Sticky Theology, Part 4: Persuasion and Bivalent Theology

Christianity tends to be an evangelistic faith. Not all facets of Christianity, mind you, are this way. The Amish come to mind. But generally Christians seek to evangelize people to their faith.

This means that folk communications about the faith tend to have persuasion as the main goal. And persuasive speech tends to have characteristics that are relevant for this series.

Generally, persuasive speech tends to manifest bivalent logic: Right versus Wrong or True versus False.

That is, persuasive speech tends to seek a movement from one opinion (the wrong one) to another opinion (the right one). In many folk conceptions, this opinion shift is often called “conversion.”

Obviously, this type of opinional shift is an anemic version of “conversion.” But in my faith tradition, it remains a dominant vision of conversion. But this facet of the folk model isn’t what will concern us here.

Specifically, I wish to note that a persuasive theology will tend to be a black and white theology. A bivalent theology.

The trouble with a bivalent theology, despite its “stickiness,” is that it is a theology that lacks depth and nuance. Worse, depth and nuance are seen as symptoms of unfaith. Complexity is devilish. Witness a comment in these posts where nuanced conversation is deemed “academic” and, by implication, “wrong,” unfaithful, and, again by implication, devilish.

The point is, deep, considered, critical, and reflective theology is NOT sticky. Which poses some problems. Binary, bivalent theology will always mimetically outperform deep theological ideas. Deep theological ideas will be too difficult to communicate via the sound-bite and bumper sticker.

Ecclesially, I think Paul noted this problem. Some people are equipped for evangelism and others for teaching. These are really two different theological tasks. One is bivalent and the other is multivalent. One needs to be mimetically effective (an extrinsic characteristic) while the other can rely on the intrinsic motivations of the audience (the church) to sit through the nuanced and deep theological conversations (presumably because theological education is boring and hard work).

So there are different needs here. However, my concern is that too often the evangelistic, persuasive, and bivalent theology becomes the food for the church as well. Too many Christians are still drinking theological milk when, in the words of Paul, they should be proceeding to solid food. I think this occurs because bivalent thinking may be TOO mimetically powerful. I think the church isn’t noticing this memetic power is thus failing to take prophylactic action demanding more depth from her congregants.