’t believe all beliefs are of the same order, some are more important than others. For christians the creeds with beliefs about jesus are more important than the doctrines that are discussed afterwards, the form of church, baptism or dedications, ordination or not to be ordained.
I think I was saying that despite most christians saying the creeds of orthodox faith are the most important, yet we act out around the ones that we say are less important.
We wil give time and money and effort to beating each other up over doctrinal beliefs that can seem petty to people outside christian faith, yet take no action over the basics of christian belief.
Does that clarify? I’d need to do a separate post on the nature of belief and the primacy of them or schemas to go further. Sorry if that is no help.
Comment by Helen
9.21 pm on 20 Feb 2007
Jason, ok, I can envisage Christians saying “the divinity of Jesus is essential but the ordination of women isn’t” and in that way making Jesus’s divinity primary and ordination of women secondary. In fact that was the implication of my choice to go to churches (when I did go) which upheld the divinity of Jesus and didn’t ordain women – in that case I was acting in accordance with my beliefs about which doctrine was more essential.
To unconfuse me about how this all fits together, can you give me an example of where people believe the divinity of Jesus is more essential than ordaining women but they don’t act as if that’s what they believe? Because I can’t think of any. I assume that’s why you brought that up – because it’s an example of people not acting based on their beliefs?
Comment by Helen
9.22 pm on 20 Feb 2007
p.s. what actions aren’t people taking over the basics of Christian belief, because they’re too busy fighting over secondary issues?
Comment by Jason
8.44 am on 21 Feb 2007
I think I mentioned some of those in the post Helen, as in attending to Gospel issues of discipleship, care for the poor, social justice, yet we can so often just roll up for a sunday and then get hot and bothered about music, buildings, ordination, etc.
Comment by Brodie
10.40 am on 21 Feb 2007
Helen – I think I undrestand where Jason is coming from in describing Trinity and Divinity of Jesus as major doctrines and issues like the ordination of women as secondary. For me it was my understanding of the Trinity that lead me to a belief in the correctness of ordaining women. In this respect I think there are some beliefs that work as a sort of hermenutic helping us form our other beliefs.
Comment by Jerry
4.10 pm on 20 Feb 2007
There is a disconnect between belief and practice at the heart of our consumer culture, that a problem for our church life be it traditional or emerging. It’s why I can describe myself as missional, believe in missional/emerging church, yet still not really ever engage in giving time, energy and money to real mission.
This paragraph is the heart of the matter.
Is there a disconnect? Yes and I think it our role to educe people from that disconnect into action.
Comment by Jason
8.12 pm on 20 Feb 2007
Hi Jerry, how do you see that working in practice, great to hear from you?
Comment by Jim_Rapp
9.04 pm on 20 Feb 2007
Go ask Alice? – or, Molly-the-Mom?
That Foucault, and you, discern a disconnect between abstracted belief and practical action implies that you already have a sense of non-disconnected integrity between the two.
Foucault’s personal life certainly shows that he practiced no little part of his convictions, out of which, I suspect, he got more mileage than from his hip-chic idling abstractions (talk and more talk about abstractions) proposing that we humans really need to understand at least three steps in the dance of language (use, object, discourse) before we understand the deeper powers that motivate us behind our backs. And for those who are confused about these deeper powers lurking around to foil us, well, there’s always Foucault to tell us about them.
Just how Foucault knew more about how to act in his practical life than he let on in his abstracted theories really isn’t such a mystery. Language is just idling on his abstract side. On the practical side, he did what he wanted. No mystery there.
Consumer culture isn’t a disconnect between idea and practice. It’s an exhibition of our convictions in practice. No loss of integrity there. I don’t see the marketplace as a proof of Foucault’s theories. Our practical acts in the arena of consumer economics are religiously measured with our most abstracted language of all – mathematics. The idea is to get integrity – between our consumption and the ideals and goods they sell us. Where’s the lack of integrity between ideal and practice? – take a look at George Soros on a good day. Sweatshops too. Wars for gas and oil get it together too — to some extent. But, hey, who’s perfect?
“The buyers and the sellers are no better fellas ….”
Enter Jesus – into the Temple economics .. “come quickly, Lord.”
The problem’s not a disconnect between abstract ideas (or values) and practice.
The problem is that we don’t like certain forms of integrity between them.
Are we really as disconnected and disjointed as camp-Foucault would have us?
Recent empirical studies of attribution theory in theology/religion support a Foucault-like judgment. We don’t really attribute a great number of practical and natural acts and events to God. No matter how much sherry we sip as we read heavy tomes of theology alongside Foucault. I think this situation is hopeful ;). Like Calvin’s common grace.
Camp-Foucault despises short-routes to truth (Heidegger, Gadamer). Breakdown is all the rage. But, Foucault lived the way he wanted.
Pierce suggested a neglected ontological argument for God, namely, the persistence of love among humans. It doesn’t take a trained scientific observer like Peirce to note that however broken love becomes, we exist, we reproduce, and we carry on enough filial and social love that our species has not become extinct – a working integrity between abstract ideals and practice, demonstrated by our existence. Nearly a century ago, Kropotkin idealized “mutual aid” as a genetic feature of our social existence. Today, there’s nearly incontrovertible evidence for something like this: our constant, observable acts of practical preference for family and next of kin (kin selected reciprocal altruism) — practical acts which are part of the reasons why you and I are here.
Go ask Molly. Molly knows something. Molly knows without ever reading Cicero on maternal love. Molly-the-Mom knows enough integrity between her ideals of maternal love and her practical actions of fixing breakfast, keeping the kids warm at night, putting a roof over their heads, and tending to their daily needs – she knows enough integrity between ideal and act, that her children survive, with felt and obvious Life.
Comment by steven hamilton
3.26 am on 21 Feb 2007
indeed jim…our actions show-and-tell our beliefs truer than most of us would ever like to admit.
Comment by Jim_Rapp
10.30 pm on 22 Feb 2007
Stephen, yeah, it’s weird, the old “actions speak louder” saw. Foucault gives prophetic voice to the lost groans of prisoners, a rebel’s yell defending many enslaved under today’s Pharaohs, and he exposes and sometimes “is” the demonia of anonymous discourse, which are the parts, I think, that Jason wants to hear. Not bad for a “charismatic.” The Spirit of God is big enough, that if the Ethiopian in his chariot had been reading Foucault’s interpretation of Nietzsche when Phillip blew into town, Phillip still would have asked, “yo! .. do you understand what you’re reading???” – take it from there.
Comment by Brodie
10.50 am on 21 Feb 2007
Jason – Great post that raises lots of important issues. The issue that I’m surprised no one else has raised yet is our falleness, or sinfulness. I am the wretched man of Romans 7 who knows what he should do but fails to!
I think there may be mileage as well in thinking about what are our beliefs. It’s one thing to say that I believe something, but it can be quite another to actually belive it. So while many christians say they believe in the Trinity or the divinity of Jesus they lack a vocabulary with which they can integrate this into every day life and their belief is so thin that it cannot bear the weigh to any particular practice. In other words many belive but they do not understand! Perhaps then we need to talk about different degrees oe levels of belief?
That said when you come back to an issue like poverty I think most of us understand the issues here and yet still fail to act in the way we would aspire to. I think I’ll pick this issue up in a post.
Thanks for the challenge that your bringing here.
Comment by Jason
10.59 am on 21 Feb 2007
Brodie, good questions, I can feel the need for a post on the order/nature of beliefs :-)
Comment by Tim
3.34 pm on 21 Feb 2007
Nietzsche, that great Christian hating Prussian (only the son of a vicar could be that angry) had a great angle that seems to marry up with the this idea of action/in-action. We know that people want to do ‘nothing/seek pleasure’ in varying degrees (following Mill’s ideas of pleasure over pain being the highest ideal). Rather than doing anything that’s difficult, tough and and at times soul destroying (ie, anything missional), Nietzsche talks about how we all want to stay on the plain of mediocrity – and in doing so never gain anything worthwhile. ‘Avoid pain, and your pain will stay small, but so will the value of anything you achieve’ (a poor paraphrasing I know).
To me (even though Nietzsche thought Christianity went against his thoughts due to fatalism), it shows that we’re missing the transformation that is supposed to occur in each of us through our relationship with God (often the hard part). We let him in a bit when we first decide to believe – but then put the breaks on when it comes to changing who we are as a human; and as humans, we are selfish mean individuals that only do things that benefit us (of course this is in varying degrees, but each of us has something that God needs to work on…).
When I think of myself like that (very selfish), it’s only God that can change me so that my beliefs change into actions. People can tell me forever that I should do X,Y & Z to fulfil my relationship with God, but until I actually change I’m not going to do a thing.
But that’s just me.
Comment by Paul
11.13 pm on 21 Feb 2007
I wonder how much the evangelical tradition of sola fide has contributed to this – we are so keen to avoid doing “works” we end up with a system where all you need to do is believe – it’s by faith alone and the practice tails away. i wonder Jase if your thesis holds the same sort of weight in catholic and orthodox christians?
It’s one of the reasons that i am increasingly feeling that my faith is about faith and works, it’s about believing in Jesus and showing that belief by looking at ways to put his words into action in my life – i think this will a growing mark of a ‘deep church’ belief by assent of word, thought and action/outworking…
Comment by Jason
12.17 am on 22 Feb 2007
Hi Paul, sole fide meant something a little different to the reformers than it does to the modern evangelical, and differentiated the reformers from the catholic, eastern and orthodox church. Luther’s sole fide needs to be seen in the context of the ’solas’ of the reformation: Sola Scriptura, Sola Fide, Solus Christus, Soli Deo Gloria, Sola Gratia, that all connect to each other.
It would seem that when salvation is reduced to justification by faith, through penal substitution, there is a fear of taking action in faith incase you are trying to ‘earn’ your rewards. In that sense it becomes convenient in a consumer culture unwilling to be bothered with anything, to take this on board gladly :-)
To believe is to do, and to do is to believe, they are two sides of the same coin. I’m with you on this one mate.
Comment by Paul
9.55 am on 22 Feb 2007
thanks bro, that’s a v good point about Luther’s sola system [context and all that :)]… i was thinking more of the aftermath, esp the evangelical one, which seems to have slowly strangled/smoothered practice/doing in favour of primacy of believing/intellectual assent – which no doubt is tangled up with a lot of other things such as enlightenment/modernity…
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