One of the common themes of this blog is the danger of disconnected doctrine.  The clearest example of this for me comes when grace becomes a doctrine and ceases to be a way of life; such as a sermon on the doctrine of salvation by grace alone which is neither gracious nor graceful.  We are not saved by accepting the truth of the doctrine of grace but by accepting the grace of God into our lives.  And as soon as we begin to accept the grace of God, that grace begins to work to remake us into the image of the giver of grace, and we begin to become more gracious and graceful.

I say more:  the just man justices;

Keeps grace:  that keeps all his goings graces;  —Gerard Manley Hopkins

This week I ran into another example of this in a “novel” of Søren Kierkegaard in which he tells the story of a theological candidate.  This candidate first completes a long process of formal training before he can preach his first sermon.  By the time he preaches that sermon on Jesus’ saying, “Seek first the kingdom of God,” it is too late to incorporate it into his life in the world. Kierkegaard imagines the Bishop saying in his defense, “Ludwig is called to preach the doctrine, the sound, unadulterated doctrine of seeking first the kingdom of God, and that he did very well.” For the Bishop and for the pastor in his sermon, the doctrine of seeking first the kingdom of God had become completely disconnected from life.  Kierkegaard’s verdict, “What a dreadful mockery!”

Yes.  And it is so easy to fall into; it can happen often without our noticing it.  But this is not limited to preachers.  Teachers are at risk of the similar danger of disconnected theory.  Politicians are at risk of the danger of disconnected ideology.  Any kind of truth can easily take on a life of its own.

Here are the steps I see in the process of disconnecting doctrine (or theory or ideology) from life.  I’ll use the words “practice” and “theory” for clarity, a la Yogi Berra:

1. We practice, we experience and act in the world.
2. We form, or adopt, a theory to understand and explain practice.
3. We use the theory to guide our practice.
4. We narrow our focus to step #3, because we keep using theory to guide practice.
5. We give priority to theory because, in step #3, theory comes first.
6. We begin to value theory for its own sake, apart from practice.

This process of disconnecting theory from practice happens in the mind.  At every step, it is reinforced by the mind’s desire to be in control. This is especially apparent in step #4 when two important things happen.  First, as the mind focuses on the ability of theory to guide practice it begins to forget that practice is also guided by instinct and desire; it begins to think that theory is, or should be, the only guide of practice.  Second, the mind begins to forget the first two steps in the process in which practice leads to theory and it begins to think solely in the opposite direction, that theory leads to practice.

I was able to see this change of direction in Dr. Carol Dewerk’s book, Mindset.  She begins with truly important research that showed that students’ desire to learn was increased when the teachers praised them for working hard, and that their desire to learn was decreased when the teachers praised them for being smart.  She then forms a theory of two mindsets.  In this theory a person with a growth mindset believes that intelligence can be developed.  Then in her flowchart the belief that “intelligence can be developed leads to a desire to learn.”  What began as observations about students’ desire to learn leads to a theory but then there’s a change of direction and now that theory leads to students’ desire to learn.

There is a rational process which leads to disconnected doctrine.  In fact the process is too rational, and too narrow.

The danger of disconnected doctrine, the danger of hypocrisy, is reinforced by the false but attractive theory that our minds are and should be in control of our lives.  But Yogi had it right, “In theory there is no difference between theory and practice.  In practice there is.”