Is it the incessant push to have a take? Is it communications reduced to 280 characters? Is it political polarization pushed by algorithms driving us all into our respective echo chambers? How, I’m asking, do we account for our increasing inability to reason our way out of a paper sack? What is dumbing us so far down? I don’t know the answer but whatever it is, one of the ingredients is our foolish pride tempting us to believe we have all the answers. To put it another way, we are slow to listen, quick to speak and quick to become angry.
For instance, how many of you, I’m wondering, are reading along, shaking your head and laughing, thinking, “Yeah, what’s wrong with people? People are the worst.” Why are you laughing? I’m talking about you, and me, and even Paul Washer. This, like most problems, is an us problem more than a them problem. We jump to conclusions like champion hopping frogs. We refuse to listen like an ostrich with its head under ground. We reason with all the care of a neo-orthodox theologian visiting an ashram. We assign motives to our ideological foes with all the grace of something with very little grace.
It is always easy to descend into the mosh pit, to somehow reason that if we don’t get rid of reason like our opponents have we’re bound to lose the battle, forgetting that the battle is to hold on to reason. We do not win our enemies by being like them but by being like our Hero. Yes, there were plenty of moments when He answered fools according to their folly. And just as many where He did not. He is Wisdom incarnate. He also had a significant advantage we lack- He was without sin.
What we need then is to increase in humility. Not, you understand, by dissembling on what God has revealed. His Word is true. It’s all of us who are liars. We need to not be so quick to reform the arguments of others into something we have a ready answer for. We need to learn the informal fallacies not so we can embarrass others by pointing out when they commit them but so we can not embarrass Jesus when we commit them. We need to trade in our ready supplies of snark for the precious spice of grace.
Here’s a helpful resolution for the new year for every believer- I resolve in 2022 to reason more carefully, affirm more humbly, speak more slowly, listen more quickly in both the cybersphere and the real world. I resolve to be a part of the solution and when I fail I resolve to repent. I resolve to post as if Jesus is looking over my shoulder, because Jesus is looking over my shoulder. Let’s be careful in here. And remember, don’t do it to them when they do it to us.