Jack Pelham

Some obsess over the future,
In a panic to know what will happen.

And some obsess over the present,
Beside themselves to understand
What’s going on.

I’ve been working on this title question for over 12 years, but I’ve never taken a stab at putting all the answers I’ve collected in one concise article until now. The goal of this article is to be brief, while also giving a wide-scoped treatment of the question. So here we go!

SCENARIO: Suppose someone is wrong over a matter of fact or logic or morality, and you have got the facts and logic and sourcing together to prove to them all day long that they’re wrong.

QUESTIONS: Why is it so often so very difficult to get people to correct themselves? That is, to say, “OK, I see I was wrong, and I’m changing my position.”? What is it about people that makes this difficult?

If you talk hard about this world’s need for truth telling―or better yet, if you do some telling of hard truths in the specific―it will likely not be long at all until some diligent churcher shows up to make the show-stopping observation that the scripture says, speaking the truth “in love“.

He may want to suggest, or at least insinuate, that whatever truth-telling you have been doing may well be disqualified―and ungodly, even―on account of its not being accompanied with enough love (the properly qualifying amount of love being determined by him, of course).

I’m sorry that I don’t have statistics for this, because I know that impressions can be inaccurate. Even so, it seems to me that I am detecting some important and troubling society trends that need the immediate attention of an increasingly inattentive society.

It is my impression that in my youth, there were a great many people here who could not only make a phone call to get directions, and write them down, but also follow them successfully to the destination, and then show up on time, ready to be a functioning part of whatever group was meeting.

Today, however, it seems increasingly rare to find a human who can successfully follow a hyperlink to your About page and read it for comprehension. Rather, they will message you with the questions that occur to them, but it does not occur to them that they should naturally need to know the general information you have written for all your customers to know.

Do NOT tell him the truth about himself!
Are you CRAZY???

It is the very monster from which he has been
Hiding all of these years.
And if YOU bring it up, just think
How unfair and cruel that is!

You owe it to him to be at least as diligent
In protecting him from the truth
As he is himself.

There he stands, recently disemboweled
By the razor-edge of your rhetorical question,
And all he can think of at this point
Is to insult your swordsmanship,
Demanding that a better fencer
Would elaborate.

They lean so hard on their surrogate certainties,
Putting their faith wherever they may
To keep at bay the vexing question―
That destroyer of worlds―
That unsettler of minds―
That upsetter of apple carts.

Somehow, he had gotten the idea
That he was using his own brain
To do his own processing
Of the things he would discuss.

It was his chiefest aim in life
To be like everyone else,
By which he most certainly did not mean
Those who are unlike everyone else,
But only those who are like everyone else.

Deep thinking is so uncommon in today’s churches that the one who is doing it will seem quite the misfit. The one trying to understand how all the Bible details were to fit together―the one trying to make sure the doctrines are right―the one who wants to mine the depths of God’s precepts and principles―the one trying to connect the dots between passages―the one willing to examine himself to see whether he is actually in the faith, and willing to examine the church institution in the same way―the one constantly asking questions of the texts and of his friends―this person will not long be welcome.