A game no one wins

“The man with an experience is never at the mercy of the man with an argument,” said the Holiness preacher. This line keeps coming back to me this year. It can and did indicate anti-intellectualism. I prefer to frame it, however, in terms of anti-rationalism, the critique of the idea that the rational mode of thought is, or at least ought to be, the clearest path to truth. Fresh out of Holiness churches during my cage stage Lutheranism, my parents, Rachel, and I were having Sunday dinner. I recall saying something about how Lutheran theology covered so much more of the Bible than Holiness teaching ever did. I mentioned the verse, “Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” and described the theology of confession and absolution. My dad was not impressed. In turn, I challenged him to tell me what he thought that verse meant. He struggled, and I pounced, “You can’t just ignore whole sections of the Bible.…