Sensus Divinitatis

This article first appeared here in Christian Courier this month, directed at current events in the Christian Reformed Church. This is a more generic version applying to North American church culture today.

Summertime is the season for boats, or at least boating analogies. Angela Reitsma Bick and I have a book to be released this September called Blessed are the Undone: Testimonies of the Quiet Deconstruction of Faith in Canada (New Leaf Press) that features boats as a spiritual analogy for the deconstruction and reconstruction of faith. We write mostly about canoes that run aground or get capsized.

We don’t write about this in the book, but I got thinking of that idiom, “Whatever floats your boat,” which is another way of saying “do whatever gives you pleasure.” According to the internet, “Whatever floats your boat” rose in popularity the 1980s after the sexual revolution and the US Dictionary says it “underlines the importance of individual choice and personal happiness.” Similar phrases pop up every decade, from “Whatever tickles your fancy” to “Different strokes for different folks” and, the current favourite, “You do you.”

This can be permission-giving, and feel virtuous in terms of accepting others as they are. Perhaps it is generous, or at least tolerant, and it can even be necessary in our pluralistic society today. Live and let live.

Let’s see how this boat metaphor floats, though. “Do what works for you” or “each to his own” are rough equivalents that suggest at least a lack of constraints or, more fully, a robust human autonomy. Some might say this represents one side of the sexual ethics divide: affirming the freedom to express one’s sexual desires or gender identity as one feels inclined. “Whatever turns you on” would be a superficial take on it, and the expanding acronym for sexual minorities suggests something of this. The subjective state of the individual is paramount, as the most authentic reality, and thus the source of moral authority resides within.

But is that really the case?

Beware of the Bizarre

There is more to consider.

If you think about it, rather than liberal open-mindedness, the phrase “Whatever floats your boat” more accurately suggests indifference. The speaker just doesn’t care. “If that’s your thing, go ahead.”

That’s still not the full meaning according to ESL learning websites. They say English speakers often use this idiom sarcastically or dismissively – as if the speaker doesn’t understand the inclinations of the person in question. So while on the surface it can read as an endorsement of American individualism and consumerist libertarianism, it is also a critique of such, and, in fact, a way to say “What gives you pleasure seems bizarre to me.”

It’s the impulse to “live and let live” but not in the most generous way. It is essentially a subtle criticism given with a wave of the hand. Rather than affirming, it communicates disapproval. It assumes we navigate the cultural seas in very different vessels. It carries an edge of judgment.

Perhaps that seems like over-analysis to you. One takeaway could be that whichever way you interpret the idiom, it doesn’t make for a good church body. If it’s superficial individualism it’s not Christian accountability. If said with a quietly sarcastic tone, indicating we have no comprehension of how these clueless people could live with themselves and think that way—then it’s a form of disdain for our brothers and sisters.

“Whatever floats your boat” is in the cultural water, and it may keep a country from descending into conflict, but it’s not any way to do church together.

“Rocking the Boat”

The debate on sexual ethics has been going on for years, if not decades. My home congregation is divided on the matter. Over the last few years, we have had listening groups, congregational meetings, intense debates, and sent letters to ruling bodies with various opinions. We are still together (so far!), but not because we believe “whatever floats your boat.”

Maybe we are still together because “nobody wants to rock the boat.” This idiom is not referring to an individual watercraft but a communal vessel, and we are all in this confined space together on a vast and potentially threatening ocean. It suggests we are avoiding conflict in the storm of cultural tensions. Maybe for the short term there is wisdom in it, but not for the long term when it comes to pivotal matters. That mimics a culture of echo chambers where we refuse to cross over the gap and talk.

Some people love to rock the boat. They feed on conflict and always seem poised for naval battles, whether in the name of truth, justice, unity, or the Bible. But there are good reasons to rock the boat, too.

Our local church has had a few tense moments. I was reminded of this when someone in our fellowship asked me to step aside for a conversation. 

I was a little surprised when he said: “Remember that heated conversation we had two years ago in the foyer? I think I crossed a line there and I’d like to apologize. My emotions ran away with me.”

This is not avoiding the difficult matters of community but engaging it. I asked him if I needed to repent of anything from that moment, and we went on to understand each other better.

This can happen in any congregation near you: venturing a conversation, having it go badly, and then seeking pardon and starting over again. It may rock the boat a little, but it can also be a port in the bigger storm.

Everything changes in a storm. The focus is not just floating your boat, but keeping it from shipwreck. Business-as-usual is left to the side and either all hands are on deck or chaos ensues and it is “every man for himself” (sic).

The boat is rocked in a whole different way when pivotal institutional decisions are made that make it impossible for some to stay in the church and live with their conscience–either towards progressive or conservative viewpoints. These watershed pronouncements not only rock the boat but divide the crew and shift the balance of power in the boat. Some may jump ship while others will feel walked off the plank. Some will feel rejected, betrayed, sideswiped and simply tossed overboard. Some feel there has been a coup, and others discern mutiny. In the end, some will seek to build a new ship, one Made in Canada or with some other flag flying from the mast. Still others remain treading water, unsure of where and whether to climb aboard any ship. They may cling to their own kayak instead.

Those for whom the decision lies in their favour, will feel like they won. But it will be quiet aboard the ship and there will be a sense of some loss. Some faces will be gone. There will be questions, and maybe regrets.

Here is the big picture: the storm at sea becomes the storm within the boat. This has been the church for 2000 years: storms come and go, and the task is to navigate the storm in your time and place, earnestly listening for the captain’s orders.

“All in the Same Boat”

I was dwelling on II Cor 5:14 recently, where Paul talks about those in Christ becoming a new creation through Christ’s ministry of reconciliation. Verse 14 offers a good image in The Message version. It reads: “Our firm decision is to work from this focused center: One man died for everyone. That puts everyone in the same boat.” 

Everyone is in the same boat. Perhaps this is Adam’s boat, the boat of common human brokenness, common shame and guilt. I distinctly remember watching a documentary film in 1993 in the basement of Calvin University chapel that told the story of a young man who left his parents to find love in California. He came home with AIDS and died with his parents holding his hand.

I had very little in common with this prodigal son, or so I thought. So I was surprised by my tears as the credits rolled up the screen. His demons were not mine, but I instinctively recognized the feeling of being alone, seeking who knows what in the wrong places, and having your life capsize in a storm.

It’s common, in Christian Reformed circles, to talk about common grace-–that something of God’s good providence upholds the world beyond the church. This concept was often coupled with the antitheses—the theological conviction that forces of good and evil are at loggerheads in this world. Boat-rocking denominational decisions do convey that this is a moment of antithesis. You must find a different boat, or repent of your ethical beliefs.

As many part ways over this issue in almost every denomination (and other religions, too!), we might talk more about what you could call common brokenness—as a complement to common grace. Whether we are left or right, affirming or conserving, we all cast a shadow. We all need Jesus Christ, because Christ—not Christianity—reconciles what is divided and offers a fresh start. We are his sinful saints, his bumbling ambassadors of an often awkward reconciliation. Friends and family will be ecclesiastically separated now and what used to be internal reconciliation may now be truly an ecumenical event.

Christ—not Christianity—reconciles what is divided. He’s the captain of every ship that bears his name. Let me suggest every one of his ships has its traitors, rebels, failures, deserters and victims, to varying degrees. And loyal sailors, too. Like the disciples of old. Some may feel they are on the only true or just ship in the fleet, and those will be very lonely waters.

We may not be on the same boat anymore, and we should not just carelessly say, “Whatever floats your boat.” All boats are being rocked in the current storm of a polarized culture. Whatever sort of ecumenical reconciliation between boats or fleets may only be partial this side of the new creation. Such reconciliation may be a coming to terms where we agree to disagree because our take on the map, the mission, and the management of the ship are at significant odds. Our moral codes are too different regarding the fundamental human relationships we deem proper to the ship. God is bigger than any human code, however, and we could find the charity to bless each other on our separate voyages.

In many ways, we are no longer in the same ecclesial boat, (or classis–a fleet of ships) and that is a tragedy. Ecumenism may be difficult water to navigate, especially at first. But we are certainly in the same storm of polarized North America, and hopefully we can meet in calmer waters some day and realize we have the same captain, similar struggles, and we both bleed the same human blood.