Competing embedded theologies

Ted Grimsrud—September 23, 2025

In these posts, I wrestle with why so many Americans, including so many Christians, have such an uncritical attitude about the violent behavior of our country. Uncritical acceptance of a deep-seated warism flies in the face of the peaceable values most Americans and just about all Christians understand themselves to have. How can this be? To address this question, I reflect on my own life, especially my transition from an American patriot to an antiwar pacifist. I have focused on what I call the “embedded theology” of uncritical acceptance that I grew up. As I grew, though, I also absorbed a different kind of embedded theology that made my transition to a pacifist possible. This different embedded theology played an even more decisive role in the evolution of my convictions than the patriotic embedded theology. However, while I find the patriotic embedded theology difficult to name in clear ways, I find this different kind of embedded theology even more difficult to bring to the surface. I attempt to do that in this post.

Looking for a sense of coherence

When I first became a Christian, I sought to make sense of life. The Christianity I initially embraced offered a coherent worldview but ended up being at odds with what I actually sought. I took several years to figure that out. Even as I realized I needed a different kind of Christianity; I still needed more time to put the pieces together. The catalyst for the shift had to do with war and peace. However, that I could make the shift and that I make it quickly and free from trauma had mostly to do with the general orientation toward life provided by what I will call my familial embedded theology (distinct from the societal embedded theology I discussed in previous posts).

My new orientation became quite distinct from and, in time, antagonistic toward my old one. The way the transition happened—and its continued viability for me—makes me believe that all along I did not actually care that much about the certainty offered by fundamentalist Christianity. Rather, I sought the coherence that only an embrace of our essential human connectedness and love-centeredness offers. It just took some time for me to figure this out.

Growing up in the US during the 1950s and 1960s, I experienced the embedded theology of uncritical nationalism as pervasive. However, when it hit turbulence during the Vietnam War era, I readily replaced it. Something more basic to the way of being in the world that I got from my family took its place. As revised and applied through my new learnings and experiences, this different embedded theology actually provided the kind of coherence I sought.

“Think for yourself”

I want to reflect in this post on the “different kind of embedded theology” that shaped my life. This different theology differed from what I received from my surrounding society about what matters most in life and offers meaning and a sense of security. This “familial embedded theology” had at its heart an affirmation of my value and my competence to manage my own life.

My parents encouraged me to think for myself. They respected my decisions about what to value. My parents did not give me advice very often or push me to do what they wanted to do. No one actually encouraged me to read and to be interested in big ideas, philosophy and theology. But we had books around; everyone in the family read regularly. I do not know where my interest in theology came from, since no one else cared about that. I freely followed my own interests. I never felt restricted or anxious about what I thought or said or read or listened to.

My parents gave me space to “learn valuable lessons” when I acted irresponsibly. For example, I once spent too much time in the sun during the day before a baseball game, played terribly, and lost the game. Another time I missed the bookmobile that came to our remote village every three weeks because I wasn’t paying attention to the time. We humorously kept track of these various “lessons.”

I do not ever remember anyone overtly telling me to think for myself, but it just seemed natural that I would. I could always feel free to disagree with them or other authority figures. I generally acted respectfully toward people in authority, but I never felt reluctance to disagree. At the beginning of second grade, my new teacher asked me if I wanted to be called “Teddy” or “Ted.” I had never before imagined being “Ted,” but I liked the sound of it. It seemed more mature. So, when I said “Ted,” she said okay. I told my family that night and from then on everyone called me “Ted.” It was my decision, and they honored it.

I always felt accepted and valued. My family encouraged to take up space in the world. I believed that my life mattered. While I certainly had scraps with my sisters and my friends, the conflicts soon ended, and relationships continued. I felt that I had quite a bit of power in my decisions about what to do and how to think. I experienced power not simply as a matter of top-down coercion, but something shared with others and something generated from within myself.

I would always say I felt loved, and I understood love to be central to human existence. This sense became crucial for me when I began to question my blank check nationalism. I very quickly realized that the love I grew up with actually carried with it an implication that had never been articulated. To say that I deserve to be loved would be to say that everyone deserves to be loved. War blatantly contradicts that truth. Here is where the fundamental contradiction of my early life (and of the American Empire itself) may be found: Love is real, love is true, but it must be for everyone. Warism simply could not be compatible with the centrality of love.

Learning through conflict and defeat

I participated intensely in sports throughout my youth. Competition was great fun, and very important. I loved to win and tried very hard to do so. I worked hard to improve and my connections with my teammates brought a lot of joy. Still, just about every season ended with painful losses. Even at the time, I recognized that losing was part of life and that being able to handle losses was an important lesson to learn. I usually avoided letting areas of disagreements define my relationships with friends. I felt comfortable to disagree and not let the differences overshadow the bases for the friendships. Even during my years as a fundamentalist Christian, I sustained friendships with people who did not share those sensibilities.

If I had to boil down the overall message of the familial embedded theology that shaped my general sensibility as a young person, it would be to place the highest priority on being a good person. Neither of my parents would overtly have stated that. As much as anything, they simply modeled it. “Being a good person” meant to care about others, to treat vulnerable people well, to be truthful, and non-exploitative of nature. Try to be kind and respectful. Share credit when good things happen. Don’t avoid blame when bad things happen. Don’t take oneself too seriously. Be generous when you can and accept the generosity of others when they share.

I certainly did not always succeed at being a good person. I have a few shameful memories of doing hurtful things to others. In each case, though (as far as I remember), I felt immediate regret. I was rarely courageous enough to take overt action to rectify what I had done. But I would learn from what had happened and try harder (usually successfully) in the future not to act in hurtful ways. I think I was a “bridge person.” It was typical that various ones of my friends would dislike others of my friends. It was also typical that I would be friends with kids who did not have many other friends.

The impact of the “familial embedded theology”

It seems that my way of living that I mostly absorbed from my family set me up for the shift of consciousness that I experienced as a young adult. I heard nothing of pacifism as I grew up, and in the few years after I became a Christian no one ever made the connection for me between the life and teaching of Jesus and convictions about opposing war. So, I needed some kind of intellectual catalyst to take the step of becoming a pacifist. Still, I now believe that the familial embedded theology that shaped me in my growing up years set me up for that shift and for my rejection of blank check nationalism.

I knew I should think for myself and decide for myself. I naturally tended to be suspicious of authority. These factors help explain why I would not have been attracted to attending one of the military academies for college, seeking an ROTC scholarship, or considering a perk-laden set of incentives to enlist. I simply did not feel disposed for a military life. Such inclinations would not necessarily have led to pacifism, but they certainly would have opened the door to that possibility. I had no sense of an attraction to being in the military that might stand in the way of the emergence of the conviction against war as always wrong.

I rarely perceived other people as enemies or accepted that the only way to deal with conflict would be to use violence. I eagerly expressed friendliness even with adversaries. I recognized the importance of developing a sense of restraint and a hope for reconciliation in face of conflicts. I found it relatively easy to perceive that military actions contradicted the values that I had cultivated as I grew up and acquired through my experiences of conflict and anger.

Though I did not receive overt encouragement to pursue philosophical or theological interests, I seem to have had an innate curiosity about the big questions. That curiosity remained dormant for most of my growing up years but sat ready to be activated when I encountered issues and conversations. At the same time, I had a general sense of love as the central thing for how we humans best relate to each other. I did not have direct exposure to people who tried to bring together convictions about love and interest in philosophy and theology. I was ready without realizing it, though, to make the connection at the right time in my life.

When I went to college, my familial embedded theology remained present. Yet, the societal embedded theology shaped my more surface-level awareness and pushed me to accept the general warist dynamisms of American culture. The blank check nationalism made me willing to go to war. I did not even consider the possibility of saying no as I registered for the draft and awaited my possible induction. Fortuitously for me, that induction day never came. If it had, the story of my life would have unfolded much differently.

My turn toward Christian faith shaped my consciousness a great deal. My initial learnings from my immersion in Christian fundamentalism pushed me to double down on the blank check nationalism I grew up with—and to repress the humane sensibility of my familial embedded theology. Somehow, though, I never felt at home with the warist kind of orientation, though for those several years I certainly wanted to.

Leaving home and going to college tested the perspectives on life I had absorbed—familial embedded theology, societal embedded theology, and the convictions of fundamentalist Christianity. I did not feel dissatisfied with the orientation toward life that I had nor did I desperately seek answers. In fact, to my chagrin as I think back, I felt complacent. But the perspective I took into college did not actually work all that well for me. I wanted something that made more sense and that linked in more closely with the ideals and hopes I had. Before I reached my 23^rd birthday, the major changes that determined the direction of the rest of my life had fallen into place, and I embarked on a long journey as a Christian pacifist in the American Empire. I will describe that journey in posts to come.

[This is the seventh of a long series of blog posts, “A Christian pacifist in the American Empire” (this link takes you to the series homepage). The sixth post in the series, “Fundamentalism and warism,” may be found by clicking on this link. The eighth post, “How does one step away from warism?” may be found by clicking on this link.]