McLaren writes about a metaphor for understanding different theological lenses for different people. These lenses influence what each of us are “looking for” and “looking at” in terms of theology. The metaphor is one of a spectrum of light. There are different colors in the spectrum and no one color is more important than another, but all are needed to make the spectrum. He gives each color a particular theological bent so that the spectrum is accounting for as many people as possible. The following is just a part of the metaphor as it pertains to the violet and ultraviolet colors. I have added the emphasis.
Beyond our quest for survival (red), security (orange), power (yellow), independence (green), individuality (blue), honesty (indigo), and ubuntu (violet), I imagine there could be an ultraviolet quest for sacredness, a desire to live in a growing conscious awareness of the presence of God and the goodness of God reflected in all things.
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But here’s the rub: we are all at different places in this quest. Most of us—especially most of us in the Christian faith—are in quests for security (consider the prosperity gospel and certain magical forms of Pentecostalism) and power (consider some forms of strict hyper-Calvinism and other fundamentalisms, with their view of divine sovereignty as deterministic control exercised on behalf of the elect few). Or we’re in quests for independence (consider the many kinds of systematic theologies that pursue mastery of mystery through doctrinal systematization in almost the same way scientists pursue mastery over mystery through the scientific method) and individuality (consider the self-help focus of many megachurches, with their emphasis on “personal salvation” and its close cousins “personal spirituality” and “personal success”). That means that most of us really aren’t interested in a quest for “inconvenient truths” that might obstruct or interfere with our more immediate quests for security, power, independence, and individuality. Just as a young boy longing for a baseball glove or bicycle isn’t interested in a girlfriend or college major yet, we aren’t ready for the higher zones of our quest yet—which is why I call those truths “inconvenient.”
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The situation is unintentionally made worse by the small but growing minority of us who are entering the quest for honesty (many in the emergent conversation of which I am part would fit in this category).
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The indigo zone—while it’s great for raising honest questions—is not so great at reaching conclusions. In fact, indigo people generally seek honesty by critiquing the previous stages and by questioning the adequacy of their conclusions—something we have spent a good many pages doing in this book. But as any Ph.D. holder can attest, honest inquiry and thought do not necessarily lead to wise action. Sometimes (recalling Paul’s words about knowledge “puffing up”) our honest inquiry simply leads to conceit and a critical spirit.
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So those of us in the indigo zone commonly look down on red-, orange-, yellow-, green-, and blue-zone people and groups, calling them primitive, backward, immature, conservative, fundamentalist, and so on. We often “explain” their behavior with a kind of cool and elitist detachment, and in so doing we objectify and dehumanize them (as some of us may have been doing while reading this chapter so far). We in the indigo zone feel comfortable casually critiquing, relativizing, and deconstructing the very systems, structures, doctrines, and institutions that red through blue cultures have worked, lived, fought, and died to build and defend. So no wonder indigo people see others as obstructionists, and the others see them as terrorists or nihilists.
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In short, we in the indigo zone—just like those in the earlier zones—want to transcend and distance ourselves from everyone in earlier zones. And in so doing we resist our transcendence into the violet spirit of ubuntu, which seeks to close distance and be joined with others.
What color do you find yourself in at this day?
