In Defense of Individualism (or Why Community is Bad)

In my Psychology of Ideology class here in Germany we’ve been looking at the Protestant Reformation. Last week we visited Wittenberg. We had a marvelous time visiting Marin Luther’s house and walking through the town to Schlosskirche (Castle Church) where Luther nailed the 95 Theses.

As most will know, a pivotal moment in the Reformation and in Luther’s life was his trial at the Diet of Worms. Luther had been excommunicated, just weeks after he burned the papal bull warning him that he was walking a thin line. At the Diet of Worms the secular authorities were to hear Luther’s case to decide if they would enforce the bull, to arrest Luther and hand him over to Rome. Once in Rome Luther would have certainly been burned at the stake.

To save his skin all Luther had to do was recant. Famously, he refused. With these words:

"Unless I shall be convinced by the testimonies of the Scriptures or by clear reason...I neither can nor will recant, since it is neither safe nor honorable to act against conscience. Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me. Amen.”

The last bit may be apocryphal, but “Here I stand. I can do no other.” makes for a great line. One of the most famous in world history.

As I pondered Luther I began to circle around some ideas and concerns I’ve been having about contemporary theological thinking. Luther helps me raise some issues I’ve been worried about.

Today it is very fashionable in theological circles to speak of community. “Community” is the answer to practically every theological question we can ask. Further, the centrality of community is supported by ontological claims grounded in notions of the Trinity. Trinity and community are where it’s at.

But as a psychologist I have a lot of trouble with community. Let me be specific. Groups are moral cesspools. Pick up any social psychology textbook and you find the evidence:

In-group favoritism
Out-group denigration
Cliques
Stereotypes
Groupthink
Group conformity
Peer pressure
Social loafing
The Bystander Effect
Free Riders
Racism
Infrahumanization
Obedience to Authority
The Lucifer Effect

On and on it goes.

Now I know that the dark side of social psychology isn’t what is being invoked when “community” is mentioned in theological conversation. Just the opposite is being discussed. But at just this point my worries start. I worry about if the highfalutin language of Trinity and community can cash out at the level of social psychology. I don’t trust human groups. They do a lot of evil things. Especially religiously-motivated groups.

Don’t get me wrong. I think friendship is one of the greatest goods of human existence. But friendship, which I have no problems with, is very different from community.

Now someone might (and should) respond that the evils I’m speaking of are due to homophilia, the love of the similar. Homophilia creates these homogeneous groups that define themselves over against other groups. In contrast, the community of God should be based on heterophilia, the love of difference. This kind of community is difficult to achieve, we have to sacrifice a great deal to live with difference.

But it is precisely at this point where the whole “community project” starts to break down. For loving “the different” has to stop at some point. Eventually the faith-group will draw a line in the sand. We’ll be “in communion” up until this point. It might be a doctrinal issue or a behavioral code. Regardless, even the purest form of Christian Community cited by modern day theologians will be defined by a line discriminating those who are In and those who are Out.

So the issue quickly becomes: Who gets to draw that line? This is where Luther’s case becomes important. Luther was excommunicated for being a dangerous heretic. But isn’t heresy simply going against the consensus? Luther was repeatedly asked before, during, and after the Diet of Worms: How can you trust your individual conscience in the face of centuries of church teaching? Why are you so certain YOU are right and THE CHURCH is wrong? Isn’t Luther’s stance simply one of hubris?

In today’s church individualism is a bad word. It’s the stain of modernity and post-modernity. The taint of the Enlightenment. Rugged individualism is bad, community is good. Yet the force of the individual’s conscience in the face of the community began at the Diet of Worms, an event lauded by the theologians and church historians who are touting the evils of “individualism.” Isn’t that a bit ironic?

Maybe individualism isn’t so bad. And maybe community isn’t as good as we think it is.

I’m being a bit provocative with all this, but I think there is an important issue here that is currently not getting enough airtime in all the talk about community. The issue is this: How can prophets emerge unless we allow for individualism? And if prophets are consistently the moral lights among us then is not individualism—the light of an individual’s conscience before God—the engine of spiritual reform? If so, it is individualism that is driving the Kingdom forward and community, as it so often does, which is holding it back.