The last couple of days, work took me to the Seattle Immigration Court and the Otay Mesa Detention Center, which means I traveled most of I-5, just not all at once.
There was something strange about exiting I-5 for the Sacramento airport, flying to Seattle, and then getting back onto the exact same highway almost 700 miles north, continuing the journey as if time had folded.
Same highway. Same direction. Just eight hours sooner.
It makes you realize how connected everything really is.
And, funny enough, today I drove all the way down to the southern end of I-5, where I came face-to-face with the sign:
NO RETURN TO USA AFTER THIS POINT
Same highway again. This time hundreds of miles away from home, in the opposite direction.
One boulevard. Two flags. A no-return warning.
It reminded me of Chuy and the Uruguay-Brazil border, where a street can divide two countries without ever feeling like it divides one community.
And there, somewhere in the middle of those 1,200 miles, is home.
Maybe that is the perfect illustration of the distance that misalignment often produces in circles where certainty is performed, conformity is demanded, and inquiry is treated as a public enemy.
The road may be the same. The people may even believe they are traveling in the same direction. But one honest question can suddenly place you hundreds of miles apart.
For decades, I was what I now consider an indoctrinator.
I believed I knew what others needed to hear, and I was willing to impart the relevant concepts so they could acquire the knowledge I possessed through some form of unfalsifiable revelational epistemology.
I was a label maker.
I would assess how close your worldview was to what I considered revealed truth, and then I would name it, evaluate it, criticize it, and label it.
You were a moral relativist. Your soteriology was deficient. Your eschatology did not align with the objectives I believed Christians ought to pursue to bring order out of chaos.
I was very good at labels.
Maybe I encountered many a NO RETURN AFTER THIS POINT sign. But I ignored a few of them, laughed at most of them, and never stopped to wonder whether any of those warnings had a role to play in my personal development or in my work as a theologian.
Today, from the other side of the fence, I see an acute distinction between an educator and an indoctrinator.
Many institutions sanitize that distinction by describing themselves as "discipleship-minded." They require every faculty member to subscribe to the same positions on an extensive list of topics to ensure that those positions are communicated effectively to the student body.
But those of us who have lived on both sides of the fence can see through it. Those of us who were taught to think critically can recognize when things begin failing the sniff test.
So how do you spot an indoctrinator?
The clearest difference between an educator and an indoctrinator is not the possession of convictions. It is what happens when those convictions are questioned.
The indoctrinator needs to remain in control. He avoids the subjects on which his argument collapses and, at all costs, prevents competing arguments from gaining traction. This is why indoctrinators become so skilled at strawmen, selective evidence, and half-truths.
And, unsurprisingly, narcissistic personalities can thrive in spiritual systems that combine moral authority, public admiration, divine validation, and very little meaningful accountability (blink twice if you need help, wives. We understand).
If you find yourself concealing valid arguments, silencing people, or hiding behind half-truths rather than searching for the "most true answer," you are probably functioning as an indoctrinator. Or even worse... an indoctrinatist (yes, making up words is fair game).
On the other hand, if you are more willing to share your doubts than advertise your certainties, if you look around the table and see diversity of thought and socioeconomic status, and if you empower others to think rather than merely follow, then you may be an educator.
Those people are rare.
They tend to leave indoctrination stations behind.
And, ironically, the moment they cross that no-return point, they are usually the ones who get labeled.