Well-Informed People

Yes, the title is sarcastic.

I don't listen to Howard Stern as a rule. I found this YouTube radio clip on Voddie Baucham's blog. When you hear the way the interviews go, think about all the interviews you see on the news or hear on the radio, or even hear at work or the public square. The people being interviewed here are clearly ignorant and they are likely not even aware of their own motives. Do the people you most respect have it all together? Do you? Feel free to even take what the "experts" say with a grain chunk block of salt.

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The thing I observe is that these people all sound rather earnest and confident in what they think they know. The fact is, we are all woefully ignorant and fall far short of having the noodles to accurately make the decisions we need to make with the certainty we often make them.

My pastor, Skip Cartin, made the point in yesterday's sermon that we shouldn't trust smart people; after all, smart people created this economic mess we're in. A few breaths later he criticized anti-intellectualism in the church. Unless I misunderstood him, his point is not that intellect is unimportant or useless altogether, but that it requires true wisdom, or trust in God, to be truly fruitful in Christ.

I would argue that a certain lack of cognitive function is helpful because if any of us had a melon full of seeds, we would get the idea that we didn't need to trust God. Our cofidence would be in ourselves rather than God. Furthermore, while self-confidence in our cogitations is elusive if we have too much doubt, then we will be immobilized from using what we do know. Therefore, don't judge the people in the radio clip too harshly.

I dare say that the great leaders among us are some of the best-informed and most confident yet are only moderately intelligent and often unaware that the world is much larger than their perception of it. There are typically multiple solutions to any given temporal problem and good leaders are generally oblivious to the fact that their solution is not the only one.

As it is, be aware that the people you trust, including yourself, are rowing along with only one oar in the water, and that's okay as long they trust Christ.

Religious Discrimination

I wonder if much of religious discrimination isn't simply ignorance. There's an article about a Christian hospital chaplain that was fired for praying in the name of Jesus in a prayer for non-Christians. The hospital issued this statement:

"It would be very appropriate to say Jesus' name in the presence of a Christian family. That's no problem. What must be understood is knowing the audience and what is appropriate for that particular situation."

Where's the ignorance? Answer - anyone who prays earnestly realizes that his "audience" is God. To be consistent as a chaplain that adheres to a particular faith, the chaplain cannot offer a prayer to any God other than the one with whom he has a relationship.

This begs the question - do Christians, Muslims, Jews, etc. all believe in the same God? Some would argue yes - some, no. To be sure we do not believe the same things about God. To be further sure, not all Muslims believe precisely the same things about Allah, Christians do not all believe precisely the same things about God and Jews do not all believe precisely the same things about God. There are some things that one should be able to point to in general and say that Christians must all believe these things about God. The same with Muslims or Jews - or any other religion for that matter. The question is a little too simplistic for this reason.

The temptation , therefore, is to relativise our understanding of what we believe. In other words, we might wish to gloss over the complexity of the issue by personalizing belief. It's a false magic wand that stems from the motivation that we don't want to tick anyone off by trying to discover a truth that others might not want to believe.

The ignorance is one in which people like the hospital leadership cannot tolerate someone who actually believes that when they pray, God listens. It behooves such a one, therefore, to learn about a God who listens. Secular psychologists may tell us that the ooey-gooey feelings one gets from hearing a prayer offered to the God they know encourages the mind to cooperate with the healing of the body. Nevertheless, true ministers of God recognize that the One who created us is the One who can heal us. Ooey-gooey feelings built on anything but solid Truth will eventually fail.