Derek: 00:28

Welcome back to the Fourth Wave podcast. The last two episodes in this season have been introductory episodes of sorts, trying to lay the groundwork for why the idea of simplicity is important. In this episode, what I want to do is I want to dig a lot deeper into the specifics of simplicity. What do I mean when I say simplicity and what sort of ideas does it encompass? And that's, of course, going to be very important as we try to unpack the concept of simplicity this season.

Derek: 01:05

But really, to be quite honest, I don't know that I even know what I mean by simplicity yet because really it's it's kind of ambiguous to me. It's a term that can mean a lot of different things at a lot of different moments and in a lot of different contexts to a lot of different people. And that's really what this season is about. It's not declaring to you what simplicity is, but rather trying to work through it and uncover it. We know that it's an important concept and it's going to be vital for us to understand, especially as Christians, but it's something that we're going to have to muddle through together.

Derek: 01:51

So, simplicity. What does it mean? Where do we begin with it? I want to start by reading an excerpt from Bernard Ehlers book, Homeward Bound, because I really think he summarizes the concept that I want to get to very well. Before getting to the quote proper, it is helpful to have an idea of what Ehler is discussing in his work to provide some background context.

Derek: 02:16

Because if you're like me, when you heard Homeward Bound, you probably started to think of two dogs and a cat that got lost in the woods and they're trying to make their way home through the wilderness. If you grew up in the nineties, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Now that would be a wrong image to have, although maybe not quite as far off as you might think. Because in Ehlers book, he essentially argues that the church today, and really the way the mainstream church has been for a very, very long time, that this is not the way things ought to be. We are indeed in a wilderness, a dangerous land and in dangerous times, And it's imperative that we make our way home.

Derek: 03:01

Christians know that this home is the kingdom of God and that the church is supposed to be the earthly instantiation of this home. Not the four walls of the church, but the church as in the people of God. That is our safe place, our warm home. In his work, Ehler uses three comparisons to show what the church tends to be versus what it ought to be. Eller looks at the church as a barbershop quartet versus a string quartet.

Derek: 03:34

He looks at it as special forces team versus the main body of the army, and he compares it to a caravan versus a commissary. Now, Eller is going to argue in his book that the church has become complex, both in terms of ecclesial structure and practice, and that this complexification, as I'll call it, it undermines the way that church was intended to be. It changes church from being a home into something else. Rather than creating a home from which we can come in, out of the wilderness, the church has embraced the way of the wilderness and has become unsafe, hostile. I think Ehler makes some great points throughout his work, but his whole work is not in view here.

Derek: 04:21

What I want to focus on is his observation about simplicity. About simplicity, Ehler says, and this is a very extended quote here, quote, The best name for this trademark is Christian simplicity. I insist upon including the adjective Christian as well as the noun simplicity because there are some understandings of and approaches to simplicity that do not qualify at all. However, even before we come to individual lifestyle, it may be that Christian simplicity is the best description for the distinction between the two types of congregations. A caravan is certainly more simply organized than a commissary.

Derek: 05:04

Expedici represent a simpler line of authority and control than does an avant garde. Barber shopping is a simpler way to make music than staging the Royal Vienna String Quartet. To live unmindful of class is more simple than to be continually striving for it. Making church decisions through communal council is more simple than making decisions through management charts. And fidelity, finding a single focus and becoming wholly obedient to it, is more simple, although not easier, than success, which inevitably involves playing all the angles.

Derek: 05:43

Indeed, it is fidelity itself which makes Christian simplicity distinctively Christian. Christian simplicity then, for we are finally to the place that a definition is in order, is the style of life which grows out of and bears the fruit of a commitment of total fidelity to Jesus Christ. It is the effort to find the character and behavior that will best give expression to the fact that such fidelity means more to me than success, accomplishment, satisfaction, or whatever else might make up all the rest. In this Christian simplicity, it is most important to say, involves more than just my personal effort to get my own priorities right. It is a means of public witness of evangelism, if you will.

Derek: 06:35

To repeat for emphasis, Eller defined simplicity as the style of life which grows out of and bears fruit of a commitment of total fidelity to Jesus Christ. Now, if you have not listened to the episodes immediately preceding this season, you really ought to go back and start there. I went through Kierkegaard's work, Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing, in which Kierkegaard lays out what it is to be a Christian, to be a human, to be a moral being, a true and full human being. True being is to be a being that wills one and only one thing without deviation. It is the antithesis of consequentialism where the ends justify the means, where our wills bifurcate between the ideal and the compromise of the ideal.

Derek: 07:28

Simplicity is fidelity at all costs. Fidelity to what? Fidelity to home, to our father, to our family. Fidelity is not about living an uncompromising life centered on some impersonal and abstract set of laws, rote regulations. Not at all.

Derek: 07:48

It's about fostering harmony and peace in all our relationships with God, others, and nature. In a fallen world, the creation of that home begins with the church, or at least it ought to. Simple fidelity is loving our neighbors, not asking who they are so we can mistreat some who don't qualify. Simple fidelity is loving our enemies and not seeking an eye for an eye in cyclical violence and retribution. Uncompromising fidelity is about peace and love, about not objectifying others, about not being selfish, about faith that we are not living in a world of scarcity.

Derek: 08:33

Fidelity to the good, uncompromising fidelity with no doubleness of mind, is what it is to live a simple life. And a simple life is the type of life we can most consider to be the true essence of home. And as tempting as compromise may be, and as effective as compromise might appear to us, simplicity tells us that the price of compromise is always higher than the interest that fidelity eventually reaps. One has the patience and the faith to endure and that endurance is built from our belief that we have a good, the best father who wants us to live at home. Now, Ehler acknowledges that just because fidelity is the simplest way, simple does not always equate to easier.

Derek: 09:26

And in fact, simple is often much harder. Have you ever tried to explain something that you understand very well to a child or to a new learner? It's often really difficult to break down even seemingly simple ideas into their simplest forms. In moral terms, this may be even more true. It is difficult to refuse moral complexity and cling to the simple good.

Derek: 09:53

The simple act, the banality of good, seems not only mundane and useless much of the time, it can even seem negligently harmful. What good does prayer really do? What good does turning the cheek really do? What good can a few kind words accomplish when vituperative words or violence seem justified? Yet we all know the power of the banality of evil, as Hannah Arendt elaborated for us.

Derek: 10:22

Mundane and banal evil is a power that can, has, and will take ordinary men and women and turn them into genocidal nationalists. If the banal evil can produce the epitome of pure evil, might not the banal good produce its antithesis, the epitome of pure good? And what might evil's antithesis? What might the pure good look like? Maybe it might look like someone who is poor, a simple carpenter perhaps.

Derek: 11:01

Maybe someone who loves the unlovely, who touches the unclean and teaches simple messages. You know, I'm not quite sure what evil's antithesis looks like, what the image of our father, God, would look like if he were to present himself in the flesh, but I have a feeling it would look and act quite banal most of the time. Fidelity is simple. It's not easy. It's not easy, I think, in large part because it's hard for us to envision.

Derek: 11:35

Or maybe it really it's easy for us to envision. We just don't like the vision that we see. Is it that we can't see where fidelity leads us? Or is it that we know fidelity leads us to a cross? And by cross, I don't mean the cross as most people think of it.

Derek: 11:51

The cross where God got suffering out of the way, enduring it for us. A cross where Jesus substituted Himself for me so I can put that in my past. You know, He's been there, I've done that kind of thing, right? No. Fidelity leads us not only to the foot of the cross, it's actually a step ladder given to us in order that we too would ascend, bear our cross and die, die that we might live.

Derek: 12:21

Now that's awfully hard for us to envision, isn't it? How does a cross create a home? That can't be right, can it? I mean, if that's what simplicity is, cross, then let's be honest, complexity sounds a whole lot better. And whether we realize it or not, that's why we all have a tendency to complexify things.

Derek: 12:46

Complicating the world tends to provide us with a sense of control. And control is what we need and use in order to avoid the cross. Both our need for the cross and our need to bear our cross. It's the pursuit of control that leads to the manipulation, the objectification, and the sacrifice of other so that we can build a house, a house of our own design, not of God's. But any house that I design for me, usually, is at the expense of them, someone else.

Derek: 13:24

Whether that other is the expense of God, the expense of nature, or the expense of other human beings, Complexity builds a house, but it's not an all encompassing house. It's a house for only a select few. But the cross, the cross is the foundation, the pillars, the cornerstone of a home whose door is open to all. And of course, we could look at this in in two ways. You know, you could look at the vulgarity of the cross and think it looks ugly and horrible.

Derek: 13:58

You could think that it looks really difficult. But simplicity is not meant to be overbearing. It's not meant to be petty or impersonal. It's meant to be beautiful and unifying. So to recap, simplicity is fidelity.

Derek: 14:18

And that fidelity tends to look like bearing cross, like laying down one's life for the sake of other. If you remember those two things, that will really be the key to this season. It will come up over and over and over again. Even if I don't mention it explicitly, it's going to be behind everything that we talk about. This idea of fidelity and the idea of laying down control, of self sacrifice, right?

Derek: 14:48

Of cost to self. Now there are a lot of specific areas in which we could discuss simplicity. But I think for simplicity, I would boil it down to three overarching categories that we're going to kind of touch on throughout the season. There is a simplicity of needs. There is the simplicity of structure.

Derek: 15:13

And there is the simplicity of desire. So first, when you talk about the simplicity of needs, we could discuss a variety of different topics. Food is probably one of the most basic needs that there is, and we could get into all kinds of subcategories here. We could talk about the way that we farm and produce food. We could talk about locally grown food versus shipping it across the world.

Derek: 15:37

We could talk about the harmful complexity that we add into our food to preserve it or make it taste better. We could talk about the quantity of food consumed and how so many products at our disposal lead to gluttony and waste. We talk about how our system exploits laborers or harms nature. When is a need fulfilled and when does it become excess? When does something that fulfills a need, like take eggs for example, becomes something that is extravagant and unjust?

Derek: 16:06

Is trekking across deserts and traversing the wild Serengeti, braving crocodile infested rivers and myriad predators to obtain a rare bird egg, Is that really fulfilling a need? That egg may satiate hunger and fulfill a need, but couldn't that need have been fulfilled elsewhere? At the same time, were humans meant to only fulfill their base needs to the necessary extent and never develop, create, and form the world around them into artistic creations that demonstrate the glory of nature and the glory of the pinnacle of God's creation, humanity? I mean, we could really develop a whole season or even create a whole podcast focused on just one of these subcategories here. And this is just one aspect of our need, which is food.

Derek: 16:59

And we could also discuss our need for shelter and take a look at housing inequity, environmental footprint and housing, I mean, the list just goes on and on and on. So there you get an idea of the category of needs. But I'm also going to argue that beyond our needs, we also need to look at a simplicity of structures. And this is probably the area in which I have discussed the most throughout my seasons as governments, armies, and power structures, structures like racism and patriarchy, They're all societal structures in which we need to take a look in regard to simplicity. Finally, we need to discuss simplicity in relation to desire.

Derek: 17:50

And there's definitely overlap here in all of these categories. Obviously, our need for food also relates to our desire for taste, for novelty, and all that kind of stuff. And our desire for control or dominance also influences the way that we create and maintain our societal structures. But I think it's really important to distinguish this category of desire from the others. So I'm going to try to avoid too much overlap with needs and structures.

Derek: 18:18

And that means that I'll be focusing largely on technology when we talk about simplicity in regard to things like desire. Now before we delve into these aspects of simplicity and kind of unpack more throughout the season, it's probably important to discuss what simplicity is and what it's not. I know we've already gotten a definition from Eller, but I think we need to unpack that a little bit more. And maybe the most well known ode to simplicity out there is the famous Occam's razor. Occam said something to the extent of entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity.

Derek: 19:01

As a pretty easy example to comprehend, if monotheism posits one God to explain the universe, and polytheism posits many Gods, then you should go with monotheism because it's the simpler answer. Of course, the atheist will go one better and ask why we need to posit any God at all because one less entity is a simpler explanation yet. Or maybe you're a fan of the History Channel. If you are, you might ask yourself why there is a need to posit aliens as necessary entities regarding the building of ancient monuments and structures. If we know that human beings build things and do amazingly complex things, then why posit an entity we don't even know exists?

Derek: 19:47

Until we have more evidence, the simplest answer is that humans built the pyramids. Of course, there's often a problem with the modern formulation of Occam's razor in that many people ignore one important aspect of it, and that's the concept of necessity. Entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity. And this means that it may be simpler to posit a naturalistic universe without any gods, but the key question isn't which explanation is simpler, but rather which explanation is adequately simple. A detective might surmise that a gun fell and discharged on its own, leading to the death of an individual at a crime scene.

Derek: 20:29

But if he finds 10 dead bodies with gunshots to the middle of each of their foreheads and a six shooter, a revolver lying next to them, then a faulty discharge isn't an adequate explanation. What would the chance of a gun discharging 10 times, let alone landing 10 perfect headshots and reloading itself halfway through the killing spree, what could explain that other than purposeful intent? Delving into suspects, motives, alibis, and all that goes along with an investigation is much more complex than just hypothesizing that a gun had a faulty discharge. But the complexity of the circumstances require a more complex hypothesis where a simple hypothesis would be inadequate. When we bring up simplicity then, it's vital that we don't straw man the concept.

Derek: 21:20

If you look at someone who is arguing for simplicity and see that they don't live in a straw hut without using any technology, you can't just declare that they're a hypocrite for not living the simplest life possible. What is the range of what simplicity might look like in the world that God created? How much can simplicity vary if God calls us each to different lives and asks us to adequately fulfill his calling? A calling which not only means uncompromising fidelity, but also the pursuit of enjoying God and His creation in peace and harmony with others. Whenever I use the term simplicity then, I want you to always tack on in the back of your mind the word adequate.

Derek: 22:02

Adequately simple, not simplicity alone. Now, as I have thought about simplicity a lot over the past few years, I've concluded that much of our breaking with simplicity comes from our focus on the adequacy I just talked about. We are more like the polytheists than we are like the atheists most of the time, because we posit the need for much more complexity than is needed. Could we or should we live in a smaller house? No, my kids all need their own room to grow up as healthy children who learn independence.

Derek: 22:37

Could we or should we limit our technology use much more? No, we need technology to stay connected, to know what's going on all over the world so we can live just and responsible lives. Could we or should we limit governmental structures much more than we do? No. We need to grab power and expand it in our hands so that we can make the world how it should be.

Derek: 23:01

Should we adhere to biblical notion of a Sabbath rest? No. God gave us all seven days, and if we don't busy ourselves in work to make our lives and the world better, then the world will have one day out of seven, fifty two days of the year to get ahead of us. So what we find is that arguing for a more simple way than we live now is usually dismissed as inadequate, as negligent, something like that. And not only this, but the way that we currently live is often dismissed as inadequate.

Derek: 23:38

We are not only not looking to simplify, we are looking to build a world that is even more complex than the one that we have now. Finding more ways to squeeze efficiency into our days to save time, finding more ways to consolidate our news so that we can learn more. What we end up discovering is that simplicity is a call for humanity to recognize their creaturely status. At least that's currently my simplified conclusion. What is the key indicator that we are probably living beyond the adequately simple?

Derek: 24:13

When we are seeking to develop beyond our humanity to the divine, then Icarus are we. Flying too close to the sun with our simple wax wings, the melting of which hurls us to the ground where our pain is meant to remind us of our place. But hopefully, in thinking through simplicity with me this season, before getting any closer to the sun, we can change course before falling too far. Now, there are a lot of ways in which we try to usurp God or to play God, to become divine. But it seems easiest to me to categorize our usurpation in the omnis of omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence.

Derek: 24:59

We add complexity, which I'll call complexification from here on out because I think it helps to highlight this term rather than just to say complicate. It'll stick out more in your mind. So we complexify things where we want control. Maybe we feel out of control, we feel desperate, we feel like God has abandoned us or won't choose to save us or can't save us. So we seek to take control into our own hands.

Derek: 25:30

At other times, our complexification is purely born out of self centeredness and arrogance. We just want control. We want control to run our lives, to run the world the way that we want to run it. With the pleasures we want to obtain, with the insecurities that we want to avoid. Now oftentimes, this complexification reveals itself as an encroaching on one of God's omni attributes, An encroachment where we either try to take more than we ought to, or an encroachment where we fail to relinquish as much as God demands.

Derek: 26:08

Those essentially play out the same way, but I think the heart motives are a little bit different sometimes with each of those. For example, take the Sabbath or the idea that we are to have a day of rest. Now, don't think most of us, when we refuse to rest, are trying to play God. We're not trying to become more, to steal divinity. Most of the time, we refuse to rest because we feel like we can't relinquish a day where we exert our power and influence over the world.

Derek: 26:38

And certainly, the injustice in our world makes it so that there are many who, because they are not paid just and fair wages, would not survive if they did not work. That complexity which destroys their peace God intended them to have is injustice accounted to the society in which they live. For many who would listen to this podcast though, our choice to refuse rest is much more often a choice made not out of a necessity for survival, but out of a desire to maintain a certain standard of living or in order to be able to cram in all of the activities that we want to do. This isn't trying to wrest control out of the hands of God so much, but rather a refusal to recognize His way as truly good, Rather than take a day of rest and recognize that we are not omnipresent, we don't exist in all times and at all places. Rather than that, we refuse to acknowledge this limitation and extend ourselves in time and space to get as close as we can to God's divine attribute of omnipresence.

Derek: 27:45

I think most would agree that this is a petty sort of usurpation of God. We sympathize with this failure to relinquish time and space, But there are also ways in which complexification seeks to more actively rest the attributes of God away from Him. If you listened to my season nine on Christian Anarchism, then you'll already know my stance on government. By and large, governments are entities which seek to usurp God. Josephus declares this in his expounding on the Tower Of Babel, which is a worthwhile read, and I cover it in season nine.

Derek: 28:19

We also see this in first Samuel eight, when Saul is made king against God's wishes. Samuel declares the anointing of a king as rebellion against God. Now I could go on and on, but that's not the whole point here, and I have a whole season on that if you want to go back and explore that. The point is that governments and individuals who are in government, not just at higher levels but oftentimes at the lower levels, many more times than not, they find themselves lording power over others or seeking to. Complexity in this realm, in the realm of government then, it seems to come not from a refusal to relinquish as much as it does for a desire to control, to control one's neighbor, one's nation, one's enemies, rather than govern oneself, something it seems hardly any politician ever does, one seeks to govern others.

Derek: 29:16

Complexification then arises when we either refuse to relinquish something to God or when we try to usurp control from God. And really both of these are examples of seeking control by either keeping it or taking it. Simplicity would therefore be opposed to this. Simplicity would be fidelity as Eller said earlier in this episode. And what is fidelity?

Derek: 29:42

It is relinquishing control to God. It is obeying Him where He has commanded and refusing to encroach on His domain where He governs. Simplicity is contentedly living within the parameters that God has given us, living out the purpose with which God has endued us. To bring everything to a close, I think this whole episode was really just a long way of saying that simplicity is fidelity and complexity is seeking control or power of some sort. It's seeking to define good and evil for ourselves, seeking to be like God.

Derek: 30:21

And in some ways, this sounds very oversimplified, I'm sure, right? Just obey. Just do it. At the same time, sometimes the simplest things are the most difficult because simplicity often creates a whole lot of ambiguity, room for misinterpretation. If you've ever gotten a do it yourself furniture piece that comes with like, one image of what your end product is supposed to look like, you probably know what I mean.

Derek: 30:51

Just obey or just be faithful isn't going to be too helpful when we start asking what simplicity looks like in specific contexts, like wealth or technology. Unfortunately, I think that that seeming oversimplification is going to be something that we constantly run up against this season, where you might feel like I'm just saying, Just obey, just do it, just live simply. And that's not at all what I'm trying to do because there's a lot of ambiguity. Yes, we are to live simply, but how does that look? That's going to be hard to grasp onto.

Derek: 31:28

So my hope is that through my tone and through my words, this doesn't come across as, something where I'm being overly judgmental or, dogmatic on something, but it's something that I'm trying to explore with you, because I don't even know what that looks like for myself. At the same time, there are some places that I I really do know what it looks like for myself, And I think I just don't want to admit it because that would cost me something. But ambiguity, dissonance, conviction, all of those things are going to be churning this season, and that's something that we have to live with and work through. And it's a good thing because to be numb and oblivious is not a good place to be. You know, to have dissonance and to be challenged and to have conviction and to, you know, know that you're not doing the right thing, right, then yes, you're out of line with where you should be.

Derek: 32:36

But to know that you're out of line with where you should be is good. Like that challenge to yourself is what pushes you towards getting on the right track and restoring your relationship. It's when your conscience is numbed and seared that we have problems that we need to really, really worry about. And that can definitely happen. So embrace the challenge, embrace the, uncomfortability, and, just dig into this season and prepare to self reflect.

Derek: 33:10

That's all for now. So peace, and because I'm a pacifist, when I say it, I mean it. This podcast is a part of the Kingdom Outpost Network. Please check out the links below to find other great podcasts and content related to nonviolence and Kingdom Living.