Intellectuals/Academics and Depression/Laziness

In my previous life as an evangelical minister, I was asked to speak to large audiences pretty regularly. Part of the unspoken requirement in getting those opportunities was that the talk always had to end positively. In some of those environments I could end the talk with some criticism, but the criticism had to be of individual sinners not of the system we were living in. (Individual sinners = anyone taking on the characteristics of working class, historically black, Native American, Latinx communities. Also the ideas of women or those of alternate sexualities.)

Now, if I were to speak to the audiences I used to speak to, the message I wish I could give is that we are very much trapped in a system that there is almost no way out of. We are destined to wage slavery and marginalization. The idea of heaven/hell as an afterlife (indeed, Christianity as they know it) is used to keep us working hard for that system. I would then proceed to dismantle their understanding of Christianity, which they would object to because it would sound exceedingly negative, depressing. If they followed what I said it would lead them to a state of hopelessness and therefore laziness.

In the most ironic move, this is where historical Christianity comes in. The only reason I am not a total nihilist, is because in light of this nihilistic picture, I have hope in the Christian story, as Bonhoeffer said in his prison letters, in a God that exists not of the beyond, but in this world.

Somehow, when things seemed most bleak, this ‘it is what it is’ (Ex. 3:14) led Moses and the slaves out of Egypt, into a promised land. That Hebrew people group fell apart when they took a King and used slaves to build the temple to the ‘it is what it is’. Jesus would later rebel against another empire/kingdom which yet again made the Jewish people slaves. Jesus’ was not a violent revolt, but the principle remains that if people are treated unjustly, their blood cries from the ground. An empire built on the sand of injustice does not last, whether you use the right terms or not — like Jesus said “many who say ‘lord, lord,’ will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matt 7)

We are yet again caught up in a struggle against an empire and intellectuals/academics are lazy and depressed because they have seen the hopelessness of the world and realized we are ill-equipped to make it any better. We act in faith that another world is possible. This new world is not in the beyond, but it is here, ready to be born in any moment.