My Professor Warned Us about “Black Beret Christians”
My evangelical college would not be a fan of Backyard Church
“I call them the ‘Black Beret Christians,’” the professor stated. “They are the most dangerous type of Christian there is.”
Dr. Reynolds, my university theology teacher, sat at the head of the rectangle of tables. Buttoned up in a full suit despite the Southern California heat, he looked less like a college professor and more like a funeral officiant.
Since it was only 8:30 am, an ungodly hour for an 18-year-old, I considered myself relatively dressed up in jeans and a sweatshirt. Other students hadn’t even changed out of their pajama pants.
But Dr. Reynolds’s attire matched his demeanor: all business. We were discussing the minor prophets. I don’t remember what spurred the conversation toward the most dangerous type of Christian, but Dr. Reynolds was on fire.
“You all know what a black beret Christian is, right? It’s a new phenomenon gaining popularity.”
He set the scene. Apparently, this group of self-identified Christians doesn’t go to church on Sundays. Oh, no, they are much too cool for church.
They go to a bar.
Around their pub table, pints of half-empty beers sit in foamy glory. Cigarette smoke hangs in the air while ashtrays clutter the tabletop.
And to demonstrate their cosmopolitan worldliness, they actually wear berets.
He continued the description: “They sit around with their arms folded, smoking and debating theological ideas. They dissect the Bible to point out its inconsistencies. They adopt an attitude of skepticism and demand that Christianity be proven by scientific standards.”
Sounds intriguing, I thought. At least the visual image was intriguing. I’d like to see a guy wearing a beret. That would probably be pretty cute. Maybe he would have a ponytail, too? A strong jawline…
The teacher’s passionate decree cut off my inner revelry.
“You cannot reduce faith to an academic exercise! Capital ‘T’ Truth is immutable. There is no relativity. There is no ‘individual’ perspective. And there is certainly no Christianity without 100% faith. The type of faith you should be willing to die for. These lukewarm Christians think that God can be reduced to meaningless academic jargon. But the Bible is not up for debate. It does no good to try and outwit God. He is bigger than any ‘questions’ you will ever have.”
At the conservative Evangelical university I attended, religion intertwined with academics. But somehow, there was still no room for questions. Professors presupposed that we already believed in their specific version of the gospel, so any Bible study came with an answer already in place.
Sure, we closely analyzed the scripture and read different philosophers’ takes on Christianity. We read Chesterton, John Edwards, Aquinas, and C.S. Lewis. But the point of these readings was to see a very specific truth. Our college teachers presented the doctrine they wanted us to believe instead of laying out different viewpoints and letting us come to an informed conclusion.
I believe that’s why the “Black Beret Christian” idea genuinely terrified Dr. Reynolds. A group of earnest Christians discussing the Bible from a place of curiosity? Searching to find personal and communal truth? Acknowledging that the evidence may take each person on a unique spiritual journey without a predetermined endpoint?
That’s the dogmatic Christian’s greatest fear.
The more my college tried to squeeze religion into a rigid box, the more I wanted to see what was outside of the box. And so I donned my own metaphorical black beret and started looking for answers without any conclusions already in place. And what I discovered was so much more than they ever could have taught me.
