Joel Mark Solliday is the editor of Campus CrossWalk and the pulpit minister of the Northern Light Center Church of Christ in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota. A Pepperdine graduate, he later worked in their Campus Life Office and at ACU as a Missionary in Residence. He earned his M.Div. at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California.
The Dichotomy Disease From the Editor What if you had to choose between ‘being’ and ‘doing’? What would you do... I mean be? Armchair philosophers often ask us to choose between passion and reason. Partisan politicians make it seem like our only choice at the polls is between good and evil (or utopia and catastrophe). Frankly, I’m getting tired of the dichotomy disease. It’s a binary germ often caught in academic institutions or places where people like to argue about theories of argumentation or systems of organization. Mind you, I value academia, but not at the expense of common sense (which I probably shouldn’t dichotomize here either). I believe in making tough choices. Yet, I often find it difficult to distinguish between tough choices and false choices. Beware those who call for passion by disparaging reason; those who bash fatherhoodto praise motherhood; those who embellish the altar of imagination while over-turning the altar of truth; those who sympathize with the poor while throwing a blanket of blame over any and all who are not poor; those who laud spirituality while lashing out at the church (the bride of Christ); those who sing praises to tolerance and gracewhile trashing moral courage; those who excoriate Democrats to exalt Republicans (or visa versa). Don’t take that bait! Learn how to stand tall and firm on your principled convictions without falling for false choices (or polarizing labels) that may divide you from people who share more with you in principle and practice than you realize. This is not necessarily a call to be middle-of-the-road in your thinking. It’s rather a challenge to be a critical thinker without being a critical person; a call to be fair-minded in the brave stands you take in your mind, heart and actions. I once had a friend who quoted a motivational guru who exclaimed to the wild cheering of his audience, “The world is changed by people of action, not by people of thought!” I thought for a moment, then asked my friend: “How about people of thoughtful action?” In your passion to be somebody, don’t forget to do something. In your search for truth, be sure to listen to others, not just yourself or your allies. In your impulse to be tolerant, don’t sacrifice your core convictions. In learning to love, don’t forget to love to learn. Succeeding in school and in life demands a rich integration between your heart and your head, not making some sort of choice for one over the other (either way). And have a nice non-dichotomous day.
The Dichotomy Disease
From the Editor
What if you had to choose between ‘being’ and ‘doing’? What would you do... I mean be? Armchair philosophers often ask us to choose between passion and reason. Partisan politicians make it seem like our only choice at the polls is between good and evil (or utopia and catastrophe).
Frankly, I’m getting tired of the dichotomy disease. It’s a binary germ often caught in academic institutions or places where people like to argue about theories of argumentation or systems of organization. Mind you, I value academia, but not at the expense of common sense (which I probably shouldn’t dichotomize here either).
I believe in making tough choices. Yet, I often find it difficult to distinguish between tough choices and false choices.
Beware those who call for passion by disparaging reason; those who bash fatherhoodto praise motherhood; those who embellish the altar of imagination while over-turning the altar of truth; those who sympathize with the poor while throwing a blanket of blame over any and all who are not poor; those who laud spirituality while lashing out at the church (the bride of Christ); those who sing praises to tolerance and gracewhile trashing moral courage; those who excoriate Democrats to exalt Republicans (or visa versa). Don’t take that bait! Learn how to stand tall and firm on your principled convictions without falling for false choices (or polarizing labels) that may divide you from people who share more with you in principle and practice than you realize.
This is not necessarily a call to be middle-of-the-road in your thinking. It’s rather a challenge to be a critical thinker without being a critical person; a call to be fair-minded in the brave stands you take in your mind, heart and actions.
I once had a friend who quoted a motivational guru who exclaimed to the wild cheering of his audience, “The world is changed by people of action, not by people of thought!”
I thought for a moment, then asked my friend: “How about people of thoughtful action?”
In your passion to be somebody, don’t forget to do something. In your search for truth, be sure to listen to others, not just yourself or your allies. In your impulse to be tolerant, don’t sacrifice your core convictions. In learning to love, don’t forget to love to learn. Succeeding in school and in life demands a rich integration between your heart and your head, not making some sort of choice for one over the other (either way).
And have a nice non-dichotomous day.