College education as a matter of life and death

I’m a college professor.

But even I know there are bad reasons to attend a university.

Here is a good one: You’re much less likely to die young.

Note these findings from a 2017 study that tracks changing mortality rates amongst non-college educated white Americans especially. Pay attention to the top lines (labeled “high school or less.”)

CORRELATION AND CAUSATION

When reading these studies, it’s important to remember that correlation isn’t causation. It’s not necessarily the lack of a degree that is contributing to a frightening rise in early deaths in certain demographics.

There are many complex factors. But I suspect part of the problem is an increasing deficit of hope in certain parts of the country. And this is being expressed in everything from suicide, to opioid addiction, to a growth in scapegoating ideologies like white nationalism and white supremacy.

Note the stunning comparison between America and other nations:

Some good news in the study is that mortality rates (for certain age groups) have declined amongst non whites. The bad news is that the closing gap between racial groups has come more by a precipitice decline amongst non-college educated whites than by improvements elsewhere.

A DEFICIT OF HOPE

The cause, according to the study, is more complicated than a simple look at income.

In particular, the income profiles for blacks and Hispanics, whose mortality has fallen, are no better than those for whites. Nor is there any evidence in the European data that mortality trends match income trends…

The study suggests that the cause of this decline has to do with

“cumulative disadvantage[s] … triggered by progressively worsening labor market opportunities at the time of entry for whites with low levels of education.”

In other words, factories and mines closed; and it was no longer possible to get a good job without education (see also my treatment of this theme in J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy).

The way of life within the rust belt changed, and frustration over a world that no longer exists fueled a rise in opioid addiction, race-based populism, and scapegoating. (Picture the late Weimar Republic but with fentanyl in place of Zyklon B.)

CONCLUSION

The solution to all this is far more complex than simply telling young Americans to “go to college.”

But as I head back to faculty meetings today and to classes next week, it’s worth remembering that the completion of a college education is more than just a privilege or a foregone conclusion: For some of my students, it’s part of the difference between life and death.

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It’s NOT just a heart issue

Imagine a township in which literally hundreds of people died every year from heart attacks.

In this one municipality (unlike all others), cardiac fatalities were so insanely common that they now went largely unnoticed, except when the paramedics came to your door.

In response, citizens studied the situation and formed possible solutions that involved a variety of factors: diet, exercise, smoking, family history, and better medical testing.

This wouldn’t end all heart attacks, of course, but it might stop some.

Then imagine if a well-meaning Christian offered this:

“Stop bringing up all this stuff about diet, exercise, and smoking! Clogged arteries are a heart issue—and only Jesus can heal hearts.”

How might we respond?

THE TROUBLE WITH FALSE CHOICES

We could point out that “Yes, heart attacks are ‘a heart issue’—but they are not just that.” And because they are not just that, it would be foolish to prevent them with only prayer and preaching. The reason, however, has nothing to do with prayer and preaching being weak. “Heart issues” require a variety of responses.

Since they have a variety of causes, they require nuanced, both-and thinking, and they are not solved by false dichotomies: trans fats vs. lack of exercise; family history vs. sugary sodas; stress vs. smoking.

It’s not either/or—it’s both-and. And yes, it is also “a heart issue.”

Unfortunately, in our current climate, both-and thinking seems to be anathema, and especially in the land of social media–where nuance goes to die.

It’s either “a heart issue” or “a gun issue.”

It’s either “a failure of parenting” or “a failure of the mental health system.”

It’s either “what happens when we turn from God,” or “what happens when even self-advertising psychopaths can access their own private arsenal.”

Never have I seen so many false choices.

One is tempted to scream, “MAYBE IT’S ‘ALL OF THE ABOVE’!!!”

JESUS AND FALSE CHOICES

Which brings me to Jesus. One day after yet another horrific massacre, a student in my Bible class asked this:

“In the Gospels, why does Jesus almost never give people a straight answer?”

It’s a great question, and I was about to answer it until I remembered Jesus. So I proceeded to ask questions and tell stories.

“Do you remember what was written on the whiteboard today?”

A few nodded.

Someone had written two “options” on the front board prior to class. OPTION ONE was to craft an essay entitled “Take away all guns,” while OPTION TWO was to “Give them to the good guys.”

(I have since learned that this was not a professor’s own view. The inscription simply made a point about how thesis statements work. My misunderstanding therefore presents yet another example of how we easily create false choices. But I digress…)

Then I asked: “Is it possible that those might NOT be the only two options?”

What if framing the debate in such simplistic and false-dichotomizing terms actually prevents someone from answering intelligently?

That’s why Jesus rarely accepted the premises of his partisan questioners.

“Who sinned, this man or his parents?” (John 9:2)

“Whose wife will she be in the Age to Come?” (Matt 22:28)

When you’re asking the wrong “either/or question,” you can’t get the right answer.

As someone mentioned recently, it’s as if the binary codes that run our social media (all ones and zeros) have infected us. We have been conformed to their electronic image. And now we too must be all “ones” or “zeros” on every complex issue.

Brothers and sisters, this should not be.

CONCLUSION

In the end, I don’t know how to solve mass shootings. They have many causes, and I suspect they will require many nuanced solutions—all of which will cost us something.

But I do know this: We’ll continue getting nowhere so long as we fall into our partisan talking-points of “gun issue” vs. “sin issue.”

It’s time to stop being “ones” and “zeros” and start being people.

This is an adapted version of an old post (Feb. 16, 2018) that I wish were no longer relevant.

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Cut these words for better writing

Scot McKnight has a helpful post (here) on “No, no” words for writers. These are terms that are often overused and lead to clutter.

So if you’re a writer—or a student typing papers for my classes—listen up! 🙂

Scot’s post builds on a book by Benjamin Dreyer (here), in which a challenge is issued:

Go a week without writing

very
rather
really
quite
in fact

To which Scot adds

just
so
actually
of course
surely
that said

It’s not that these words should never be used.

Note my use of “So” above (#Can’t_Stop_Won’t_Stop). But in most cases, they should be cut faster than a University of Kansas grad at an NFL training camp.

THE EDITOR THAT GROANS WITHIN US

I’ve written previously (here) about the helpfulness of a “firm but patient editor.” And I likened that role to the Holy Spirit’s work in the believer’s life.

That post came to mind again as I’ve been editing a manuscript in preparation for a December deadline (Eeeek!).

To be blunt, the“No-no” words are lighting up my page like Christmas lights. Here’s an example of how I was able to cut eleven words (or word parts) from two short sentences.

Not a single nuance was lost, which means every one of those words was bloating my book like empty calories in a bag of Doritos.

My favorite book on writing is the classic by William Zinsser, On Writing Well.

In his words

“Writing improves in direct ration to the number of things we can keep out of it that shouldn’t be there.”

Indeed.

So take the challenge.

And check out Scot’s blog if you’re interested in issues of Bible and culture. It’s great.

My new book, The Mosaic of Atonement, comes out this month! Check it out here.

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God’s voice, like horses grazing

“Godless” seems like an apt description of Cormac McCarthy’s violent and disturbing novel, Blood Meridian.

The story is based loosely on events from the 1850s near the Texas-Mexico border. It follows a fourteen-year-old “Kid” who ends up riding with a band of murders who seek Apache scalps for profit. The butchery and racism make it difficult to read.

But like much of McCarthy’s work, Blood Meridian yields theological marrow if one digs beneath the clotted surface. The foremost of these insights comes from an ex-priest named “Toby” who tries to explain the mystery of God’s silence in their nightmarish world.

LIKE HORSES GRAZING

God’s voice, says Toby, is like the sound of horses grazing in the night. We only notice it when he stops talking: “when the horses are grazing and the company is asleep … Don’t nobody hear them.” But if they cease for a moment, every soul awakes.

“God speaks in the least of creatures.” And “No man is give[n] leave of that voice.”

This claim gives reason to respect both the ubiquity and the mystery of revelation. And this resonates with my experience.

God’s voice is often like the sound of horses grazing.

HIDDENNESS AND OMNIPRESENCE

Kate Sonderegger explores a related theme in the much-heralded first volume of her Systematic Theology. Her interest is in the relationship between God’s hiddenness and his omnipresence.

Israel’s God is unique in his invisibility. He is not to be depicted by graven images like the gods of other nations. Yahweh is heard, but he is never truly seen. For this reason, Sonderegger claims that God’s hiddenness is one of the most important parts of his revelation to Israel.

He is everywhere present through His cosmos, not locally, but rather harmoniously, equally, generously, and lavishly in all places, at once, as the Invisible One. (p. 52)

the Hiddenness of God, His Secrecy and Mystery, emerge not form absence but rather from divine presence. … “Truly,” the prophet confesses, “you are a God who hides himself, O God of Israel, the Savior” (Isa 45:15). (p. 68-69)

I don’t like Sonderegger’s writing (*tongue in cheek).

It makes me jealous, since she has a way with words that is rivaled by few living theologians. But I am serious when I say now that I did not like this particular argument initially.

At some points it sounded too much like what C. S. Lewis lampooned as the “argument for invisible cats.” Here’s my version of that logic:

“Do you see that invisible cat by the sofa?”
“No.”
“Precisely.”

“I hate you.”

But this is not exactly Sonderegger’s claim.

She is not appealing to invisibility to prove God’s presence. She is only reminding us that the apparent absence of a visible “divine specimen” (graven image) is one of the things that marks out Israel’s God as different.

God’s voice is often like the sound of horses grazing. We see no “creature” in the darkness, and it is the very constancy of this revelation that can make it like a kind of “white noise.”

But when it ceases, the whole camp awakes.

I’ve written previously about this theme in a post about the “dazzling darkness” (one of my favorites, though I think few others thought so). I noted there that, for Paul, God reveals himself precisely through “invisible qualities” (Rom 1:20). Creation testifies incessantly with speechless words (Ps 19:2-3). Our problem is, it won’t shut up.

CAVEATS

Despite my praise for this line of thinking, there are some important caveats that must be placed alongside the gospel according Sonderegger/Blood Meridian.

God’s voice isn’t always soft and “horse-like” (Ask Saul of Tarsus).
God isn’t left entirely without an “Image” (Re: Jesus and his image-bearers).
God’s “silence” is sometimes the product selective hearing, since acknowledging the voice requires us to change.

(On that last point, note that the ex-priest Toby has set aside his collar for a rifle and a life of violence. He doesn’t want to “wake up” to the reality of his own murderous racism [Let the reader understand].)

CONCLUSION

Caveats aside, the scene from Blood Meridian helps me understand how two brilliant individuals (McCarthy and Sonderegger) can reach opposite conclusions based on similar data:

McCarthy: “There is no God and we are his prophets” (The Road)

Sonderegger: God’s invisibility is the mark of omnipresence.

In fact, “Toby’s” claim is closer to the truth than than the apparent view of McCarthy himself.

The world isn’t “Godless.”

But we need “ears to hear” a voice like horses grazing.

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Personal website of Dr. Josh McNall | Reflections on Theology + Culture

Month: August 2019

College education as a matter of life and death

It’s NOT just a heart issue

Cut these words for better writing

God’s voice, like horses grazing

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