On Going Too Far
By Robert Meyers
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Any company of Christian disciples which embarks upon a genuine quest for truth, refusing to be crippled by party narrowness or traditions which have outlived their usefulness, soon bumps into this rebuke: "We appreciate your eagerness, and perhaps what you are doing right now is fine, but how far will you go?"
The implication is that adventuring is dangerous (which is true), and that sooner or later one who keeps traveling is bound to tumble off into a frightful abyss (which is false). Timid men knew
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Complacent religionists merely repeat this timidity and caution in each generation. Whenever they dislike or tear what another is doing, they warn him of terrors around the bend of the road and whisper persuasively that the "safe" thing to do is stay where he is.
I have lost count of the times when a friend has walked up to me with this story: "I was talking the other night to John Smith and your name came up. John said he appreciated your convictions and your ardor in expressing them. He even said he agreed with you on a number of points. But he shook his head sadly at the end and said, 'I'm just mighty afraid that he's going too far.'"
It is not easy to pin one down on how far "too far" is. The psychology of fear works better with generalities than with specifics. Even little boys know that too close a look at the monster may show him to be harmless after all. Even they learn quickly that not so many real monsters exist as do imitation ones created by the people who want to use them. This dire prediction of something ghastly waiting down the road for the innovator has grown familiar to me in twenty-five years of preaching. When the church I grew up in wanted to put a rubber mat down the aisles so as to reduce noise, a few of the evangelists in our religious party begged us to consider.
"It's not just this runner, brethren," they urged, "but what comes next that bothers us. This is probably all right in itself, but if you do this, how far will you go? After all, you must admit that a runner is not essential to worship God. This may open the doors to all sorts of things."
The hint of ominous shapes looming darkly just over the horizon was frightening to simple people. This is the effective thing about the "how far will you go?" argument--it distracts attention from the issue at hand and projects it to some potentially horrifying future. With a bogey-man sketched on the horizon, people forget all about the harmlessness of the present proposal and are frightened away from it.
But my home church, like yours, was obviously not sufficiently frightened, for after awhile we all digressed to carpets on the aisles and platform, indirect lighting, stylishly modern buildings, church kitchens, baptismal murals, public address systems, handsome guest ledgers, central air conditioning, and well-equipped nurseries. And oddly, once we had these things the evangelists simply enjoyed them along with the rest of us. But they kept up their posture of defense against "sectarian innovations" by attacking all sorts of conveniences which other religious groups had, but which were still in the future for us.
We may do ourselves a service by honestly weighing the value of this threadbare warning. It may be sensible advice on occasion, but it is much more often only a cant phrase used by those who fear to pioneer with God and who shudder at the costly daring which compels some to build new highways for Him.
This fear of the future, of the forbidding unknown waiting around a bend in the road, has always bothered many. When Moses led the Israelities out of bondage and into the rigors and deprivations of freedom, it was not long before the masses were complaining, "He's gone too far! Let's get back to safety!"
When the great prophets like Isaiah, Micah and Hosea tried to explain that God wanted not sacrifice but loving hearts, not exclusivism but concern for all the children of men, not ritual but justice, the masses lamented, "They've gone too far." It did not sound like traditional Judaism to them.
When Jesus said the Sabbath was made for man, thus asserting for all time that in every situation the supreme "lawfulness" is service to human need, most of
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When Jesus said that legalism was a murderous way of life for the spirit, tradition-bound men murmured that he had passed beyond all sense. But they did not deter him, and when he died he spoke his hope that they would at last come to him. "And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me." He clearly felt that they had not come far enough, and he was disappointed. He saw that it would take the agony of a cross to draw some of them inch by inch forward into their destiny as God's adventurers.
So when someone dismisses an exploring disciple by lamenting that he will probably go too far, I have occasionally yearned to say, "Perhaps he is as disappointed in us, that we have remained where we are." For surely it is no greater sin to get far down the road, even almost out of sight, than to sit forever in a snug, safe pasture and scoff at those who go on. I would guess that there will be more, in the final reckoning, who risk favor with God for playing it too safe than for seeking him restlessly and eternally in all the ways of the spirit.
One knows, of course, that men who are happily ensconced in the pasture can see no reason why they should strike out again. They have a way of putting doubts into the heart of the seeker. One of my favorite Stephen Crane poems sums up how ineffectual may be the urgings of explorers when the pasture is green enough:
A man toiled on a burning road, Never resting. Once he saw a fat, stupid ass Grinning at him from a green place. The man cried out in rage, "Ah, do not deride me, fool! I know you All day stuffing your belly, Burying your heart In grass and tender sprouts: It will not suffice you." But the ass only grinned at him from the green place.
Why look for something better when this is not so bad? Why risk the dust and sweat of the road when adequate nourishment can be found here? You may run past all pastures and have to come back; how silly you will feel then." So the questions and scoffings have sounded through all human history.
When Luther affixed his theses to the door of the Wittenberg church men gasped, "He's going too far." And when the restless German refused to violate his conscience at Worms, saying, "Here I stand, I can do no other," the crowd pityingly groaned, "He's gone much too far now." And, of course, he had, if he intended to hoard his life and play it safe.
When Thomas Campbell, who profited from Luther's daring, insisted on serving communion to men he thought were Christians, the Seceder Presbyterians said, "He's going too far now." When Alexander Campbell broke first with the Presbyterians, then with the Baptists, they both agreed, "He's a fine man, but he's going too far; no one can say where this may end."
I said that Thomas Campbell profited from Luther's daring. Is it not ironic how blithely we can accept the gifts of men who "went too far" in order to give them to us, but can never believe that men in our own day may find similar gifts by passing beyond the limits of our world. We are often blessed by a past which we will not thank, and frightened by a future in which we have no faith.
When Dr. Batsell Baxter wrote in our own time in the Gospel Advocate that churches may include the colleges in their financial budgets, Reuel Lemmons, editor of the Firm Foundation, cried, "He's going too far; who knows where this may end?" And tomorrow, when someone sees that God's work may be respectably and efficiently done in some
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Let the point be established, then, that somebody will always be worried about somebody else going too far. The masses will worry because the masses are always more or less inert. They are led, rather than leading, and led unwillingly for the most part. They know that all advance is fraught with some risk. They prefer the well-worked lodes of home, even if they are near exhaustion, to the cost of seeking new veins of gold beyond the mountains.
But we only weaken our case if we do not admit that it is possible to go too far. Men would never have coined the expression if this were not true. The pioneers would have been senseless if after crossing the risky plains they had gone on to drive their wagons into the Pacific surf. The greatest spiritual explorer of all time, Jesus of Nazareth, would have gone too far indeed had he turned loose of the hand of God in his tradition-smashing pilgrimage. But even though he went so far down the road that men shuddered at his daring, and finally could not even bear it, he did not make the mistake of going that far.
For one goes too far when he drops that Hand or stops caring about that Heart. And one goes too far when he deliberately forsakes a principle which he knows to be valid. And one goes too far, if he is a shepherd, when he moves so rapidly into the future that his own flock cannot keep up and become easy prey for wolves.
But what of those who do not go far enough? May they not, in all honesty, far outnumber the venturesome disciples who seem to go too far? What of men who know that their own religious party is narrow and inconsistent, but will not say so publicly because they fear its disapproval? Have they gone far enough to keep faith with their own insights.
Many will read these lines, it may be, who claim there are no such men. But many of us know well just how numerous they are. My letter files bulge with correspondence from respected leaders in orthodox churches who have admitted the faults of their group and deplored them, but who beg, "Don't quote me by name; I feel I must preserve my influence." No one can deny the value of influence, nor scoff at those who cherish it, but it is wise to remember that Christ might have pled exactly the same and never spoken the criticisms which brought him at last to his death.
Men who admit in private talks that the party system is often ruinous to the spirit, but who steadfastly refuse to say this in public because they would lose pulpits, salaries and prestige, are men who have not gone far enough. It must be apparent by now that this talk of "going too far" is like many other catchy phrases--likely to be abused by people who seek slogans to palliate their fears or excuse their apathy.
Perhaps the phrase is largely meaningless, anyway, since it hints that one is quite certain of the point in time and space which he should occupy. When I accuse one of not having come far enough. I express judgment from an advanced position which I obviously think to be superior. And on the other side, when one says another has gone "too far," he clearly hints that he knows just how far one ought to go and is now surveying the scene with perfect satisfaction.
It might be better to refrain from easy expressions of judgment, no matter where we stand. The man who loves his comforts and prefers to send the mind on no great adventures should beware of quick judgments on those who feel differently. And the man whose nature is such that he cannot rest from travel, who believes that new and thrilling continents lie beyond the horizons of present knowledge. this man must not look with contempt on those who prefer to settle.
For the settler, like the pioneer, makes his own contribution. The two need each other. The pioneer risks his life and finds new land for the other to inhabit. Then learn to thank him. Jesus did this, and we live now where we could never
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But without the settler, the pioneer has nothing to come back to. The joy of being needed fails him. He returns to share his new vision, hoping that those who trusted the future once may be persuaded to trust it again and move on to a still better country. An ideal view of the Christian life, it seems to me, might be to see it as a constant movement toward clearer perception of God. Each new forward movement consolidates itself, and harvests its fruit: so the settler plays his role. He breaks new ground and plants it to learn its potential. But the movement is eternally forward, and the pioneer must always be heading into the unexplored, the unknown and the dangerous. It is his lot to come back and describe some new plateau in the ceaseless quest for fuller knowledge of Him.
I believe these things because I believe that men are made to grow, and are happy only when they are growing. All my life I have watched people respond to sermons, and it has been a revealing and frustrating experience. They seldom expect anything, so that their faces have settled into masks of boredom and apathy. They would not dare say it, but they clearly feel as a friend of mine did when he defined most preaching as infinite tedium indefinitely prolonged.
I am too busy and involved to note this well when I am speaking myself (though I know it happens), but I have often enjoyed the visitor's privilege of observing the audience carefully as the preacher rises to speak. There is a great fussing about and settling down and getting ready to endure, but seldom any edge-of-the-seat expectancy. The faces are not alight with curiosity and eagerness. They are simply set to last it out. Their movements remind one of a pair of lines in Moore's Christmas poem:
"And mama in her kerchief, and I in my cap, Had just settled our brains for a long winter's nap."
Expectancy is a priceless thing; the loss of it is terrible. I have found that those who prate most of someone's going too far are almost always those who have lost it. Such people sit in religious assemblies knowing that they have paid the water bill and certain that when the tap is turned on they will not be surprised by what comes out. So accustomed are they to this monotony that when one deplores it they are genuinely puzzled. "What did you expect?" they ask. "The gospel's the gospel, isn't it?"
But there is another order of life. Always there is someone who discovers clear, fresh springs of living water, bubbling up in ceaseless delight. The Word of God suddenly and miraculously takes on new meaning; all the words light up in exciting ways. The Spirit of God breathes warmly upon them. They can never quite comprehend again why anyone who drinks even once of this water should be willing to return to the mechanical faucet with its predetermined patterns and carefully regulated flow.
The glory of life is that this miracle is always happening. The spring never goes dry and there are always some who find it. And as they drink of the water of life, a strange and wondrous thing happens within them. The water becomes a spring within them, welling up exhaustlessly to delight and nourish them. So happy are they with life's infinite possibilities that it seldom occurs to them to worry about someone going too far. Their chief concern is that so few have yet come far enough to find these marvelous waters.