How to examine a ‘pair of doxes’

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Using a pair of lines to reconcile the paradox of Jesus

Half a century ago, Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones sang, “I can’t get no satisfaction.” This year, Andy Crouch of Christianity Today admits in his new book, Strong and Weak: Embracing a Life of Love, Risk and True Flourishing, that he gets satisfaction—from a 2x2 chart.

I share that non-guilty pleasure, because a 2x2 explains why I and others so often answer questions from World Journalism Institute students (“Should I go off the record?” “Should I write a one-sentence paragraph?”) with two words: “It depends.” Those are small questions, but writing (like life) is often more art than science.

A one-dimensional spectrum is great for clear questions of right and wrong, but life includes paradoxes—and the clearest way to examine a pair of doxes is sometimes a pair of lines, one vertical and one horizontal. Crouch’s flourishing-suffering-withdrawing-exploiting chart shows how authority and vulnerability are complementary, not opposed, and the same is true with firmness and warmth in parenting.

We’re making available the excerpt below with permission from the publisher, InterVarsity Press. Read on, please. —Marvin Olasky

The Power of the 2x2

There’s nothing I find quite as satisfying as a 2x2 chart at the right time. The 2x2 helps us grasp the nature of paradox. When used properly, the 2x2 can take two ideas we thought were opposed to one another and show how they complement one another.

The world is littered with false choices. The leadership writers Jim Collins and Scott Porras talk about “the tyranny of the OR and the genius of the AND.” Should products be low cost or high quality? Whom do managers serve, their investors or their employees? The most transformative companies manage both. Are we the products of our nature or our nurture? They are not opposites—they have to go together.

The Christian world has its own versions: Is the mission of the church evangelism and proclamation or is it justice and demonstration? Are we supposed to be conservative or radical, contemplative or active, set apart from the world or engaged in the world? Or take the topic that almost generated the first great biblical 2x2 chart. Is the life of the Christian about faith or works? (“Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you a 2x2 chart of my faith and works”—James 2:18, my take on the original Greek!) Then you’ll be ready for the ultimate question: Was Jesus of Nazareth human or divine? Was he Son of Man or Son of God?

In all these cases, what we need is not a linear “or” but a two-dimensional “and” that presses us to see the surprising connections between two things we thought we had to choose between—and perhaps even to discover that having the fullness of one requires that we have the fullness of the other.

One of the best examples comes from studies of effective parenting—the kind of parenting that produces children who display self-confidence and self-control. Which is better, to be a strict, demanding parent who sets firm boundaries, or a responsive, engaging parent who interacts with their children with warmth and compassion? If you were a parent, where on this spectrum would you want to be (see figure 1.2)?

Put the question this way and most parents will lean one way or the other. Some will quote Proverbs—“spare the rod, spoil the child”—and opt for firmness (see Proverbs 13:24). Others will quote Paul—“Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger”—and opt for warmth (see Ephesians 6:4, Colossians 3:21).

Both are right.

Firmness and warmth, it turns out, are not actually opposites. They can go together—in fact, they must go together for children to flourish. Their relationship is much better shown with a 2x2 (see figure 1.3).

Map firmness and warmth this way, and you quickly discover that either one, without the other, is poor parenting. Firmness without warmth—authoritarian parenting—leads eventually to rebellion. Warmth without firmness—indulgent parenting—leads eventually to spoiled, entitled brats.

In fact, there aren’t just two ways to be a bad parent—there are three! The worst of all is parenting that is neither warm nor firm—absent parenting (see figure 1.4).

There is a difference, it turns out, between being nice and being kind. “Nice” parenting drifts down to the bottom right, settling for easy, warm feelings without ever setting high expectations. Kind parenting manages to be clear and firm while also tender and affectionate. Psychologists call it authoritative parenting rather than authoritarian. The best parenting, in our 2x2, is up and to the right.

There are a few more insights hidden in this simple diagram. I’ve numbered the quadrants using Roman numerals I to IV, starting with the ideal quadrant up and to the right and continuing around clockwise—in the same order and direction we’ll consider them for the next four chapters. Consider the line from the top left to the bottom right, from quadrant IV (Authoritarian) to quadrant II (Indulgent), from firmness without warmth to warmth without firmness.

Remember our one-dimensional line with warmth on the left and firmness on the right? In practice, if that is your mental model of parenting, you’ll end up becoming either authoritarian (firmness without warmth) or indulgent (warmth without firmness). The IV-II line describes the line of false choice—the world we often think we live in (see figure 1.5). It describes our default way of thinking about how the world works—at least when we are limited to a linear model.

Because neither authoritarian nor indulgent parenting produces healthy results, they tend to generate and reinforce one another. Grow up in an authoritarian home, and you may well react by being an overly indulgent parent. Grow up with indulgence, and you may well overcorrect toward strictness when your own children come along. Much of the dysfunction of our lives comes from oscillating along the line of the false choice, never seeing that there might be another way.

One other observation: There is one quadrant that really is the worst of all. It’s quadrant III (Absent), the quadrant of withdrawal and disengagement. Authoritarian parents may not meet their children’s need for affection, but at least they provide structure. Indulgent parents may not provide structure, but at least they create an environment of acceptance and affirmation. But absent parents leave two voids in their children’s lives, not just one. There’s something about the Absent quadrant that is uniquely damaging—the total opposite of the Kind quadrant.

You could sum it up this way: We tend to think that our lives have to be lived along the line of false choice, the IV-II line. But actually the deepest question of our lives is how to move further and further away from quadrant III (Absent) and more and more fully into quadrant I (Kind). The III-I axis is the one that matters the most—the one that leads from a life that is not worth living to the life that really is life. And that, in a nutshell, is what this book is about.

The Paradox of Jesus

No human being ever embodied flourishing more than Jesus of Nazareth. No human life (let alone death) ever unleashed more flourishing for others. And precisely for this reason, no other life brings the paradox of flourishing so clearly into focus. In the life of Jesus we see two distinct patterns that can seem impossible to reconcile.

On the one hand, consider the bookends of his life on earth. He was born an infant, utterly dependent like every other human being. He ended his life on a Roman cross, was buried and descended to the dead. One of Christianity’s oldest texts puts it this way:

“Though he was in the form of God, [he] did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross.” (Philippians 2:6-8)

On the other hand, there were Jesus’ three years of flourishing public ministry, the culture-making effects of which resound through history and throughout the world—the most consequential life ever lived. Christians believe that this very Son of Man and Son of God now sits at the right hand of the Father, truly the world’s Lord, and sends his Spirit of power to equip us to live his life in the world. To quote the very next line of that same ancient text: “Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name” (Philippians 2:9). Indeed, Jesus himself told his first followers that they would do even greater things than he himself had done (John 14:12).

But how can these two callings—to humility and to boldness, to death and to life, to submission to the worst the world can do and to reigning with Christ over the world—possibly coexist? What do they mean for those of us who have some scope of choice and action—those of us who have been granted privilege and power? What do they mean for those who live at the cruelest edges of the world, in settings of implacable injustice and oppression? Is there really any Christlike way to exercise leadership within our broken human institutions all the way up to (or down to) the church itself? What would be the specific practices we could adopt to live in ways that bear the true image and bring lasting flourishing?

How can these two callings—to humility and to boldness, to death and to life, to submission to the worst the world can do and to reigning with Christ over the world—possibly coexist?

We need a way to hold these two seemingly opposing facets of Jesus’ life, and our calling, together—a way to navigate this complexity without being overwhelmed. Which means we need a 2x2 chart, of course.

The Dimensions of Power

I’m sure you see it coming already—the two dimensions of Jesus’ life, his vulnerability in dependence and death on the one hand, his authority in his earthly ministry and his heavenly exaltation on the other hand, can easily start to seem like linear alternatives. Exaltation or humiliation? Ascension or crucifixion? Miracles of healing, deliverance and even resurrection, or, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” The empty tomb or the cross? The only way to hold them together is a 2x2 (see figure 1.6).

Some of us will instinctively identify with, or aspire to, the “vulnerability” dimension. Perhaps that is the reality of our lives—it is, eventually, the reality of every mortal life. It may be the reality of the community or family into which we were born, making us keenly aware of the limits of our power and the precariousness of our circumstances. Or we may aspire to identify with vulnerable people and places.

From those places and with those people, we look at Jesus and see vulnerability. Jesus identified with the vulnerable in his birth, life and death. Whether we identify with vulnerability or aspire to it, Jesus is there.