thank you,
Gustavo Frederico
gcsfred@gmail.com

It’s funny, this comment almost has the feel of the anti-scholarship fundamentalist sentiment of the early twentieth century. I don’t think you meant it that way (I hope) as you are the beneficiary of an ivy-league education. It does though suggest to me that one way to stay at the top of the heap is to encourage others to dismiss formal educations, systematic theologies, and “trickle-down” modes of education so that we may provide our deeper (and formally gained) insights to fill in the sizable holes that blogging and tweeting are prone to. Do you feel the same way about Phyllis Tickle when she teaches or lectures? Do you consider it trickle-down when she teaches others with fewer years under their belts?

Arguably one of the greatest threats to our freedom (religious freedom, political freedom, or social freedom) is what they call the “administrative state.”
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Thought/fp16.cfm

The idea that there are specially-excempted and specially-ordained experts is likely as old as humanity. Where there is power to be had, people will rush in to fill it and claim then claim the everlasting right to that power. But anyone who has ever been to the dentist, the auto repair shop, or a doctor knows that expertise is extremely important. Those letters after one’s name are no guarantee of anything, but they do show a process of learning, if the accreditation process is one of integrity. (Not a mail-order PhD, for example.)

The idea arises: If one can have expertise in tooth-pulling, can one have expertise in the area generally defined as “spirituality”? That’s where it gets trickier because we’ve just made a leap into an area that is an inherently subjective and personal. We are all our own patient to a great extent when it comes to what we think about reality itself. Oh, humanity has been very good at devising top-down hierarchies for such things, but the ideas themselves have resonance and importance primarily inside of the human head and inside the human heart. No expert can definitely tell me how I should think about god any more than an expert can tell me that I should prefer Rembrandt rather than van Gogh.

But for those who equate religion with getting one’s Afterlife Ticket punched through dedication, commitment, obedience, and observance, that is an entirely other thing. Then hierarchies matter. Then the letters after the name do indeed matter. But if those with the letters consider themselves guides, rather than having ownership of us, then those letters can be of use like they would be in choosing a doctor. No one should be disqualified for being smart and experienced. It’s just that in the field of spirituality, the normal somewhat ego-based attributes of status, rank, reputation, and expertise do not necessarily apply. A doctor doesn’t (or shouldn’t) consider himself a better person because he has specialized knowledge in the medical field. But in the area of spirituality (because we’re dealing with supposedly Ultimate Concerns), it’s very tempting to think that one is closer to God, thus has the authority of God, and thus can speak for God. That’s heady stuff. And I think it is quite arguable that in the humble one will find a much better and brighter light about Ultimate Concerns.

I think there is a very good congruence between the idea of egalitarian (non expert-based) government and non expert-based spirituality. We can too easily over-rate the letters and undervalue real-world experience. What tends to happen when supposed expertise is given disproportionate value (and it usually is because this is a function of the experts self-reinforcing each other) is that we fall into a class-based way of thinking. The experts are our betters, and we just need to shut up and listen to them. As the ego and power flows to the the experts through this process, they become ever more remote and distant to the nuts-and-bolts workings of life itself which themselves tend to give a person character and wisdom. We have politicians in DC right now making huge decisions on our economy when they have may have rarely, if ever, worked a job outside of government. So it can be in the spiritual fields as well. Those letters behind the name are all well and good, but the letters behind people’s names that generally aren’t given much credit are “LE” — life experience. Such a thing can produce amazing wisdom in people.

Perhaps, in the end, the message is that people are inherently capable of handling the spiritual part of their lives (or their government) to a very large extent unless we turn this process into one of self-serving “experts” and everybody else. We can too easily rob people of their confidence and retard the development of their own expertise. But if the expert is a teacher and/or good listener then, to my mind, that is a good thing to be.

People can live up to, or down to, the expectations we place on them. Why tell people from the get-go that they are less than some other person, especially regarding something as personal as spirituality? We can see people as “works in progress” where the end results is either a very cramped image of who we think they should be because we know better, or where the end result is mostly contained within themselves and we aid with the expression of that. But we are likely not doing anyone much of a favor by flaunting letters and supposed expertise, whether talking spirituality or politics. Instead, I think we do people a great service when we help to develop their capabilities rather than, in many subtle and sneaky ways, making them more and more dependent on us.

Thanks, Tony. I’ve been lurking on this thread as you slow-dripped your SPS paper onto our cybersidewalks, slurping it slowly, waiting for this particular post. Well done. Please direct us to your respondent’s paper should that become available.