Disharmony has been one of the greatest plights in human existence. We hear it now in America: “Divisions and hatred are tearing America apart.” But what is the root of divisions, and what is the cure? How does the Christian really find and promote peace?

The Progressive Christian Approach

One approach by the progressive Christian gurus, such as Richard Rohr and Brian McLaren, is that harmony is achieved when we rid ourselves of dualistic thinking. What they mean by dualism is using opposites, such as “Good and Evil,” “Pretty and Ugly,” and so on. But this is not their only approach.

I was in a small group for almost three years that focused on these men. I listened to many of their lectures, while sitting on my hands and holding my words, as the group was not conducive to challenging what the speakers were saying. Some were deeply devoted to these men. Their teaching is very popular in the progressive church currently, including my own.

Besides that, I have read a lot of material by McLaren and Rohr, at least one book by each, and I still don’t fully understand their positions. They speak poetic words that to me sound like word salads. Irrational. This could be just my problem, my inability to understand… or maybe they intend to be irrational. So, I don’t mean to misrepresent them, but they seem to hold the typical postmodernist view that there are no universal truths.

The example of intentional loss of truth in Rohr’s approach is that he seamlessly blends Christianity and Buddhism like a poker card bridge in shuffling. As I’ve said before, rationally, Christianity could be true, Buddhism could be true, or both could be false; however, it is impossible that both are true. The reason is based on the fundamental principle of logic, which states that since Christianity and Buddhism have very different metaphysical concepts, they cannot both be true.

The central metaphysical tenet of Christianity is that the cosmos is material and real, having been created by a personal Creator. At the same time, Buddhism holds that the cosmos is not real but rather an illusion, and we share a universal life force; however, there is no personal creator. Of course, they can agree on the application of compassion in society and work together ecumenically on many things. There was a period of time in my life when my best friends were Muslims. We disagreed on most things, but I loved them as a brother.

Here is how AI defines Rohr’s disbelief in universal truths:

Richard Rohr teaches that Jesus was not interested in providing definitive answers, but rather in inviting people into a deeper relationship with God that embraces mystery and transformation. According to Rohr, this approach challenges the human desire for certainty and the “infantile religion” that often creates rigid, defensive, and arrogant people.

So, by his definition, we who assert that there are factual, universal truths are dualistic thinkers (this is very different from Platonic Dualism, if you are a student of philosophy); and that our relationship with God is inferior (infantile); and we are rigid, defensive, and arrogant. So, while Rohr attempts to erase dualistic thinking, he is doing the very thing he criticizes. Rohr is on one side, and we are infantile, rigid, defensive, and arrogant thinkers on the other side. This is the same condescending attitude that many of us rational Christians feel in a progressive church. Logical thinking is old school.

But unlike the conservative Christian (BTW, I will discuss the conservative church’s approach in another posting), I am not here to condemn Richard Rohr and Brian McLaren as my conservative Christian friends might. I am writing to state that such non-dualistic thinking is absurd and inconsistent with the way the cosmos really is, and it will fail in its aspirations for harmony. I’m not even accusing them of being infantile, rigid, defensive, and arrogant. I respect them and love them, as Thomas Aquinas said:

“We must love them both, those whose opinions we share and those whose opinions we reject. For both have labored in the search for truth and both have helped us in the finding of it.”

My point here, and not to sound negative, is that I think there is a better way to bring peace in the world. So, without further ado, I will focus on what I believe is the solution in the real world.

How We Find and Promote Peace in a World of Conflict

I have spent many hours thinking about this problem. When you boil conflict down to its fundamental parts, it always involves lies we tell each other and ourselves. All humans, except possibly the insane (paranoid schizophrenic) or brain-injured, have the same capacity for collecting evidence through our senses, processing that information with our rational brains, and with the same emotions, respond to that conclusion. If we all reached the same conclusions, there would be absolute peace. So, why do we arrive at different conclusions?

The foundational discovery that launched the Scientific Revolution, beginning in the sixteenth century, is the idea that to find truth, we must first neutralize our personal and emotional biases. For example, through a double-blind study or careful introspection. It requires a passion for factual truth and a humility that we cannot be trusted. While the Christian often considers the thinker as arrogant, he/she must be the humblest ones in the room. We then collect the best data from the most reliable sources. Then we use reasoning (inductive, deductive, abductive, and analogical) to conclude with a high probability of accuracy (although never with absolute certainty).

I wanted to use an example such as the war in Ukraine or Gaza, but I decided to make it more personal, at least for us Americans, and that is the character of Donald Trump.

There is a vast swath of Americans who see him as a great man, the best president in our history, including my entire boyhood family and most of my friends from college and graduate school (these were in deeply red states, and many of them were evangelicals). Others of us see him as purely evil, the worst president in our history. But there is only one Donald Trump. So, the problem here is two conflicting conclusions. The absolute truth is that he is one of those two people or neither (somewhere in between). How could good, thoughtful people reach such different conclusions if there is only one truth?

The Rohr-McLaren approach is to say that both are factually true because truth is subjective and existential (we create our own reality through our experiences). I suggest that such thinking only creates a superficial sense of harmony. For example, I, believing that Trump is an evil man, will have harmony with someone who thinks he is a saint, because our truths are equal. Does that really work?

The problem with this approach, as I’ve written about many times, is that when we sacrifice our aspirations for absolute truth, we must also relinquish concepts such as justice and love. Those two words are dualistic. Love means nothing unless it is juxtaposed against unlove or hate. The same is true with justice.

The solution at this level, I believe, is that we must think better. We must first look at our biases. Most of our biases are embedded within feelings. One of the most incredible things we can do as a country is to teach critical thinking in our schools.

We had an outstanding teacher in high school, Dr. Murphy, who taught us critical thinking. However, this school was deeply rooted in the Bible Belt, and he was run out of the school on a rail. I believe there is a place for censorship in hushing lies. There was a law in the US from 1949 to 1987 called the Fairness Doctrine. It required the presentation of data from both sides of a controversial issue. However, to our detriment, media groups can now disseminate deeply emotional ideas with no proof whatsoever, as it generates substantial revenue.

Maybe this is idealistic, but the better we do at this, the more harmony we will find. A practical application is that each one of us should avoid emotionally driven information sources that only reinforce our biases. I did this in 2015 when I watched twelve consecutive Trump political rallies from start to finish via C-Span (to avoid commentary) to test my biased views of him. If you have a strong view on anything, spend some time studying, honestly, the views of the other side.

To move beyond idealism, the second part of this journey to peace for the Christian is love. Jesus said in Matthew 5:43-45, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven”.

Now, to be clear, Aquinas does not echo the Rohr-McLaren approach that we love because we agree. However, he does echo Jesus’ approach, which suggests that not all views are the same, that there is a fundamental dualism in life, but we love others despite our differences.

Have a good day, wonderful people.

Mike