By Harold W. Anderson, Ph.D., M.A., M.Div.
I grew up in the Church of the Nazarene that valued “testimonies.” Testimonies were rituals where a person would give a report of how a problem occurred and God, through prayer, fixed the problem. After hearing enough testimonies, I began to realize that if a person wanted to share their testimony, they needed to follow the “testimony template.” 1) The testifier’s life was somehow in the dumper whether physically, financially, or relationally. 2) They would pray to God and God “would talk to them.” 3) The testifier would follow what God had told them, and 4) God fixed their problem. Keep in mind that there is no losing scenario in this narrative. Even if God had not fully “fixed” the problem, this was rationalized by claiming that God’s ways are not our ways. For this reason, even if the problem wasn’t “fixed,” the testifier still believed that God had acted on their behalf.
People listened to these testimonies with devoted attention, sometimes uttering a loud “Amen!” or prayerfully whispering loud enough for all to hear “Thank you Jesus!” Sometimes the faithful would gather around the testifier and laying hands on them, lift their concerns and their praises to God in prayer. This is powerful for no matter what happens in the testifier’s life, these affirmations validate the story, validate the formulaic nature of the template, and validate the testifier’s experience while all the while immersing those involved further and further into the doctrinal narrative of the faith community. Once indoctrinated into this process, it is difficult to think or believe differently. The testifier’s life is no longer their own, for it is being shaped by the narrative that defined this community.
While you may detect a note of cynicism in my words, it’s not because I do not respect the testifiers; my suspicion is with the ritual of testimonies. This ritual, or its digital equivalent, echo chambers, shapes the narrative and in shaping the narrative, shapes the way people think about and experience life. When in the echo chamber, things can be no other way even if in fact they are. I have heard of and known people who quit taking medical treatments because God “told” them they would be healed. They weren’t and they died. Or, in the parlance of the echo chamber, “God took them home where they no longer suffer.” There is no losing in the echo chamber and God is always “good.”
Perhaps God does act in the lives of people, but people need to take a step back from the echo chamber that they may perceive the “acts of God” more clearly rather than regurgitating the echo chamber rhetoric. This is what the Church of the Nazarene didn’t want congregants to do. They wanted people to step in; they didn’t want them to step back. They wanted people to believe; they didn’t want them to think if that meant somehow questioning the narrative. They wanted to shape lives in their image; they were suspicious of self-discovery when liberated from the templates of their belief system. As a young adult at Boise State College, I was fully immersed into this ritual, this echo chamber, and it was there that I “heard” God calling me to ministry. I had no desire to step back; all I wanted was to step in.
The process of stepping into the ministry was school. I started attending Northwest Nazarene College (NNC) and began studying all the classes necessary to take the next steps, seminary and ordination. Education, however, is an interesting thing especially at the university level. If one is to learn about stepping in, a good education encourages one first to step back to assess what is at hand. This is as true of the sciences as it is the humanities, and so, in this denominational school, I began the process of stepping back. I think there were several factors that aided me in the process of doing this…I learned to step back, a long way back.
An important support group for the echo chamber of which I was a part while attending Boise State College was Campus Crusade for Christ (CCC). Influenced heavily by Calvinism, which was much different from the Wesleyan tradition of which I was a part, they believed in not only the inerrancy of the Bible, but that the Bible was “God-breathed,” to borrow a phrased from II Timothy. According to them, God dictated the words of the Old and New Testaments. The Church of the Nazarene believed in the plenary inspiration of the Bible, meaning that it was inerrant in faithful matters, but they didn’t think God dictated the Bible. Already, because I was part of a different tradition, my thoughts were also different from most of the people involved in the CCC echo chamber.
This difference was made even more glaringly obvious because students preparing for the ministry at NNC were required to take 2 years of Greek, the language in which much of the New Testament was written. Interestingly, the text of the Greek Bible is based upon a critical assessment of the manuscripts that included variant readings listed at the bottom of the page. The variants were an “A,” “B,” “C,” or “D.” An “A” rating meant that there was strong evidence that this was the way the original read, but a “C” or “D” rating meant evidence was waning and sometimes it was at best a guess. Now here’s the catch. My Campus Crusade friends read their King James Version or the New International Version of the Bible, and in them, there was little evidence of these variants. They thought the words they read were the words dictated by God. Yet, when I started telling them what I was learning in my Greek class, you might have thought I was a vampire and they brought out the crosses and garlic bulbs. What I was saying, they believed, was heresy because it didn’t fit in their echo chamber and soon, I found myself on the outside of this group looking in; I was no longer welcome.
Initially I attributed this to the difference between Calvinist and Wesleyan traditions. Yet many in my denomination didn’t seem that different from my CCC friends, but the CCC group didn’t want to hear what I had to say about the Bible. Why? Because what I said did not fit in their narrative and created dissonance they didn’t like. Instead of change, they ignored what I had to say. The dissonance this created, however, helped me take a step back.
There were other occasions where I had opportunity to take a step back guided by the subject matter of several classes, Chicano literature, psychology, biology, western civilization, etc., but the one that made a large impact upon me was a theology class that used Mildred Bang Wynkoop’s book, A Theology of Love, as its text. Wynkoop’s book was considered quite progressive. She was a professor emeritus of theology at the Nazarene Theological Seminary (NTS) and her book landed upon the church like a bombshell. It reinterpreted the Wesleyan tradition from a relational point of view. I will spare the details, but suffice it to say, the theology in that book radically challenged the theology of the Nazarene echo chamber, and my theology professor embraced the book teaching it as “true.” Again, cognitive dissonance was the result. The echo chamber said ignore it. The book is wrong, the echo chamber contended, but this professor, so intelligent and sincere, embraced it. That impacted me so I chose to listen to what the dissonance was telling me. I took a step back from the theology of the Nazarene echo chamber, which opened a new world of theology to me, a world much more diverse and richer than the echo chamber would have you believe. I stepped back.
I also was the TA for the philosophy professor. To study philosophy, I came to understand, is all about stepping back. The philosophy professor, as philosophers tend to be, was a free-thinking minister who fell in love with, well…the art of wisdom or philosophy. It was through his tutelage that I too discovered the remarkable treasures brought by mastering the art of questioning, to borrow from Plato’s Socrates. Question what? Everything! More than that, however, philosophy also held something in common with the biblical-critical method I was learning from the Bible professor for whom I was also a TA. A critical approach to things including the biblical text frees one from the echo chamber. Instead of hearing the echo chamber, one can perhaps for the first time hear the text one is studying. Like philosophy, biblical critical analysis was all about stepping back. So, I took one step further back as I learned how to allow texts to speak to me much more freely than I had been able to do so in the Nazarene echo chamber.
For a person who had grown up in the echo chamber constructed by the Church of the Nazarene, or evangelical theology in general, this was mind blowing! Nothing was beyond scrutiny including church dogma and the Church itself. I can imagine my exhilaration was similar to that of Erasmus, whose humanism freed him from the Church when he was able to take a step back and realized that faith is strongest when infused with reason. Everything was open to scrutiny, and everything was open to discussion including the very existence of God.
My next large step back occurred when I started classes at Pacific School of Religion (PSR) in Berkeley, CA. What’s a Nazarene doing at PSR? Why wasn’t I in Kansas City, MO at the Nazarene Theological Seminary (NTS)? Well, all my steps back had pretty much landed me outside the Nazarene echo chamber. Its narrative was still influential upon my thinking, but it no longer dictated my decision-making process, and I chose PSR because it offered a dual degree path, which would earn me an M.A. and an M.Div. This would prepare me much better for the Ph.D. I wanted to pursue than an M.Div. from NTS. Before I left NNC, however, the Chair of the Religious Studies Department told me “If you graduate from PSR, I will do everything in my power to see that you never get a job in the Church of the Nazarene.” This wasn’t a step back; it pushed me back. I went to PSR.
In doing so, I found my experience with my CCC friends happening all over again. The Church of the Nazarene began distancing itself from me so that by the time I began my Ph.D. studies, even though I had relented and graduated with an M.Div. from NTS, I found myself on the outside looking in. Because I took a large step back, I discovered I was not really welcome and walked away from that denomination. Ordination would have to wait. I was, however, eventually ordained as a United Methodist minister, not a Nazarene preacher.
I did get my Ph.D. in Philosophy, Theology and Critical Theory at the Joint Ph.D. Program of Iliff School of Theology and the University of Denver, two very good schools. It was a degree program that led me through a myriad of challenges, but I completed it and when I did, because of my dissertation project, I was able to understand the nature of echo chambers that much better. They are self-same forms of thinking that validate by reinforcing beliefs and thoughts whether they are true or not. Although I didn’t use this terminology at the time, echo chambers substitute their fantasy for reality thereby birthing the post-truth age. Like testimonies in the Nazarene Church, there is no wrong in the echo chamber as long as it conforms to its standards and dogma. Breaking laws, bullying, threats, and perhaps even murder itself are acceptable as long as they are done in conformity with and loyalty to the echo chamber. The echo chamber is considered “true” regardless of how irrational and full of lies it may be; everything else is “fake” even though competing narratives may embrace the “facts” more fully.
An example of this is the recent Presidential “debate” between Donald and Joe Biden. You talk about two completely different echo chambers that passed in the night without too much collision, this so-called “debate” was it. Donald was there to forward the beliefs of the MAGA echo chamber. He was not there to tell the truth (most commentators noted that much of what he said were lies). Rather, for him as is the case in everything he does, debate is performance, and perform he did, repeating debunked lies over and over again and bullying and belittling Joe Biden every chance he got. What was even more pathetic was that the so-called “moderators” gave Donald a blank check for lying and did nothing to point out or correct the lies. Most often, Donald didn’t answer their questions. He just reinforced the narrative of the MAGA echo chamber. Like testimonies in the Nazarene Church, this was powerful stuff for those who believed. For those of us who don’t, it elicited a sinking feeling in the pit of one’s stomach.
Joe Biden was not so impressive. The narrative he wanted to put forward was one of facts, most of which could be fact checked true. It was a positive narrative that the United States is a great country that is headed on the right track towards great things. However, it was as if he were unprepared for the onslaught of the MAGA narrative with all its negativity and lies. He stumbled…badly at first feeding the MAGA narrative claim that he was too old and feeble to be president, even though his policies have made the stock market soar, the world take notice once again, and the passage of infrastructure bills that have created hundreds of thousands of jobs and helped people across the financial spectrum to be better off than when living under the treachery of Donald. His narrative did not cohere, and his performance was less impressive, leading the prognosticators to proclaim Donald the winner even though nothing he said was true.
It is time these two worlds collided in a deep structural way not just in a way that swaps platitudes. Put differently, participants in the MAGA chamber as well as the Democrat chamber need to hear the cognitive dissonance that is created when they hear the competing claims. It is not a time for undying loyalty that blinds one from the truth of the dissonance. It is not time for hearing and feeling only what the echo chamber wants us to hear and feel. Like the process of a good university education, we need to learn to step back and listen to the dissonance, and when we do, something magical happens. We discover worlds, diverse worlds where differing narratives compete for attention. We discover truths that come not from dogma but are made present in the given moment of time. It is a time when we quit talking and listen. We do not listen to the dogma, for that is echo chamber stuff. Rather we listen to the dissonance that helps us shed the dogma of belief and trade it for knowledge.
We might take the issue of undocumented immigrants at our southern border as an example. When the MAGA people think of these immigrants, they think of criminals, rapists and the mentally ill. When the Dems look at these people, they see the dispossessed who are fleeing their countries fearing their lives or people who passionately search for a new way of life. To help them understand the nature of these people, they look to documented “facts” that suggest that whatever or whoever they are, they are not all murderers, rapists or those escaping mental institutions and prisons. They are for the most part simply people in need. The MAGA solution: close down the border by building walls and increasing military presence at the border. The Dems solution: put up a stronger border presence while looking for ways to help those who need entry to seek asylum and those who have something to contribute to the well-being of our land. Neither the MAGA nor Dems advocate unlimited border crossing to those who seek entry. In this, both sides have some valid points, but where it gets strange is when all the emotive accusations get involved. The Dem’s echo chamber claims that MAGA folk are racist, and their border policy reflects this. The MAGA echo chamber claims that the Dems are soft on crime and their birther policies reflect their willingness to favor illegal immigrants over even the citizens of the United States. These emotive accusations can form quite a list and if this list is the place where conversation begins, there will be no dialogue, only accusations. Nothing will be accomplished.
This is where we live today. People hurl accusations, which is easy and accommodating to our echo chambers, but it avoids the difficult work of really talking to each other. It seems to me that there are some measurable “facts” collected by Border Patrol, the FBI, the INS, Homeland Security, and law enforcement agencies that work in the affected areas throughout the United States. Utilizing the latest in computerized technology, it is possible to keep records about undocumented immigrants in this country. The latest figures from a Homeland Security study indicates that in 2022, there were approximately 10.99 million unauthorized immigrants living in this country. The majority of these people are from Mexico while others range from Guatemala to El Salvador, Philippines, Brazil, India and China. The highest number of these people are 25 – 54 and there are more males than females living here (5.96 mil males vs. 5.03 mil females).
But what are these people like? Are they law abiding? Or, are they the rift-raft of their respective societies, criminal populations that threaten our way of life? Every report that is based upon empirical data that I have researched is summarized nicely in a recent report in the Washington Post. It states:
- There is strong evidence that all immigrants — in the United States legally or otherwise — are more law-abiding than native-born American citizens. Most immigrants are motivated to do well in their new country, especially if they bring skills that can enhance local economies, and so there is little incentive to break the law.
The report references a recent book, Immigration and Crime: Taking Stock, by criminologists at William & Mary and the University of California at Irvine, Graham Ousey and Charis Kubrin, respectively. These researchers conclude that while
- results varied depending on survey design and scope…generally they found ‘that long-standing concerns about immigration as a major source of crime are unfounded.’ In fact, communities with more immigration tended to have less crime, especially violent crimes like homicide. They also found that immigrants are less involved in crime as both offenders and victims compared with the native-born, including the children of immigrants.
Finally, a recent study (2021) on the mental health of undocumented workers concluded that while undocumented immigrants are given to higher levels of stress and depression, this is not because they are “mentally ill,” “but because they must live with large deficits created by discrimination, limited resources, intra- and inter-personal conflict, acculturative stress, and exploitability.” However, in response to this, the study also found that these populations drew upon significant coping processes such as religion and social structures like their families (la familia). So, while these populations are impacted by the deficits, they have resources to draw upon that stabilize their mental well-being.
These claims are empirically documentable and avoid the hyperbole of echo chamber rhetoric. Put differently, these are the types of studies that help us to step back from the hype and hear what is being said. They give us a platform from which to discuss difficult problems such as immigration. The ability to step back from our respective echo chambers so we can debate and discuss these studies to arrive at more effective and reliable policies is essential to the function of a democracy. It is not easy work. Stepping back never is, but it is important work that all of us as citizens of this wonderful country must do if our democracy is to have a chance. When we take a step back from our respective echo chambers, we might just have the opportunity to speak meaningfully to one another.
As a young adult, I was held captive by the evangelical echo chamber as construed by the Church of the Nazarene. These ecclesiastical blinders hid the world from me, and it made me think that the little I knew was all that needed to be known. That’s the problem with echo chambers. They truncate our world feeding us only the information they deem fit. For those who step in, there is no other truth. The echo chamber defines their reality even if it is predicated on lies.
The sad reality is, however, there is so much more to be known if one is courageous enough to explore it. As I discovered through academic pursuits, however, knowledge, faith and wisdom do not come from stepping in. it is discovered when we are able to step back. I am so thankful to the people, universities, seminaries and life experiences that brought me to a place where I could step back and see the echo chamber for what it is, a truncated glimpse of a massive cosmos. Stepping back allows us to see what needs to be seen; it allows us to hear what needs to be heard; it provides the opportunity to experience a multiverse filled with glorious differences that challenge our thinking and fill us with a sense of humility for there is no way that one person can know or understand it all. As I reflect upon my life experiences, I think that is the greatest value of stepping back. It humbles us that we might hear, see, and understand, for it is when we approach life with humility that we discover the magic of life, a life outside the echo chamber.