Shallow Conviction - More Wisdom from “Numb3rs”
While by no means as profound as the previous quote (Part 1 & 2), a Numb3rs rerun had another quote from my favourite character, Dr. Larry Fleinhardt (Peter MacNicol):
“To hold to one assumption and to exclude any and all contradictory data- that isn’t science. That’s politics.”
With a little tweaking, this sentence stands out to me as being very poigniant:
“To hold to one perspective of belief and to exclude any and all possibilities- that isn’t theology. That’s politics.”
While not in any way promoting relativism, as I waveringly affirm absolute truth, this insight speaks powerfully the nature and force of Christian influence on the culture in respect to our beliefs. Along with the earlier quote about theology being discovery not invention, some of the worst of our “inventions” of late (and historically for that matter) have been political.
Recently, I heard a sermon that reflect this kind of shallow and dangerous abuse of narrow belief system. The pastor’s failure to see his blatant self-contradicting arguements exposed a kind of theological optimistic bias (with the near comical irony of an impassioned comparison of Hitler’s anti-semitism with EVERY Muslim followed by a chorus of “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God).
As Christians, while we are to hold our beliefs with conviction, have we gone so far in the details as to be closed to the possibility of new perspective? Will we fail to be understand the nature and character of God by confusion ignorant confidence with absolute truth?
Missional Beliefs Optimism Bias Politics Numb3rs
