I listened to a group discussion on a Bible podcast, regarding this or that controversial doctrine that the group is studying. And as they were each talking about whether they find the doctrine convincing, it was very instructive to notice their methods of thinking. I’m writing this short post now just to point out one of those methods, and what I see that’s wrong with it.
One of the participants said that she can see that the doctrine in question maybe has some merit, but that she was going to be darn sure to see it proven completely before she ever adopts such a controversial thing for herself.
So think about that. Reflect on it for a few minutes.
She’s saying that she believes one of the traditional views on that doctrinal question—and she’s not unwilling to change, but she thinks it’s worth being diligent with something like that, so as to prove it completely before she believes it for herself.
To that, I have this question for the lady: The particular view that you hold already regarding this point of doctrine—did you proved that completely before you believed it? Or did you, rather, pick it up by hearsay at church over the years, and found yourself accepting it as fact, without ever having done your own exhaustive study on the matter?
I strongly suspect that she did not conduct an exhaustive study on the matter. I say this from my own multi-decade church experience, where I can see that I accepted many things without exhaustive study, simply because they seemed to make good enough sense at the time, and I had no good reason (as far as I was aware) to doubt them.
So what may be in play here is a double standard that goes something like this:
“If you ask me to believe something new, I’m going to need to see it fully vetted first, but what I already believe needs no vetting.”
This first part:
“If you ask me to believe something new, I’m going to need to see it fully vetted first,”
…sounds really diligent and responsible. But the second—which some might hesitate to admit out loud:
“…but what I already believe needs no vetting.”
…may not sound so good. Yet if it were called into question, it may well be handled quite conveniently with some hand-waving sentiment about how the matter is well-proven by the orthodoxy of “the church”, and how it is a “time-honored” practice or belief, etc.
Where it falls apart, however, is when you request: “Show me your own exhaustive research in vetting the question for yourself.”
This is where we can begin to see (if we’re willing) just what a hearsay culture our churches tend to be. We might like the idea of being diligent in study and intellectually honest about such things, but in normal practice, our church culture can actually fall quite short of those ideals.
And that’s what I think the lady was doing in this discussion—though I doubt she realized she was doing it. She was applying a double standard: High diligence for accepting anything new, and no diligence for maintaining anything that’s already in my traditions.
We’ve all done this, myself included. But what if we didn’t? What if we were more diligent and intellectually honest than that? It might just make us into better people than we sometimes are!
