Wet Fish

You would have thought that I had just belched my way through a “Hail Mary” the way the woman looked at me. I was a guest at the pastor’s house, having just recently preached in that far off shore. It was, I was told, the most Reformed, most conservative church on the whole of the island. We were conversing about something I thought perfectly innocuous. And in the course of the conversation I made some point with this illustration- “Well, when I, already owning a 9 millimeter semi-automatic rifle, wanted to buy an AR-15, I had explained to a friend why- ‘The AR-15 shoots bad guys, farther away.’” The pastor’s wife nearly choked on her mutton, the pastor turned red, and I followed suit. I had run, amongst English speaking, Westminster Confession affirming, middle class friends, smack into a cultural disconnect.

I tried to be loyal to my convictions, while remaining open to the possibility that I was the one wearing cultural blinders. To them guns were something only wicked people owned. To me, they were normal. Was it possible the disconnect was not grounded in their having been raised in soft socialism, but my having been raised in cowboy America? I turned the conversation away from guns to cultural disconnects. “Huh,” I said, “isn’t it interesting that despite all we have in common each of us have convictions that seem so natural, even so biblical to us, but that contradict? Big world, isn’t it?”

I made it out alive, but I suspect only because they weren’t armed. But I have never forgotten that feeling. Just how blinded are we to our own unexamined presuppositions? Is there a way out? Do we have any hope? There must be. It is, of course, the Word of God that is best equipped to pierce our presuppositions. If it can separate soul and spirit, surely it can separate me from the water in which I swim. It helps, of course, if by His grace I come to the Bible expecting to be confronted in my sin, to have my rationalizations exposed, my prejudices buffeted. I can misuse the Bible as a mirror to reflect my convictions, or rightly use it as a mirror to expose my flaws.

Reading widely and wisely outside the Bible can also help. CS Lewis, in his brilliant and brief essay, On the Reading of Old Books (found both in the collection of essays, God in the Dock and as the introduction to Athanasius’ On the Incarnation), argues that by reading books from other eras than our own we will likely be surprised to find the prejudices of that age, but happily may discover our own blind spots as well. Reading an occasional book from those who don’t share our core convictions may likewise have the same effect. That is not to say we should bury ourselves in the propaganda of the enemies of our Lord.

It all begins, however, with a proper humility and a proper boldness. We err, just like those with whom we disagree. We are, after all, the those with whom they disagree. We ought to not only acknowledge the possibility of error in our thinking, but its reality, and so ought to be actively seeking it out. Proper boldness, however, means we do not compromise nor negotiate the Word of God. It is true that all men are liars. But let God be true. Let’s pray that God would make us a more deliberate people, willing to examine what we have built, but resting in the foundation He has laid.