Wooly

Apparently I don’t really know what the word “wooly” means. Dictionaries tell me it means vague and confused. 

I’ve always liked the word wooly. I took it to mean something more like tangled, pungent, rumpled. A bit feral. Maybe antiquarian. Almost a little bit delightfully disgusting. 

Actually, I like to describe the Reformed faith as wooly. I mean it as a compliment. 

I realize we’ve all been told there is a strong connection between the rise of Reformed faith and humanism. Calvin’s Institutes is full of quotes from ancient Greek and Latin thinkers. Historically, Geneva and Amsterdam have been broad-minded places. We’ve valued educated ministers. We’ve founded colleges. We contributed to (some even say “transformed”) western civilization. Doesn’t sound especially wooly.

We might also ask why wooly rather than “mystery” — certainly one of the most en vogue theological words of the past decade or two? For one thing, we Reformed — for better and worse — have never been huge fans of mystery. We’ve been rationalists. We explore and expound, categorize and classify, debate and promulgate, often grinding mystery into minutiae. 

“Mystery” is also just too smooth — at least recently. Too palatable. Too marketable. Too easy. Wooly, in contrast, conveys that it isn’t so much about the unknowable as it is the odd or eccentric, maybe somewhat absurd, even disturbing by today’s standards. Probably the closest to my preferred wooly is “pre-modern.” But that sounds rather obscure, maybe scholarly, and certainly not as fun. 

There are lots of reasons the Reformed faith has never really caught on in North America, never quite fit. Many of them, no doubt, are our own foibles. But some of it has to do, I contend, with this wooliness of ours. 

You want an example, right?

Infant baptism. Our modern minds can accept it when we frame it as cute and sweet. Wishful thinking. Family tradition. Even generational hope. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I would contend there’s more going on when a child is baptized — wooly stuff. 

Visualize an earnest adolescent, on the threshold of adulthood and accountability, standing before us to make a momentous decision. That’s a nice picture. It fits well with the way we look at things. And let’s face it, it is inspiring. 

Instead, in infant baptism we’re taking actions on behalf of a child who can’t yet talk. We’re lodging this baby in a tribe, a clan. We’re saying that they are not a stand alone creature. Not completely free to make their own way but instead with mutual commitments already made. Caught and held in a web not of their own making. Growing up isn’t simply about “learning to make up our own minds.” It’s about being formed within a community. That’s wooly. Honestly, somewhat off-putting. Constraining. It feels primitive. That’s probably why we don’t always say it really loud — and I’m not sure we always need to. 

Of course, it — baptism — doesn’t always seem to “work.” Vows aren’t taken seriously — by families, by churches, by the baptized. It’s hard to hang onto wooliness in a world where individualism and self-determination are our touchstones. 

But still, does baptism “work,” regardless? That’s another wooly thing. We kind of say that it does. We’re not quite ready to go out with a firehose and baptize willy-nilly because it “works.” But we also hang onto the notion that the vows made at baptism are primarily of God, a God who never lets go. At first blush, you (Reformed folk) may think that sounds wonderful, but it is also rather wooly. God staking an indissoluble claim, relentlessly pursuing, haunting, even overriding human choice? Who thinks that way? 

The doctrine of election (or predestination, if you must) has been presented in all sorts of ways, from loving and gentle to cold and capricious. Whatever way you prefer, it is still pretty wooly. It presumes things like that people won’t always make the best decision for themselves or that some decisions are so important it is better if they are made for us. Wooly! Offensive, really. Condescending. As if we are measly pawns in some arbitrary game. It says there are forces and fates at work in our lives that are beyond our control, some that are determined prior to ourselves. Modern genetics tells us something similar, nonetheless if we say it in church it sounds more mythic than modern. Wooly.

Consider too, Q&A 116 of the Heidelberg Catechism. What does it tell us is the most important part of a grateful life? We surveyed one hundred people and these are the answers they gave: To show forth Christ. To make disciples. To share and serve. To be joyful. To evangelize. To stand up for justice. To form an effective committee. To write our government representatives and sign the latest petition. To fight culture wars.

Nope. The Catechism claims prayer is the “most important” part of the grateful life. That sounds pretty feeble and passive to us, maybe cloyingly pious. The Catechism is treating us like we are passengers in steerage, not cruising first class. People with no capacity. No connections. No friends in high places, except the highest of places. That sort of hurts. It feels demeaning. But the Catechism seems to think it’s okay. Wooly, once more.

Richard Mouw used a different metaphor for these wooly elements of Reformed faith. He called them “top shelf” beliefs, if I’m remembering correctly. The allusion is to that rare and expensive bottle of scotch kept on the top shelf, brought out only on special occasions and among those with more developed taste. 

I’d say something similar about Reformed wooliness. I’m not suggesting it’s the first thing we say, that it dominate our mission statements or pamphlets in the pews. However, we tend to move in the other direction, downplaying our wooliness, thinking it better to address modern, isolated individuals, well shorn and with well-considered options. 

I’m not really a music guy, but maybe we could compare it to the bass guitar in a rock band. The spotlight is rarely on them. They lurk in the background. You’re so busy listening to the singers and lead guitar, you hardly notice the bass. But it is there, holding things together, deep beneath it all. Without it, something important is missing.

I’ll admit that wooliness is a personal preference of mine. I like things that are somewhat unkempt and funky. And wooliness may remind the Reformed faith of some of our oddness. But it’s more than my own eccentricities or classic Reformed trademarks. Ultimately, surprisingly, wonderfully, graciously, it is Good News.