Seeking Comfort and Convenience (Character Issues 3)

We become unwise when comfort and convenience are our primary guides.

I like being comfortable, and I appreciate convenience, but our drive for comfort and convenience is devastating the fabric of our culture and the environment around us, and we are oblivious to its work.

We fight the ills of society one by one. We try to save babies from abortion. We try to keep useful resources from the landfill. We try to save energy, so we have enough to go around. We try to urge our government to balance its budget. These are all noble endeavors and good to do, but none of these issues is the fundamental problem. Instead, these are all symptoms of our insatiable desire for comfort and convenience.

Our desire for comfort and convenience drives us to ignore the future and make short-term decisions that have long-term consequences. Aborting babies is convenient, but it can leave emotional scars. It is convenient to have disposable plates, forks, containers, towels, but we have finite God-given resources in the Earth, and someday resources will run out whether it is for our children or grandchildren or great-grandchildren. The energy we gorge on provides terrific comfort and conveniences that we love, but we also must admit that we in the world are consuming energy unsustainably fast, and in the west, we consume more than our share. Our fiscal policy in America is IMHO a train wreck. We as a country are so addicted to comfort and convenience that we willing to saddle our children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren with enormous debt rather than live within our means.

Why must everything be so convenient and comfortable? How did we as a society get addicted to it? We are laser focused on the almighty Me. We are addicted to production to create more value in the world to enrich ourselves. But those riches do not produce the happiness we expect, because real joy is not a function of riches. Secondly, we are addicted to leisure. As a society, we are flat out lazy. But we were made to work. God, who created us, is a creative being who makes beauty out of nothing. He wants us to do the same through work. The work God planned for us is invigorating and life-giving. It strengthens us as it tests and stretches us.

So how do we get out of this spiral of comfort and convenience addiction?

Our first step is to begin moving our motivation from comfort and convenience to sustainability and stewardship (being a good manager of the gifts we have been given). We need to find ways to live, which reflects God’s design for work, and are sustainable for the next 100 years and beyond. We need to recognize that we are the stewards of this third rock from the Sun. We are so used to comfort and convenience in the West, we can’t even recognize them any more and take all things for granted. Occasionally, intentionally do something the inconvenient old fashioned way. We must think beyond our noses, and consider the long-term results of everything we do, and when we lose the focus on comfort and convenience, we will find joy we did not expect and satisfaction that once alluded us. 

Confirmation Bias (Character Issues #2)

Confirmation Bias

Character Issues Blog #2

One of the fascinating things about humanity is our tendency toward confirmation bias. According to the all-knowing one, Siri, confirmation bias is the tendency to interpret new evidence as confirmation of one’s existing beliefs or theories. It is that tendency (even if unintentional) to hear five facts and only listen to the two facts that support our position. It relates to our tendency to make a decision based on our emotions and then find facts that show the decision was good. In the spiritual world, it is the tendency to believe a particular theology and then go to the Bible to find support for our belief.

An example from politics is from the Obamacare debates. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said of the Affordable Care Act, in 2010: But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.” Taken out of context, this was fodder for the Republicans showing the incompetence of the Democrats. However, when reading the entire context of the speech, you realize that the sound bite taken by itself did not represent what Pelosi intended.

An example from Christianity is the Westboro Baptist Church. This church which protests in hostile and painful ways would be considered extremist by the vast majority of Christians, can easily support its theology using the Bible. They look for what they want to see.

We see the same in the debate over homosexuality in the Christian church. Those on all sides of the issue support their position from the Bible. How can one book tell multiple stories? It is because we all find what supports our beliefs, and ignore what challenges them.

Does anyone remember the DC Sniper? Someone how it got reported that the getaway vehicle was a white van. As soon as that was released, we saw white vans everywhere.

We see confirmation bias throughout race relations. We think that “white people are this” or “black people are that” or “Asians are so and so.” Then we look around and are biased toward evidence that proves us right while ignoring everything that challenges our stereotype, and then feel justified in our belief.

There is a beautiful part of the scientific method explicitly designed to combat this confirmation bias in humans, and it is useful in every part of our lives. Once you have a theory about something, it is your job as a scientist to do everything in your power to DISPROVE it. If you seek evidence to prove your theory, you will find it. Instead, do everything you can to DISPROVE your theory, and if after exhausting all efforts to prove yourself wrong, then humbly suggest you may be right.

But what’s the point? Good science and sound logic and right human relations require us to recognize confirmation bias in ourselves and make better judgments. To do so, we must be vigilantly intentional about looking for confirmation bias in ourselves and choosing to accept all data and not just that which supports our belief. We must listen to the people we [currently?] disagree with, the people outside our tribe, to get all the facts. In politics, we can hear the person on the other side of the aisle. In Christianity, it’s good to listen to all opinions inside the church, and even outside, as we seek Jesus’ truth. In our families, we can get the whole picture before jumping to conclusions. In the significant issues of our day like race relations, gun control, global warming, and immigration we can listen to information from all sides before making judgments on what is right. The list goes on and on.

Begin to see confirmation bias in ourselves and begin to make better judgments by intentionally considering all the evidence, not just what supports our initial belief.

Another Pilgrim's Progress

When Christians go to church, we are often “Fine” and “To blessed to be depressed.” But if most are anything like me, underneath those platitudes are hidden real faith journeys that are messy and scary at times. My faith journey has been much more of an adventure than I expected or even let on.

No Faith Years (0-11)

From birth to 11, my family was religious but not genuinely Christian. We went to church regularly, but it was not out of sincere devotion. It was more out of habit, responsibility, and desire for community.

Parent’s Faith Years (11-13)

Around 11 my parents dedicated their lives to Jesus and told the rest of our family about Jesus, and we jumped on that ship. For the next few years, I followed Jesus as an extension of my parent’s faith. We became active in a church that was very focused on Jesus and tried to follow Him according to the Bible. It was enough that my parents told me what to believe.

My Youth Group Faith Years (14-17)

Then somewhere around 13 or 14, there was an unimpressive yet significant turning point in my life. I read the Bible that day and realized that what the preachers and teachers said at church was actually in the Bible. That simple connecting of the dots helped me turn a corner and make faith my own rather than my parent’s. I believed there was something in following Jesus that was true and advantageous to me individually. Our church had a fantastic youth group (another story) and surrounded by other Christian youth, my faith grew. Positive peer pressure was positively helpful to keep me on the straight and narrow.

Sincere, Naive Faith (18-40)

However, youth group faith is a distinct time that changes after high school graduation. It’s not that youth group faith is less in any way, it’s just not always challenged and purified through testing. In my case, I did not leave the faith even temporarily after high school, as many do. However, my faith did change as I became an adult. During this time I was whole hog for following Jesus and serving him in my church. I was a loyal soldier and did not ask hard questions. I taught classes, led small groups, went on mission trips, was a church board member and even married a girl I met at church. I was something of a poster child, er poster adult for the Christian church.

Questioning Faith (40+)

We have a family favorite vacation destination called Sandy Cove. It is an excellent place to go for summer family camp. One year there was a man named Richard Dahlstrom speaking. I loved his insight, and wanted to read his book, O2: Breathing New Life into Faith. The book was great, and there was one story that I will never forget. Richard had gone to Germany to preach and help. They did church work all day, and he was very encouraged by this. But then night came, and even the sweet, older ladies began throwing down beers. This revelation greatly shocked Richard’s American Church Theology. But after soul searching, he decided that other people could be Christian and drink beer, an idea that was strange to me. I lived the story vicariously through Richard. It was the first time I had ever considered that something part of my local church, or the American Church, could be cultural and not part of universal Christian Truth. That idea really surprised me, and it released me, for good or ill, to explore many aspects of Christianity. I began to ask questions I would never ask before, and I read books from Christian dissidents that love the Church, but have ideas about things we can do better.

This freedom compelled me to ask: What in my beliefs were cultural and not universal for all Christians? Was there anything I believed that could be wrong? Why and what do other Christians think differently than me? Is the church doing anything dumb? Why do Christians seem to have a bad rap?

All of this shook my faith. Things that I always accepted out of hand, I questioned. I walked a scary road. I was afraid to keep pulling on these strings, fearful of what I would find, and afraid not authentically to pull strings. I feared to lose the comfortable community I loved.

Part of the problem was that I did not recognize the difference between personal and cultural Christian preferences and the fundamental truths in scripture. So when I began to question these preferences, which is okay, I thought I was questioning the fundamental truths of Christianity. I found that I had to intentionally separate the fundamental Christian truths and the cultural preferences .

In the end, I did lose quite a bit of my American faith, letting go of or holding loosely to Christian cultural, preferential, and peripheral issues. What remained was refined and pure. It was brick-like so that while my faith included less and was more skeptical, it was indeed better. In the end, I held onto two foundations of faith. God created the world, and Jesus came to the world to save it. These two beliefs sustain me, and everything else in my faith rests on them.

My faith journey was scary at times, but I believe God was there. I think I was more scared of hard questions than He was. I feel like God has allowed some things in my theology to burn up so I could understand what genuinely foundational Truth is. I pray that your faith journey will bring you to a place of deep trust in Jesus.