Expert on the Experts #1: Which Expert?

It may seem like a strange subject to discuss but this train of thought was instrumental in whisking me off on a wild search for answers. Prior to thinking this thought I had always been content to keep my searches for truth safely locked inside my cozy house with the comforts of familiar names and authors, no theological loose ends and answers I half-knew already.  After thinking this thought I was startled to hear a booming knock on the door of my cozy house; it was the beckoning of Christian perspectives and traditions I had never before considered, all asking me to come outside and play.  I had rarely played with the other kids on my block.  My cozy cast of familiar experts said there was no reason to give them due consideration.

Good thoughts often come at times that do not seem to suit them.  The particular line of thought that is now on my mind came to me when I was unloading supplies for my youth center's cafe.   Somewhere between hauling flats of Mountain Dew and boxes of Kit-Kats it hit me.  I don't specifically remember what triggered this thought.  Something to do with somebody about something.  Anyhow this something said by this someone had really stuck in my craw.  I remember muttering to myself (as I often do when I get ruffled) the words spoken to me by this someone:  "Oh.  Oh, I see.  So you disagree with [Joe Expert]?"  said this someone.   "Do you think you are smarter than they are?  How many Ph.Ds do you have?  How many books have you written?"  

I was a little upset.  Actually I was pretty stinkin' annoyed.  The nerve of this someone to accuse me of arrogance and pride simply because I disagreed with a so-called expert.  It was a poor argument on their part, I knew it but I didn't have a good reply and I knew in their eyes I had "lost" that round.  Too bad I didn't have a good comeback:  Oh yeah, well the Jerk Store called and they're running out of you!!!!

But then I realized that I was also in stock at the Jerk Store... for I had used this "argument" before too (although I don't recall accusing someone of thinking they were smarter than the expert).  In previous disagreements with our Church's leadership (all respectful disagreements) I had cited expert after expert to support my ideas.

Most of us Evangelicals love our experts.  We all have our favorites:  John Piper, Dr. David Jeremiah, Francis Chan, Louie Giglio, Beth Moore, Dallas Willard, John MacArthur, Shaine Claiborne, R.C. Sproul, Kay Arthur, Charles Ryrie, Joel Osteen.  Quite an eclectic group of intelligent men and women.  They have the intellectual might and rhetorical skill to convince us to believe what they say.  The appearance of their name to any given idea or mission can give it an immediate legitimacy.  Our faith in some of them may be mistaken and we all readily acknowledge that they are not infallible.  Yet they seem to be our steady guides, the ones we could always turn to for answers.  And it is worth mentioning that Evangelicals are not the only people group to have their list of experts.  There are plenty of Catholics, mainliners, emerging-Church supporters, atheists, science nuts, computer geeks and amateur foodies who have their own A-lists.

During these talks with my congregational leadership, I would cite the experts from my A-list.  I thought they bolstered my case and that everyone one would see that I was right.  After all, my carefully selected batch of experts thought I was right.  But then my leadership would cite experts in support of their viewpoints.  It was quite clear (to me) that their experts were B-listers; their experts might be smarter than me, but they were no match for the experts on my list.  Yet, to my Church board, their obviously sloppily chosen experts where the A-list; it was the guys on my list whom they had never heard of.

In the end these talks (while never reaching an agreement) never turned ugly, we are all still friends and we've gotten on with our differences.  I tried to shrug it off, but something still gnawed at me.  Something bothered me about the way we were settling our problems.  I had thought all along that they were wrong because they had simply selected the "wrong experts" or misinterpreted the right experts or had missed the big picture.  I thought the leadership was simply confused.

That is when it hit me: the leadership wasn't the only ones who were confused.

Part of their confusion came from the lack of consensus among the experts themselves.  If you go back and look at that very short list of "experts" amongst Evangelicals you will find a wide range of different views... to put it mildly.  You may scoff at some of the names on that list ("...they're no experts!").  You may be offended that I didn't list someone who is an obvious expert.  Some of these experts agree on many things.  Some of them hold to contradictory ideas and teachings.  Yet they all had this one thing in common: they were all smarter than me.

How could I disagree with people so much smarter than me?  How could I find the truth amongst geniuses who disagreed on what was true.  Most of the Christians I knew, when faced with a troubling question on theology, would ask "what do the experts think?"  By experts they of course meant what their list of approved experts thought on the matter.  The question became for me:  Which experts?

If you simply stick to "your list of experts" then they likely do not disagree that much.  But that is exactly the problem, why is your list or my list of experts the right list?  Why is this doctor right and this doctor wrong?  How is this pastor correct and that pastor incorrect?

In order to know which experts to trust... why, I would have to be an expert!  An expert on the experts.  Only then could I know who was right and who was wrong.  Only by knowing about all the experts and all of their views could I seriously suggest that my list of experts was the right one.  I would have to be the expert about experts in oder to correctly choose amongst the experts but even then I would simply be another expert to someone else who would have to be an expert to correctly understand my expertise.

That thought scared me to my core.  I believed that all truth and all authority for the Christian life came straight from the Scriptures.  Any problem, any theological question (that was answerable) could be solved by study, knowledge of Biblical languages or customs, a better theological system and a more comprehensive hermeneutic... all bathed in prayer of course.  Prayer and study could lead one to the undeniable truth.  But if these experts had done all of that and still hadn't reaching anything like a consensus on some very important issues...