569 - A Closet Christian's Closet

A Closet Christian's Closet

By William Sayres

CAN there be Christians without banners or proclamations? In my circle of colleagues and friends, which is predominantly international in character and represents a considerable diversity of religious backgrounds, we simply do not talk about religion. If we were to be asked why this is so, I think the answer on which most of us would agree would be not that we discount the significance of religion but rather that we recognize that among us there are preferences that differ in kind and degree, and because we respect one another we also respect those differences. In this context, we see no point in proclaiming at one another.

Yet I have heard often enough that to be a Christian one must witness. I have no quarrel with those who do so, and I am full of love and admiration for my oldest son who does so, but I do not. What, then, am I? I suppose that I am what might be called a closet Christian.

I

In a recently published article, I referred to "the in-between believer," which may be another way of putting it, or of putting a part of it. In that article, I noted the tendency of people like me to slide back and forth between poles of faith, never quite touching either extreme, able neither to embrace it fully nor to abandon it wholly. I also observed that contacts with outspoken persons outside my circle had the effect of moving me in the direction opposite from theirs: in the company of evangelists I resist belief, and in the company of self-assured atheists I am flooded with faith.

This happens even if the outspokenness has nothing to do with the subject of religion. I shy away from insistency of any sort. If someone tells me there can be no doubt as to the correctness of his position on an issue he has thrust at me, I immediately doubt it. If I know him to be a strongly religious person, I find myself blaming the rigidity of his position on the rigidity of his faith. If I know him to consider religion folly, I regard him as one in need of religion to temper his pride and arrogance.

And so I am a wanderer of the middle, moving this way or that to escape the importuning of those with strong convictions. This is really not the same thing as being a Doubting Thomas, because I ask for

William Sayres is Professor of Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, and the principal advisor of the school's program in international educational development.

570 - A Closet Christian's Closet

neither proofs nor signs. It is not a question of evidence. Or rather, it is not a question of evidence for me; it is a question of me as evidence.

There may appear to be a paradox here. It seems I am willing to stand up and be counted (by writing this article) as one who is not willing to stand up and be counted. It seems I am here to say that I am not here to say.

To explain this requires a recognition that in matters of faith there is more than one way to be counted and more than one way of saying. It does not require agreement that different ways can be comparably valid. I am not at all certain that on this point there is a judgment that is ours to make.

When I say I am not here to say, I mean that I am not here to be loud. In what I say about counting, I mean that I do not insist that I belong in the count. After all, I may not belong.

II

What is life in the closet like? For the most part, it is comfortable, and perhaps that is the problem: it may be too comfortable. There are no positions I must cling to, no distress that the world has not been converted to the faith of my fathers, or to the faith of anyone else's fathers. I am at ease with diversity. It jars only to be in the midst of those who speak with a single voice. I distrust the voice that allows for no other.

But this is not a cramped and narrow closet. It is a world of a closet, with room for the raiment of multitudes. And I ask no one to be garbed only in what fits me.

After all, the measure of the closet runs from pole to pole, leaving only the poles themselves, poles of equal and opposite confidence, outside. And whatever else we may know about the poles, we know that the confidence of at least one of them must be misplaced. That is a useful thing to know when confronted by the confidence of either.

But I leave confidence to the confident. Let us take a closer look at the closet of the closet Christian. In referring to its dimensions as ample, I intend no boast. It holds a lot, yes, but what it holds is a clutter.

I don't spend all my time in it, of course. But it holds what there is for me. In other words, as with any home, I may be physically away from it but it is where I live. I may be among those who are outside it, but I am not one of them. I am only a visitor.

If I were to take inventory of what my closet holds, these are some of the things you would find in it:

-hangers: The closet is full of these, but I can never seem to locate just the right size or shape, and they never seem to hold anything for long. Nor do they keep what they hold neat while they hold it. In non-closet terms, I have difficulty with set forms; whatever my capacity for belief, it resists them and keeps slipping from them.

-hooks and pegs: There are lots of these too, and unlike hangers they do not impose a configuration on what is hung on them. But that

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presents a different sort of problem: whatever is hung on one might just as well go on another. They are so readily there for the taking that the choosing seems irrelevant. In non-closet terms, people like me resist the notion that it does not necessarily matter what you believe as long as you believe something, that anything is just as good as anything else, that any old peg will do. Some churches these days seem to be saying that whatever you believe is all right with them, and that in fact it is up to them to make their doctrines so flexible that they accommodate all tastes. People like me may not be ready to spell out what we believe, but if we were able to do so we would want it to matter. We recognize that our limitations in perceiving truth do not mean that there is no truth to perceive.

-shelves: While I avoid hangers twisted into coldly uninviting configurations as well as plastic pegs that let whatever you care to hang on them fall any which way, I find the shelves in my closet more to my liking. They have substance and provide support, but it is up to me to do the fitting and they hold a little or a lot. Mine are never quite empty and never quite full. There have been times when I have wanted to clear them off and times when I have wanted to fill them up. But I cannot clear them off because of the gifts they hold, and I cannot fill them up because I always run short. I keep telling myself I have to straighten them out and organize them some day, but I keep putting it off.

Now we come to some of the garments and accessories in the closet:

-umbrella: I have one of these, buffeted but still sturdy, to fend off whatever is sent down at me from above, especially the gusty admonishments of the high who seek to enlighten the lowly. Mounting a podium may bring one closer to God, but why should God be up in the air rather than anywhere else? Speak down to me, and I raise my umbrella. My vulnerability lies in being spoken to not from above but from within.

-scarf: I also have a scarf to keep anyone from breathing down my neck. I prefer not to wear it because it makes me hot under the collar.

-boots: I have a pair of all-weather boots with reinforced ready-wipe soles to protect me at the other end.

-slippers: Mine are loose-fitting and floppy, never binding. I like wearing them much better than the boots. Slippers are, after all, for slippers.

-shirts: I do not have any hair shirts or starched shirts or shirts that go with uniforms. Mine are all casual, open-necked, and the kind you don't have to keep tucked in at the waist. They are hand (not machine) washable (avoid extremes of water temperature), designed to withstand soft soap, and drip-dry (whatever you immerse them in rolls right off).

-pants: Needless to say, mine are not the form-fitting tight kind and have a tendency to sag. The crease never holds. The waists are elastic.

-neckties: Since neckties have no useful function but are only for show, I keep a couple hanging on a peg for Christmas and Easter but I hardly ever wear them. Whenever I put them on, they chafe, and I take them off as soon as possible. Besides, they don't go with my casual shirts.

572 - A Closet Christian's Closet

-hats: I have tried on various hats in my time, but the only one I have kept is a baseball cap with the number of a former Yankee shortstop on it. He was an easy-going well-meaning fellow who bounced back and forth between the majors and minors without finding a lasting place on any team, and who well deserved the phrase commonly applied to infielders, "Good glove, no bat," meaning he was primarily a defensive player without hitting power.

I also keep a few contraptions in my closet, such as these:

-steam iron: I acquired this long ago for keeping things pressed and neat and smooth. Its steam gets in my eyes but it hasn't worked right in years.

-vacuum cleaner: Propped in a corner of my closet is a not very-efficient vacuum cleaner with which I pick up oddments and fragments of the belief systems to which I am exposed in my work. They are interesting bits and pieces, but since I can find no real use for them I simply take them in and throw them out.

-exercise bicycle: I have one of these, too, stuck in the back of the closet. Every now and then I get it out and tell myself I am really going to get my beliefs in shape, tone up my faith, and strengthen my backbone so I will not keep leaning this way and that. As with all exercycles, however, no matter how hard you pedal you don't go anywhere.

III

As with most closets, mine is windowless and seeing through it is darkly done. (There is, to be sure, a small lamp, but what lies beyond the nearest racks is in shadows.) And though I mentioned its amplitude, my part of it is separated from other parts of it and often seems like a very lonely place.

Closets, like attics, also tend to be rather mysterious places, with things tucked away in them that we do not even know are there. When we look for what is missing, sometimes we find it there. On a television program the other day, I heard Malcolm Muggeridge say of life that when you are aware there is a mystery you are aware of God. At times I tell myself that some day I will move out of the closet. But for now it may be enough to know that there are recesses to be explored beyond what I can see.