The Indispensable Imperative of Virtue

Posted on December 11, 2021 by steve.ignell

“Most people say that it is the intellect which makes a great scientist. They are wrong: it is character” – Albert Einstein

So begins the opening line of a leadership paper a former colleague Doug DeMaster and I wrote a few years back. I was privileged to work under Doug, first as a scientist and then as his Deputy managing a regional science enterprise. Doug was one of the brightest lights within the organization.  Smart, highly respected, accomplished, wise, and virtuous.  My resume was much more modest, but I was also the “core values” guy and when Doug needed that sort of person to help him lead the Center, I got the job.

Our leadership responsibilities were, at times, national in scope through membership on national leadership and policy councils.  There we saw first-hand the good, bad, and the ugly of leadership execution across diverse agencies and regions.  In our judgement, many of the Agency problems appeared to be foundational, stemming from deficiencies in leadership values. Solutions too often attacked the symptoms rather than root causes.  Hence the symptoms would invariably persist, likely to surface again like a game of whack-a-mole. 

We found that organizational excellence depended on the character of its leadership and that Einstein’s character insight applied to science organizations too.  We saw character as foundational to healthy organizations through virtuous leaders who practice what they preach. We further believed that leadership excellence was best expressed through “servant leadership”, as demonstrated through a leader’s ability to listen, empower, and develop staff in a manner marked by integrity, humility and authenticity. That the task of a leader was a moral endeavor as much as a scientific endeavor where character and virtue became indispensable to the mission.

Moral Man, Immoral Society

Moral reasoning and belief however, as I wrote in my previous blog post, can be tricky business.  Jonathan Haidt, the author of moral foundation theory, sees it as a two-edged sword, able to bring both good and harm: “Morality binds people into groups. It gives us tribalism, it gives us genocide, war, and politics. But it also gives us heroism, altruism, and sainthood.”

Garrett and Bankert in their paper “the Moral Roots of Partisan Division: How Moral Conviction Heightens Affective Polarization,” show how partisanship and moralization feed off of on another.  We know that strong partisans will seek out information that cast their party in a most favorable light. This motivated reasoning stems from a “soldier mindset” where accuracy is no longer the main goal. 

Yet the more people moralize about politics, the more partisan bias, distance, and animosity they exhibit.  And the stronger the moralization the more one-sided people become in their partisan and ideological division. Such moralizing even trumps partisan strength as a driving force behind anger, incivility, and antagonism towards the opposing side.  It intensifies affective polarization and an increased perception of social anomie with its attending call for authoritarian and strong leaders.  

Are Morals Then the Problem?

From coast to coast throughout America, virtue is alive and well, witnessed through the goodness of neighbors and family. This practice of virtue has been seen as essential for human flourishing across the landscape of human history. Virtue in the ancient Japanese Bushidō code was marked by righteousness, courage, benevolence, respect, honesty, honor, loyalty, filial piety, wisdom and care of the aged.  Aristotle’s four classic cardinal virtues were temperance, prudence, courage, and justice. Early Christian church fathers then added faith, hope and love to make up the Seven Christian Virtues.  The Christian faith lists the Fruit of the Spirit – the outward behavioral evidence of an inner transformation – which is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

Good character depends upon a range of virtues, not just one or two.  Sins of omission can lead to profound sins of commission when our moral codes are incomplete.  Even the Sicilian Mafia lives by a moral code which emphasizes respect, loyalty, honor, and fidelity: “anyone who behaves badly and doesn’t hold to moral values” are no longer welcome in their organization. But their moral code is woefully incomplete, lacking essential virtues needed for human flourishing.

The problem in America, like in the case of the Cosa Nostra, isn’t because morals aren’t valued.  The problem in America arises from incomplete virtues, especially within the public square. The goodness we experience in everyday life gets transformed through our partisan battles.  It creates a new worldview of us against them that reshapes our inner self.  We become affectively polarized from a partisan dislike that surpasses all other affections. The culture war amplifies those sensibilities through the outrage and fear it inspires.  Then cancel culture sets in, but only after we cancel the goodness within us. 

Andrew Sullivan the conservative iconoclast, who alternatively triggers and affirms both partisan sides, recently said: “The American Constitution was set up for people who can reason and argue and aren’t afraid of it, and then reach compromises, the whole thing is designed that way.” “If you’re in a tribe, and all that matters is the victory of your tribe…You can’t make it work.” “We’re flying from reality. We’re inventing abstractions and ideologies. We’re fighting each other. We’re demonizing each other. The system can still work. It’s we who are broken.” 

The Full Gospel Priority of Othropraxis and Orthopathy

Our identity must be in Christ and our calling is to love the other.  This calling, the injunction to act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with our God, has no higher priority as we “are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works.” As we conform to His Image through abiding in Him, the Fruit of the Spirit shows up. And it’s our Christian practice (orthopraxis) informed by our attitudes (orthopathy) that tells who we truly are.   

But there is a disconnect within the church today that diminishes the power of the gospel. In our relentless pursuit of so-called “Christian Values,” a pernicious and confrontational mindset can set in. The fruit of that witness is often an incomplete set of values, neglecting Christ’s “weightier aspects of the law.” And even those some of those values may be truly biblical in doctrine, but they lose gospel virtue when they are brandished around like a righteous sword.  It leads to loss of orthopraxy turned harmful, yielding a moral code that’s woefully incomplete. 

My former pastor Steve Pecota once said: “Our opinions, especially our theological opinions, are important. But orthodoxy at the cost of lost orthopraxy will always imply a diminishment of the gospel – the gospel is about more than right believing, as the Apostle James labored to make clear.” 

The church will continue to fall short of its calling until it embraces a full gospel witness.  Where Micah 6:8 and the Fruits of the Spirit God become as important as creedal orthodoxy.  Where the priority of orthopathy/orthopraxis and its faithful pursuit becomes a normative feature of the church.  And where our community of practice becomes patterned after Jesus who taught that how we live is an important as why we live. 

The Linkage between Undiminished Virtue and Truth

James 3:13-18: “Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom…the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness.”

The Fruits of the Spirit are a “tell all” story through its unmasking of our inner life.  They are the outward evidence of an inward transformation of “those who belong to Christ Jesus [and who] have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” This process of transformation touches every part of our lives including the trustworthiness of our assertions. 

Yet we can’t self-assess the depth of that transformation because someone else has to make this call. Hence the credibility of our insight, our wisdom, and our truth telling, as the apostle James has written, lies in a “fruit test” not graded by us. 

The “works of the flesh” are the other side of the coin, those “obvious” acts contrary to the Spirit.  The flesh and the Spirit are at odds in our life as St. Augustine many years ago observed: “Two wills were mine, old and new, of the flesh, of the spirit, each warring on the other, and between their dissonances was my soul disintegrating.”

We see this dissonance, this “warring on the other,” coursing through the church today. It’s always been a feature, a consequence of our fallen nature, until the culture war brought it to new levels. The widespread polarization and division within the church are two unholy outcomes of this war. Its apocalyptic message creates an upside world with many works of the flesh now functionally normative: e.g., hate [xenophobia], fighting [populism], obsession [affective polarization], competitive opposition [partisanship], conflict [outrage], selfishness [nativism], and group rivalry [tribalism].

The message of the cross and a culture war engagement are two incompatible faith choices.  In the heat of the battle as the culture war rages, the fruits of the spirit quietly fade away. And with the loss of those fruits comes a loss in our truth claims, and the rest, as the saying goes, is our present history. 

Postscript

The next and final post in this series will focus on how we get out the abyss that both America and the church finds itself in today. I don’t have all the answers, but there is a remnant who continue to be a 1 Tim 4:19 “example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity” type of person. We can learn from their lives which brings hope for a church willing to take seriously a Matthew 5:16 calling of: “You are like that illuminating light. Let your light shine everywhere you go, that you may illumine creation, so men and women everywhere may see your good actions…”

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Wide is the Gate and Broad is the Way

Posted on December 4, 2021 by steve.ignell

“We don’t collect news to inform us. We collect news to affirm us.”

– Frank Lutz, Republican pollster

Frank’s observation isn’t new, of course.  Centuries ago, Goethe said “each see in the world what is present in their heart.”  But it’s been a minority point of view until recently. The traditional model of truth held that true beliefs and true statements must actually correspond to how they relate to the world and whether they accurately describe that world. Accurate maps were the goal and a scout type mentality the norm.  Beliefs had to be justified (see previous blog post) and narrow was the path to that justification.

But then the world shifted and a new truth sheriff rode into town.  The world, they said, was too complicated.  Ordinary people didn’t have the time to sort through flawed journalism and find the truth.  People needed a shortcut, a more pragmatic approach to truth.  They said: find a trusted authority or just shoehorn into existing beliefs. Coherence is the goal, with trust leading the way. 

Lippman Dewey Debate

These two worldviews held a famous showdown at truth’s corral nearly a century ago.  On the one side was Walter Lippman who saw the complexity of knowledge, flaws in the media, and the penchant for stereotypes to be insurmountable. Instead, he asserted that “What each man does is based not on direct and certain knowledge but on pictures made by himself or given to him.”

Hence, one’s beliefs and actions arose from one’s values, said Lippman: “for the most part we do not first see, and then define, we define and then see.” We then naturally pick and choose our facts so that “what is alien will be rejected, what is different will fall upon unseeing eyes…sometimes consciously, more often without knowing it, we are impressed by those facts which fit our philosophy.”

On the other side was John Dewey who sided with centuries of tradition by asserting the power of reason and human observation to sort out complexities in facts and arguments.  He placed his faith in the power of process, that through civil and rational discourse, our posteriors could be aligned, bringing consensus through shared collective values.   

Note that both approaches depend upon trust.  Either in the applicability of a prior set of propositions often expressed through the views of a trusted ally, or in the achievability of objective judgment, where reality is knowable through an unprejudiced analysis of facts.  Both approaches involve judgement: one about our intuitions and preexisting beliefs and the other about the trustworthiness of evidence.  And both approaches involve choice: likeminded people or facts. 

Its hard work making decisions by weighing valid evidence, expert judgement, and accepted observations.  It’s much easier to rely upon trusted friends or authorities, especially given the explosion of information which makes discernment all the more difficult when traditional authorities are lacking.  With the media, institutions, and other long-standing guardrails of truth now presumed to be in error, truth becomes subjective and facts lose their mooring.  Instant judgements then take over arising from woven fabric of partisan attachments, social identities and familial ties. 

The Making of a Soldier

Phillip Tetlock calls this process of instant judgements intuitive epistemology where our intuitions determine what’s true.  We know by how we feel and those feelings are an outcome of our prior values and sensibilities.  As John Zaller once said, “every opinion is a marriage of information and predisposition” with our predispositions driving any conclusion about that information causing “the fragmentation of society into particularisms that command more loyalty than the center.”  Translation: we live in a post truth world, something the Oxford English Dictionary declared in 2016 given the triumph of emotion and personal belief over objective facts.

The world around us exerts a powerful influence.  Friends, trusted information sources, and political associations all rub off on us. They exert influence on our identity, values, and beliefs creating a particular worldview that serves as a foundation for what we know.  And the more we’re connected to them, the more our viewpoints become aligned and our predispositions formed. 

Marietta and Barker in a remarkable book called “One Nation, Two Realities” show through an integrated set of studies how our beliefs arise from these cultural associations.  Our differences of beliefs reflect differences in values rather than a difference in understandings or knowledge. We do this by projecting values onto our perception of facts and then encapsulate them through “critical thinking.” Education provides no corrective nor does fact checking make a difference. The outcome is a realignment in authority from a trust in traditional knowledge-generating institutions to a trust in any personal knowledge consistent with prior beliefs.  

We exchange “what is” for “what it ought to be” in our establishment of facts, from what we observe to what we want to see.  Our cognitive biases reinforce this exchange by giving selective attention and then selective acceptance to any evidence or arguments supporting our priors while reserving our skepticism to any evidence which challenges our priors.  At the back end of this process, a one-sided remembrance sharpens this selectively while the repeated telling of these selectively-driven stories sharpens it again.

Combining Galef and Tetlock’s language, we are intuitive politicians, scout-like within our groups, with a goal of building accurate maps. But our maps are less about truth than about the dynamics of our group so we can best advance our reputation and approval like soldiers.  Our desire to fit in creates a powerful incentive to conform as we find it more important to be accepted than correct. 

We become principled theologians where we instinctively protect sacred values from compromise or competing beliefs.  William James again, “the greatest empiricists among us are only empiricists on reflection; when left to their instincts, they dogmatize like popes.” It turns us into intuitive prosecutors, on the lookout for norm violators as we set boundaries of acceptable thinking.  We easily assign blame and assess penalties, seeing such prosecution as a virtuous upholding of the “social order.”

The world shrinks down into just two dimensions: us and them.  Populism sets in, pitting us as “we the people” against our judgement of a corrupt and self-serving “elite.”  A dichotomous worldview is formed defined by “we the good,” and “they the enemy.” Through such a highly divisive lens the world is seen, judged, and convicted.  It opens the door to conspiracy theories and extreme motivated reasoning through a play on people’s fears. And with historic institutions of societal truth, like experts, the media, or judiciary now the enemy of “the good,” it’s no wonder our societal foundations are failing.

Final Thoughts

Values are a two-edged sword. They act as an internal compass, providing direction in our lives.  They serve as beacons or lighthouses, to help us determine right from wrong. They can guide us toward civic virtue, mindful of what Martin Luther King once said: “This is a moral universe. It hinges on moral foundations. If we are to make of this a better world, we’ve got to go back and rediscover that precious values that we’ve left behind.” 

But watch out for when our intuitive prosecutor kicks in, on the prowl for those violating our moral code.  Especially when amplified through a culture war fueled by media-driven outrage where malice and distain become the norm.  It creates a binary world that turns us into soldiers with the goal of defending our team’s beliefs. And when you see yourself in a dualistic fight with the unholy Forces of Darkness, the first causality of that war is truth and the second causality our heart.  As James KA Smith once said: “It’s because our loves are informed by what we are devoted to and our devotions are drawn to the battle.”

I usually resist a “both sides” viewpoint as nuance matters and the world is seldom binary.  But our intuitive epistemology is truly a “both sides” phenomena and a growth area in recent years with the rise of cancel culture on both the left and right as well as within the Christian faith community. Time has vindicated Lippmann’s side in the debate and I’ll give him the last word.  For he clearly saw this post-factual world coming and feared it because of its logical outcome of intense polarization.  His statement 100 years ago when compared to our present time is eerily prescient: “He who denies either my moral judgments or my version of the facts is to me perverse, alien, dangerous.”

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Are Our Beliefs Warranted?

Posted on November 24, 2021 by steve.ignell

Ten years ago, we pulled up stakes and moved to the “lower 48.” It was hard leaving Alaska but easy to live in Seattle as we were closer to our children, to much of our family, and in a job I loved. Plus, there were roads to drive and places to go and we quickly became enthralled with exploring the Pacific Northwest with all its own outdoor options and beauty.

Flyfishing became a new outdoor activity, although truth be told, minimal harvesting has yet to take place.  Most areas are catch and release and since my primary objective is an outdoor experience, every outing is a win. There’s a ton to learn: the selection of gear, mechanics of casting, reading of the river, knowledge of the fish, the assessment of their food, and selecting the right fly.  It’s an all-encompassing journey of discovery as you develop a fisher’s mind through a continuous appetite for information.  Understanding is the goal – to develop an accurate picture of the behavior of fish on the particular river and day we are fishing.  Previous experience is helpful and general understanding useful.  But the mystery of nature never disappoints as there is always more to learn.

We can accelerate our learning through the help of skilled friends or an outing with a guide or even a diet of educational videos.  But the proof of the pudding comes through the test of experience with each river and day separate trials. I’m still a novice if I only meet success in high alpine lakes where starved fish will strike anything they see. But when there’s a repeatability of success over a wide variety of environments, I can then say my fly-fishing skills have been validated.

In my previous blog, drawing from Julia Galef’s book “The Scout Mindset,” I discussed how we are prone – its actually part of nature – to defend our beliefs and dismiss those we don’t.  She calls this tendency a “soldier” mindset where we rationalize what we believe and see what we want to see. What if instead, she asked, our goal was know what’s actually true through having a “scout” mindset?  Where we survey the territory to draw as accurate as a map as possible rather than defend one side over the other? 

Most people, like me, adopt a scout mindset when learning a new hobby. There’s rarely a set of prior narratives to shape our learning. That isn’t usually the case, however with our more cherished beliefs which touch society and politics.  Now our identity is on the line with much at stake to defend. 

There are exceptions to this rule and my friend Keith is one of those exceptions. Keith’s resume is long with a storied history as a business owner, mechanical engineer, and university professor. Plus, he has a graduate degree in theology with a specialty in philosophy and ethics (which he teaches).  The best part of Keith, though, is his gentle spirit that encompasses a sharp mind where you can always count on him to ask the right “scout-like” question. 

Following a series of off-line exchanges about one of my blogs, Keith sent me a brief but fascinating book that he thought would interest me.  We had been discussing Kahneman’s “Thinking Fast and Slow” and he thought Wolfe’s book “Epistemology: The Justification of Belief” would provide a new perspective for this discussion.

Wolfe says that we miss the mark when we seek to prove beliefs are true as it’s just impossible to prove we are right: “The crucial criticism of the belief system is not whether it involves faith, but if it can survive testing.”  And “only to the extent that a scheme remains open to continual testing is it able to display its credentials.  Protecting a scheme from criticism may neutralize any opposition but it also trivializes its truth claims.  Hence, only those belief systems which survive robust open criticism can be considered “warranted,” or validated. 

Wolfe further suggests that whether or not a belief is valid or “warranted” rests on the answers to four questions. Are our assertions based on a belief system that is: (1) consistently applied and hence free from contradiction, (2) internally coherent; and (3) comprehensive with respect to experience?  And finally, (4) is it congruent throughout that range of experience such that it better fits the data in terms of adequacy, precision than other belief systems?  Now that’s 100% in scout territory!

Here’s how this works.  An assertion or statement about the external world occurs within a larger interpretive picture of reality.  Truth claims always involve assumptions, some explicit but others implicit and left unsaid or even unknown.  We cannot prove our assertions are correct.  But we can test them and when we do, we’re really testing our interpretive schemes (from whence our assertions arise).  And if they are able to withstand robust and unfiltered criticism, we can then judge them to be warranted.

How to Make Sure Our Beliefs are Valid

Take my supportive view of the covid vaccine as an example.  I received the initial two doses back in January and February of 2021 and then received a booster in September. I eagerly accepted the vaccine because I saw it as a game changer through lowering my probability of: a) contracting the virus, b) serious illness resulting from any contraction should it still occur, and c) infecting others I encounter.  And all of this came with nearly a negligible risk to my own health as a male senior citizen.   

Many of my friends would disagree with me, holding contrarian views about the vaccine.  To them I would say the following.  My vaccine positive assertion occurs within a larger interpretative scheme marked by three conditions: (1) a profound and anchoring respect of science and its peer review process for warranting research findings; (2) a belief that the best available scientific judgement for an issue occurs through the integration of opinion from a wide range of subject matter experts grounded in peer-reviewed academic research; and (3) the identification of a limited number of trusted sources that have proved faithful to the previous two conditions and hence can be used as a reliable proxy for them.  (My doctor at UW Medicine is such a trusted source).

My interpretive scheme also includes three cautionary guardrails: a profound skepticism about our human tendency (including me!) to shoehorn data and information into preexisting stories while picking and choosing information to confirm those stories; a profound wariness about my groups to unwittingly shape my values and identity, and a moral obligation to put a thumb on the scale for actions that benefit others, faithfully affirming a “love-my-neighbor” ethic above which there is no law. 

So: (1) how does my interpretive scheme (whence my vaccine assertion arises) handle Wolfe’s four criteria for warrant and (2) how does my particular vaccine assertion deal with criticism from others with differing views?

My Interpretive Scheme – How I Judge Whether or Not Something is True

Over 2.6 million peer reviewed papers are published every year covering the gamut of issues from science to philosophy. Most papers expand our understandings about some aspect of our world.  Others challenge existing understandings or a commonly held paradigm.  Errors which escape the skepticism of peer review encounter the critique of other scientists in subsequent publications, establishing a consistent, coherent, and comprehensive process of “warranting” those understandings of our world.  And although erroneous paradigms or findings may persist for periods of time, new findings or a new generation of scientists arise to bring course corrections, restoring congruence between the data and scientific theory. 

To the extent that this peer-reviewed scientific process drives scientific expertise and institutional policy, these four dimensions of warrant persist. But once the human element sets in, things get complicated. We are made to belong and our reputation within our groups subject us to the influence of family, peers, employment, and other associative groups.  Science as seen through the opinions of scientists or agencies now becomes complex, less moored to the original science through relational influence, competing goals, and public pressure. But we can safeguard our understandings by an integrated perspective that weights the opinions of credentialed scientists by their adherence to “warranted” research findings. 

To ensure consistency, coherence, and comprehensiveness in how I treat vaccine questions, I must treat the vaccine issue as I would any other issue involving technological or scientific expertise.  To wit: I must employ my interpretive scheme just as I would for other medical procedures, engineering-dependent activities (e.g., flying), research inquiries, or food science.  I must use the same intellectual and decision approach for each and every issue, from the mundane to the controversial. 

That’s why skepticism is so important to my interpretive scheme, especially when is issue is controversial.  In those cases, I must avoid confirming predetermined outcomes through any sorting of peer review articles, or experts to follow, or agency directives.  Faithfulness to my interpretive scheme means that the whole body of scientific literature needs to honestly considered and the crowd of experts fairly evaluated.  I just can’t pick and choose either data or experts to fit a preexisting narrative.  I can’t form an opinion from the first thing I read.  And I can’t cancel scientifically-based criticism just because it comes from sources I don’t like.

It doesn’t mean that all articles or all experts are equal though.  Credentials matter and the ability to withstand scientific skepticism matters even more. Contrarian viewpoints might be correct as long as they, like any other hypothesis, survive the challenge of robust scientific skepticism.  As Wolfe says: “the genuine believer [in truth] wants to show the truth of his beliefs, and this can only be done in the process of testing.”

Evaluating Contrarian Views of the Covid Vaccine

The arguments against taking the vaccine are many and varied and I’m sure I don’t know the half of them. Here is a sample of a few I’ve heard.  How about the 14,500 covid vaccine death reports? Doesn’t the VAERS database provide evidence for the harmfulness of the vaccine? Aren’t these vaccines unproven technology? And doesn’t the Israeli data show that the jab is ineffective?  Did you know there’s a Cabal orchestrating the whole pandemic situation, using it to establish a new world order? Everyone that I know who’s taken the jab has fallen hard to the covid bug or other harmful outcomes. 

I don’t have space to evaluate each one of these, but if I did, the process would be the same, based on the interpretive scheme given above.  I would first look at the scholarly literature relevant to each assertion.  Multiple papers would be examined and if necessary, read, focusing on experimental design and results.  An integrative assessment of relevant expert judgement would be next.  Sources would be weighed according to credentialed relevancy, not outcomes.  Hence at each step, I would guard against cognitive biases, ensuring that I wasn’t unduly influenced by an article or expert that either supported or opposed a pre-existing belief. My final decision would then be weighted by a moral ethic where the coin flip leans into my neighbor.

Yes, it takes real work to warrant our beliefs but the outcome is worth the effort.

For those making anti-vaccine assertions, departing from the predominant scientific consensus, I’m genuinely interested in hearing about your interpretive scheme and the criteria you employ which leads to you believe those assertions.  

  • Are your assertions from a belief system applied consistently, coherently, comprehensively and congruently across every corner of your life, from the mundane to the controversial?  To wit: would you use the same informational process used to evaluate the covid vaccine as you would for the use of capsule endoscopy –another remarkably innovative 21st medical technology like the covid vaccine?
  • How does your belief system respond to critical engagement from all sides or are some sides excluded from that testing through a filter or sorting process that eliminates information or a perspective you don’t like? And if you use such a filter, what objective data supports that use?

Once again, it’s worth remembering Wolfe’s warning: “Protecting a scheme from criticism may neutralize any opposition but it also trivializes its truth claims.” 

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Of Soldiers and Scouts

Posted on November 16, 2021 by steve.ignell

The late Richard Feynman, one of the great scientists of the 20th century and a notable influence in my physics education, once said “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself – and you are the easiest person to fool.”  Feynman understood what cognitive science later showed that “when it comes to what we believe humans are masters of self-deception…we see what we want to see.”

Julia Galef in her book The Scout Mindset, Why Some People See Things Clearly and Others Don’t observes that people are motivated to defend their beliefs against evidence or arguments that might threaten them.  Julia calls this human tendency a soldier mindset and it stems from a natural human desire to belong, to live in harmony with family, community, and likeminded others. That belonging unleashes a powerful, overriding force where reasoning becomes like defensive combat, ever ready to defend one’s side like a soldier defending hard-fought territory. 

As individuals defend their side, picking and choosing evidence in support of that defense, their underlying values change through an identity that side now owns.  They think they are objective because they feel objective.  They analyze their own logic and find it sound.  They call ourselves “rational” which means they like their argument.  They see ourselves as fair and unbiased because that’s how motivated reasoning works.  But, in the words of Jon Haidt, they become blind and bound to the sensibilities of their groups – and don’t know it.

What if individuals saw things as they are, not as they wish they were? Instead of defending one’s territory, what if they valued accuracy through a practice of being skeptical about what they know as they challenge their assumptions with a willingness to change course? Julia calls this practice a scout mindset where the goal isn’t to defend the existing map of beliefs, but to survey the territory with a goal of making a better map as accurate as possible. 

A scout prioritizes curiosity and openness to evidence with a willingness to be wrong. Mistakes are part of the process, seen as corrective rather than feared.  A scout embraces incremental change through a process of continual updating.  They resist the temptation of certainty, unafraid of evidence contrary to their beliefs and viewpoints.  They pay close attention to their analytic methods, relying upon a data driven process that is consistently and comprehensively applied. They resist extrapolating anecdotes. Because accuracy is the goal.

Both the scout and soldier mindset serve as theoretical archetypes as neither can be perfectly followed. People are usually a mixture of both, according to context and issue. But when communities capture one’s identity and turn allegiances towards their cause, their reasonings become more motivated and a permanent soldier mindset sets in. Especially in today’s culture war driven world where the stakes are sky high and outcomes apocalyptic.

You can’t detect motivated reasoning by pure self-examination.  Most people see themselves as reasonable, smart and knowledgeable, and aware of motivated reasoning – characteristics which seem like they should produce a scout mindset – yet they still function more like soldiers than scouts. 

Each one of us need a healthy skepticism about ourselves and our tribe, mindful of how our need to belong binds us to our groups.  We all need an outside perspective, someone on the other side who can point to a different perspective which we cannot see ourselves.  And only a few of us have that rare ability to understand the opposing side, able to comprehend each side’s motivations and presuppositions, free from the ever-present influence of tribal sensibilities.

Five discriminating questions about whether we are soldiers or scouts

  1. Are we intellectually honorable, truth seekers through curiosity and an openness to change our views?
  2. What do we find more trustworthy: the opinions of select people or experts who share our values, or an objective, systematic, weighing of valid evidence and expert judgement across the spectrum?
  3. Do we pick and choose facts or is our reasoning consistently applied across all relevant data?
  4. Do we hold our tribal identities loosely, willing to resist defending our side when a belief or argument goes against that of our group?
  5. Are views from outside of our group deemed essential for constructing accurate viewpoints?

Let’s try this out, recognizing that we all are are poor self-assessors, calling ourselves objective, rational, fair, and unbiased when we’re often not.  But it’s worth a try and maybe, through thinking about these issues, we will become more self-aware about underlying drivers of our thinking.

For each of five issues or beliefs, what if we score them on a scale of 1 – 5 using the following five questions?

A. Open to change? 1 = certain of our views; 5 = no preconceptions
B. Trustworthiness basis? 1 = opinions from those who share our beliefs; 5 = systematic analyses of all data/experts
C. Was our analytic process consistent with those used in other, less controversial, issues? 1 = no; 5 = yes
D. Do we rush to defend our “side” in this issue? 1 = quick to defend; 5 = not a dog in the fight
E. Do we require views outside of our “side” to ensure we find the truth of this issue? 1 = rarely; 5 = usually

For each question, the lower the score, the more the soldier mindset.  Hence if we sum across the five questions for each issue, a pure soldier mindset would yield a score of 5 and a pure scout mindset a score of 25.

Issue or BeliefABCDEF
Round-up use and cancer risk      
Cell phone safety and cancer risk      
Covid vaccine safety      
Flu vaccine safety      
Cigarette smoke and cancer risk      

One issue pertains to a life risk (Round-up) in which the science is mixed, both in the peer reviewed literature and with expert opinion.  The other four issues address a life risk where there is either a near concordance of findings from peer-reviewed scientific research and/or widespread acceptance by credentialed experts.

Recognizing, at the same time, there are a minority of experts or studies which espouse an alternative point of view for each of these four other issues. For some issues such as smoking, and cancer risk, this alternative view is likewise rejected by the public resulting in public opinion closely matching that of scientific opinion.  But for others, such as covid vaccine safety, a sizable portion of the public disagree with the predominant view of the experts. 

So here’s the test.  Do our truth judgements follow the same process in all five cases?  When we encounter differing issues in life, especially those issues that affect our physical health (treatments for disease, use of toxic substances, medication or drugs, etc) does our approach change depending upon the issue?  To wit: how do our scout/soldier scores compare across issues that get attached to the culture war – where one or both of the sides acquires a partisan identity? 

Again, recognizing of course, that we are often poor self-assessors and the best answers will come from scout-like people outside of our tribal allegiances who know us well enough and who are courageous enough to speak a truth we’re willing to receive.

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The Paradox of Christian Nationalism

Posted on April 6, 2021 by steve.ignell

I’ve been wanting to write about Christian Nationalism for some time, but getting that train out of the station has proved difficult. Competing topics abound, plus spring is around the corner bringing its familiar pressures into focus.  Golfing, landscaping, and hiking obligations are again taking their toll with fly-fishing impatiently awaiting in the wings. With first order stuff like friends and family remaining in the front of the line, that old saw about scarce resources pursuing unlimited goods is once again confirmed. 

Then a friend of mine on Facebook recently shared a post from Michael Farris, an American constitutional lawyer who is a founder of the Home School Legal Defense Association and Patrick Henry College.  He is also CEO and general counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom, a legal advocacy group committed to “change the culture” as they fight for religious liberty issues in the courts. 

Entitled “Confusion About Christian Nationalism,” Farris provides a perspective on Christian Nationalism that probably seems obvious to his followers: “Those who are not Christian have nothing to fear from a culture dominated by Christianity.  We believe in freedom for all.”

But exactly what Christianity is Farris talking about and what does that look like in practice?  [Now that sound you just heard is the train leaving the station.] So, let’s first get started with some definitions, some research results, and then we will return to Farris and more data. 

What is Christian Nationalism and What Are Its ‘Fruits” In Society

We start with Russ Vought, Trump’s former Director of OMB and now the President of the Center for American Restoration whose mission is “To restore an American consensus of a nation under God…” In a recent Newsweek article, Russ offered that Christian Nationalism is:

“An orientation for engaging in the public square that recognizes America as a Christian nation, where our rights and duties are understood to come from God and where our primary responsibilities as citizens are for building and preserving the strength, prosperity and health of our own country. It is a commitment to an institutional separation between church and state, but not the separation of Christianity from its influence on government and society. It is a belief that our participation in the political system can lead to beneficial outcomes for our own communities, as well as individuals of all faiths.”

Now compare this with the sociologists Perry and Whitehead’s popularly used, but more abstruse, definition: “an ideology that idealizes and advocates a fusion of Christianity with American civic belonging and participation.”  For those from an evangelical background, like me, do those definitions seem right?  Are they consistent with what you have always believed or at least been taught?  And do they sound dangerous?  When you hear that America was built on Christian principles and occupies a special place in God’s economy for the world, doesn’t that seem about right?

But Let’s First Plant Our Feet On The Ground With Some Data

After all, Luke 6: 44-47 tells us that “Each tree is recognized by its own fruit. People do not pick figs from thornbushes, or grapes from briers. A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.”

Different authors have shown that Americans who embrace Christian Nationalism are more likely to:

  • Believe in a social pecking order with white Christians at the top: equality is not a priority.
  • Approve of authoritarian tactics like demanding respect for national symbols and traditions
  • Fear and distrust refugees, immigrants and religious minorities, while believing racial inequality is due to the personal shortcomings of minority groups.
  • Condone police violence toward Black Americans and distrust accounts of racial inequality in the criminal justice system
  • Engage in incautious behavior and take fewer precautions (e.g., mask wearing) during the Covid-19 pandemic.
  • Prioritize liberty over protecting the vulnerable during the Covid-19 pandemic.
  • See historical “outsiders” (minorities and immigrants) as culpable and/or less worthy of aid regarding Covid-19 infections.
  • Hold anti-immigrant views and a consistent predictor of anti-immigrant dehumanization

But That Isn’t About Us; It’s Only A Few Extremists?

Notwithstanding the statistical significance of those associations, many, like Michael Farris continue to assert “this is the few, not us” argument: “While there are a few extremists who fit their fears, the vast majority of evangelicals pose no such threat.” 

It’s worth stopping here as we can further test this assertion with Perry and Whitehead’s data based upon surveys I’ve previously written about here and here.  As you see in the graph below, using two of six defining questions, Christian Nationalism is simply pervasive across the evangelical landscape. 

OK, CN May Be Widespread, But Isn’t This Just A Case of Differing Definitions?  

Good question, also posed by Farris: “The chief reason is that most of us understand that there is a difference between our nation and our government. Do I want America to be a Christian nation? Well, that depends entirely on how you define the term.

I steadfastly oppose any effort to have Christianity declared the official religion of the United States. But I would welcome a massive revival…if that revival resulted in a majority of people with a personal relationship with Jesus. I would also welcome a moral revival where our cultural mores were aligned with Biblical values. It would perhaps be more accurate to describe either of these two forms of revival as producing a Christian culture rather than using the term Christian nation.”

Let’s unpack that previous paragraph.  Many evangelicals yearn for revival, a renewal of spiritual interest and life.  They (we) speak fondly of past revivals and the good they achieved. The Second Great Awakening in the early 1800s for example, led to renewed spirituality, moral and charity reforms, the emancipation of women, and the founding of many colleges in America. 

The notion of a moral revival strikes a similar chord in many of the faithful.  But here we encounter two significant and highly influential problems that go to heart of the Christian Nationalism problem in America.  First, “biblical values” mean different things to different people.  To me, it means a love-your-neighbor kingdom ethic, a Micah 6:8 do justly, love mercy and walk humbly orthopraxis.  To others, it means religious liberty, binary genders, heterosexual marriage, and anti-abortion.  To some it means promoting peace by beating swords into plowshares. To others, it means securing religious liberty through a strong military fighting back communism. 

Secondly, Farris’ longing for a Christian culture gets the cart before the horse. He decries the few Christian Nationalism extremists saying that the “vast majority of evangelicals pose no threat. But the data tell a different story, of an evangelical culture significantly broken by a pervasive Christian Nationalism with its attending fruit (see data provided earlier and the graph below) infecting the body of Christ. And before we consider moral revivals and promoting societal change, the evangelical house must be set in order and swept clean of the Christian Nationalism infected gospel.

Well Everyone is Flawed, But Our Society Has Nothing to Fear From Christian Nationalism

Back to Farris: “We have limited powers, checks and balances, and federalism because of the Christian view of man. Man is inherently sinful and can never be trusted with too much power. But that same Christian culture produced a government that guaranteed freedom of religion and speech for all because of the belief that the souls of men belong to God and not government…A Christian culture produces a freedom loving government. But a culture that rejects God produces tyranny…Those who are not Christian have nothing to fear from a culture dominated by Christianity. We believe in freedom for all.”

I just wish that was true.  “Freedom for all” is, I’m sure, an aspirational goal for many evangelicals. But once again, Perry and Whitehead’s data tell a different story and once again, Christian Nationalism is there in the mix.

Civics-type tests have a long and ugly history in American politics. They were among many Jim Crow Laws used primarily in the South during segregation to intimidate and prevent black citizens from voting.  They inevitably favored the powerful and privileged, while assaulting the freedoms of the powerless.  They missed the mark, a public outcome of man’s sinful nature.

Citizens of the kingdom seek the flourishing of the city that advances God’s kingdom plan of human restoration. Following in Christ’s footsteps, they are prone to stop and listen as they are moved by people’s longing and heart cries.  They lay aside their privilege when they metaphorically pick up a towel and through acts of service wash the feet of the needy. It causes them to advocate, imputing honor without boundaries: whether Jew or Greek, whether educated or marginalized, and whether you pass a civics test or not.

“Beware of Good Intents” – Foxe’s Book of Martyrs

Let’s go back to the essential questions and then briefly explore five lines of thinking.  Don’t we need a moral revival aligned with biblical values?  And aren’t those values vitally needed in society to produce healthy outcomes?  And since a Christian culture produced a freedom loving government, what’s to fear from a culture dominated by Christianity?

An upside-down gospel process.  The call of Christianity is a call for transformation, a call that Farris and others get partially right. But the message of Christianity is also a message about gospel process, about the power of the cross to bring about change.  This message is all important and it’s what they get wrong when they seek reform from the top down.  For when Christ’s “heart transforming” kingdom joins with culture’s “power over” world, it’s like “mixing ice cream with horse manure. It might not harm the manure, but it sure messes up the ice cream.”

Identity exchange.  That’s exactly what happens when we seek a Christian culture through a political, top-down, imposition of moral reform. By engaging the earthly city and through alliances with its political systems, the law of unintended consequences takes over. The fusion of these two kingdoms creates a synergistic reaction that reshapes our desires and beliefs. That earthly city unleashes the power of tribalism which then spreads throughout the whole,.  And when it hijacks our identity and forces us to take sides, we become “bound and blinded’ to our team’s cause. 

The divisive power of nostalgia.  Through fusing heaven’s kingdom with American civic belonging, Christian Nationalism seems innocuous at first. But a gospel mixed with nationalism to recreate a Christian America, binds the name of Christ to a culturally-centered agenda. It includes a mythic understanding of history that generates a cultural anxiety about a lost American heritage and Christian identity. It creates an extrabiblical narrative about America’s special relationship to God that privileges dominance in the public square. It fosters an us-versus-them world where the ‘them’ become a threat.  While the “we” become the sole defenders of a true America that “we” define. 

A culture-centric gospel.  They say America is on the decline, the fruit of a moral decay, as a circle-the-wagon mindset invariably ensues. Moral reforms are sought in this never-ending war to restore a social order that is culturally ‘Christian.’  A specific cultural template is needed, such as prayer in public schools or enshrining a nostalgic interpretation of American history.  Then a political agenda is “fought for” under the banner of Christian power to create a Christian culture that “saves” America.

Apocalyptic authoritarianism.  A siege mentality sets in with a sense of victimization acutely felt based on an apocalyptic narrative about the imminent decline of Christian America. It fuels a sense of desperation to preserve America’s Christian heritage.  It then creates a moral panic and a willingness to compromise any concerns about the means to accomplish needed ends.  Authoritarian rule is welcomed and a strong protector then sought to reclaim that mythic past and restore a moral order.   

A Message of Hope

Farris and others are also partially correct when they say America needs to be revived.  But it’s not to impose the current understanding of Christian culture widely viewed throughout the evangelical community. We need a revival to stop the culture war which changes the mission of the church. To stop the preaching of “biblical values” made to fit our tribalistic narratives.  And to call out Christian Nationalism as a syncretistic faith – a form of idolatry whose fruits of cultural dominion are antithetical to the gospel.

David French: “it’s worth emphasizing that many white Evangelical political positions – on matters of immense importance to many millions of Americans – do not flow naturally from Evangelical biblical orthodoxy…Instead the political gaps between white Evangelicals and the rest of America flow from a series of historical, cultural, and ideological commitments that are contestable at best and unjust at worst”

Back to Luke 6:44 “Each tree is recognized by its own fruit.” When we compare how Christian Nationalism ideology and traditional measures of religious commitment (e.g., worship attendance, prayer, sacred text reading) influence Americans’ political attitudes and behaviors, we find they work in the exact opposite direction. 

We need a revival of essential Christianity, a Christlikeness that invades ‘every square inch” of our life.  Where cultural change organically occurs through the faithful presence of Christ-like followers in the public square. Full of people who look like Jesus in every walk of life. With biblical values centered in the teachings of Jesus and humbly conveyed through Christ-like servant hearts.

Jesus said “blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.”  The Apostle Paul said “Christ within us [is] the hope of glory,” at least as long as that gospel stays pure. Such unalloyed Christlikeness is contrary to Christian Nationalism and is demonstrated by the fruits of the Spirit. As His character is formed within us and we become citizens of an undivided kingdom, God’s culture changing kingdom power then becomes unleashed.

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Of Immigrants and Refugees

Posted on March 15, 2021 by steve.ignell

After 57 years in Alaska, we pulled up stakes in 2012 and moved to the “lower 48.” It was hard leaving Juneau but easy to live in Seattle as we were closer to our children and Tammy’s family, in a job I loved, and enthralled with Pacific Northwest with all of its outdoor options and beauty. Plus, there were roads to drive and places to go.

Leaving was hard as I had family in Juneau, great friends that we would miss, and a lifetime of memories in the mountains and sea of that Great Land. Plus, there was that identity thing where being from Alaska brings a cachet that’s pretty unique and special.

Fortunately, my new job included trips to Alaska and every trip had a set routine. Outside of the workplace, I would stay with my dad, visit a favorite restaurant, hike at least one trail, and visit one friend. My restaurant circuit included Peter’s Oriental, a tiny unassuming part of the Nugget Mall just behind the airport. Their spring rolls were addictive along with the sauce they liberally poured over. Most people ordered the Teriyaki chicken or L4, but I always got a “L2 spicy level two.” Full of vegetables and with plenty of pork, its sauce was the highlight that kept me coming back again and again.

We knew the family behind Peter’s Oriental from the time they first arrived in Juneau. They had fled Vietnam as refugees once the U.S. backed out. Our church sponsored them and it didn’t take long before they became a flourishing part of our larger church family and our community as a whole.

Many churches across the country have similar stories to tell. Stories about refugees or immigrants they took in, nurtured, and helped get established in this new, strange land called America. Stories of virtue and of sacrifice, about followers of Jesus faithful to His words in Matthew 25:35: “for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me.”

Then There’s the Data
Today, white evangelicals are the religious group with the highest belief that immigrants threaten society (57%). Moreover, as the graph below shows, white evangelical Protestants are the least likely among all religious groups to say the U.S. has a responsibility to accept refugees (only 25%). All other groups more faithfully heed the biblical injunction to “welcome the stranger” with the religiously unaffiliated showing the highest level of commitment.

It Hasn’t Always Been This Way
America has a long history of populist and nativist tendencies and the protestant church’s participation in this history has been a mixed bag. European immigrants arriving in the 18th and 19th centuries encountered a severe backlash that was Protestant-infused. Their nativist fears included anyone Catholic and led to the formation of the populist and anti-immigration Know-Nothing Party. Immigrants that followed, often from China and other far east locales, continued to face opposition upon arrival. But this time was different with many evangelical leaders becoming immigration advocates as they pushed back on nativist fears.

This good news story of an immigrant friendly church continued into the 20th century. Protestant support for the large influx of refugees following World War 2 became instrumental to America’s cold war strategy. The church played a prominent role in helping refugee resettlement for those fleeing Cuba in the 1960s. They supported resettlement of immigrants from Southeast Asia in the 1970s and 1980s. When opportunities arose in the late 1980s to help undocumented immigrants become permanent citizens, evangelical churches led the way, drawing on scriptural commands to show hospitality and “welcome the stranger.” Such helping hands were seen as an imperative of the gospel’s call to help “the least of these my brethren.”

This support wasn’t just confined to “legal immigration” either. Evangelical writings in the 1980s didn’t address illegal status in a negative way. The Southern Baptist position in 1986, as given in their publication MissionsUSA, supported those sentiments by saying: “people in need should be shown the love of Christ, whatever their ‘legal’ status.”

Then Came The Culture War
The Apostle Paul wrote about the “war within” as a struggle between grace and our fallen nature. It’s an age-old struggle with a constant ebb and flow that is documented in the pages of history. A Christ-centric church can make a profound difference such as MLK’s advocacy of civil rights. But when the church loses that focus, like the Apostle Peter walking on water, it sinks into the abyss of that fallen nature.

The emergence of today’s culture war is destructive to the church because it takes our eyes off of Jesus. It changes deeply held values as it reshapes our identity into a syncretistic mixture of two kingdoms. It then brings new sensibilities through opening new doors that had previously held back that fallen nature.

Those new sensibilities transformed the gospel ethic of the church. By the 1990s a new vocabulary arose, peppered with phrases such as ‘rule of law’ and ‘law-breakers.’ Restrictionist voices grew loud. First Corinthians 13 became replaced by Romans 13. Calls to love your neighbor (of which “there is no other commandment greater”) bowed before calls of being tough. Nativism now formed the new moral high ground with the distinction between ‘legal’ and ‘illegal’ all important.

Evangelicals became the core base of a re-emergent American populism. But this was a different populism, not driven by economic factors as one would assume, but by anti-immigration attitudes, opposition to affirmative action, Islamophobia, and preference for rough politics (as I have previously written about here).

What Went Wrong: Four Fatal Factors
The problem isn’t Christianity. It’s that other stuff, cultural stuff, we add to our faith. It changes its beliefs, changes its practice, and changes our gospel sensibilities. As Michael Gerson recently said in a meeting at evangelical Wheaton College, “People’s views on, say, immigration are not shaped by their theology, but by their class, their politics and their tribe.”

Moral Man Immoral Society
Reinhold Niebuhr in his iconic book Moral Man and Immoral Society observes that we are complex people, endowed by nature with both selfish and unselfish urges. We yearn to belong, to connect with family, community, and likeminded others. Through that belonging, a “love your neighbor” ethic flows easily and we’ll give the shirt off our back to people in our group, even if we don’t know them that well.

But the mere nature of our societies will effect a change in our underlying values, opening the door to our fallen nature. They arrogate social privilege, putting the thumb on the selfish side of the scale. We develop intolerance and prejudice against the other side. We tolerate inequality and deny civil liberties to those without power. Our tribalism then ‘binds and blinds’ as our fallen, xenophobic, nature takes over.

Social Dominance Orientation and Right-wing Authoritarianism
The open doors of the culture war bring two of our innate tendencies into prominence. Those exhibiting Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) see the world competitively, a zero-sum world of winners and losers. Societal stratification is inevitable as neutrality is not an option. Power belongs to the victor, privileged through a profound struggle for dominance. And the world will find its rightful balance as long as “they the strong” take their rightful place at the top of the social ladder.

People oriented towards right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) crave social order and cohesion. They are hostile to change. They see outside social groups bringing instability and unpredictability, threatening the nature of society. They crave social stability through adhering to societal conventions and norms. They willingly submit to authorities they see as legitimate and favoring of traditional social norms and values, while sharing a common hostility towards those outsiders (e.g., immigrants) who are different.

Both innate tendencies provide an accelerant to harmful in-group/out-group behaviors but attack immigration differently. Those exhibiting social dominant orientation are provoked by successful assimilation as it threatens their dominant role. Right-wing authoritarians are provoked when immigrants don’t assimilate into the dominant culture thereby violating in-group norms and conformity.

Christian Nationalism
In a recent Christianity Today article, Paul Miller describes Christian nationalism as “the belief that the American nation is defined by Christianity, and that the government should take active steps to keep it that way. Popularly, Christian nationalists (CNs) assert that America is and must remain a “Christian nation”—not merely as an observation about American history, but as a prescriptive program for what America must continue to be in the future.”

To some, this might sound like one of those “self-evident” truths our country was founded on. But embedded in this political/theological/cultural framework are some dark underlying assumptions about race, nativism, and an ordering of society. I’ll be writing more about this in future blog posts but for now, let’s briefly look at some data.

CNs score high in SDO and 2.5 times that of someone who rejects CN. CN and RWA go hand in hand with CN as the dominant factor in predicting agreement with “People should be made to show respect for America’s traditions.” Collectively, these sensibilities drive consistent findings that show CN to be a significant predictor of anti-immigrant stereotypes, prejudice, dehumanization, support for anti-immigration policies, and belief that immigrants undermine American culture.

Yet, The Bible Says…
Even a cursory reading of scripture challenges the current anti-immigration views by many Christians today. The biblical call of ‘welcoming the stranger’ flows from a Micah 6:8 “do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God” lifestyle. Seeing others as made in the image of God removes all racial and ethnic barriers. A clear understanding of the cross compels us to see the Christ in our neighbor, whether in or out of our tribe. Recognizing that we too are “foreigners and strangers,” pilgrims on a journey to a heavenly city, we welcome the immigrant as fellow sojourners on this quest. For we are citizens of the kingdom first. That is our identity.

For if the God of the Bible shows particular compassion for the immigrant, even equating them with the orphan and the widow, and if the cross of Christ is designed to compel outreach across all peoples, then how much more should we as the people of God care for immigrants from other countries in our midst?

Faithfully Christian

  1. Church Leaders Need to Lead. To wit: church attenders, according to Pew and PRRI surveys, report that less than 1/6th of their clergy ever openly discuss the subject of immigration in the church. The Apostle Paul didn’t shy away from addressing scriptural unfaithfulness in his letters and American clergy shouldn’t either.
  2. Heed the plea of evangelical scholar Ruth Melkonian-Hoover: “there is an urgent need for evangelicals—leaders and laity alike—to fully apprehend the “moral components of the immigration issue—honoring the Biblical values of ‘welcoming the stranger,’ keeping the families together, considering the justice implications of migration nationally and globally, and acknowledging the conditions in other societies that lead to immigration in the first place,” as has been done before.”
  3. Become citizens of Christ’s kingdom, and His kingdom only, mindful each day that our calling is “at the heart of the biblical narrative is the story of God bringing humankind to be the imago dei, that is, to be the reflection of the divine character, love, where we show the world what our God is like.”
  4. Test yourself (2 Cor 13:5) for such attitudes as right-wing authoritarianism, social dominance orientation, populism, negative attitudes toward out-groups such as Muslims and immigrants. Better yet, develop friendships across tribal divisions and become accountable to them about such attitudes.
  5. Test yourself on your theology, carefully considering the underlying tenets of Christian Nationalism. Recognize that CN is, in the words of Tim Keller, idolatrous, and its ethos means the death of Christian witness.
  6. Take practical steps to close doors that distort our focus. Like unplugging from partisan media and other amplifiers of the culture war, following my mother’s constant admonition of Philippians 4:8 – “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.”
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13 Graphs – What Do You See?

Posted on February 24, 2021 by steve.ignell

I recently wrote a letter to one of the pastors we have been watching during this pandemic season. I thought it might be of interest so here is the letter reproduced in full.

I have been enjoying your messages, especially in the last two weeks where you have addressed the importance of restoring relationships during these contentious times. Truth, listening, patience, and humility do indeed go a long way to show the world what our God is like. Choosing the way of Christ’s Kingdom rather than choosing to win honors the gospel. Adopting a posture of Christ-like influence rather than a posture of partisan reactance honors His mission.

The truth imperative, the first and essential part of the armor of God, is tricky business and a most difficult hill to climb. It’s tricky because we live in post-truth age where the refrain “but I don’t know what to believe” is commonly heard – especially from my evangelical friends. It’s difficult because we get in the way, reminiscent of the story reputedly told about G. K. Chesterton when a newspaper asked him, ‘What’s Wrong with the World?’ The Catholic thinker’s response was brief and to the point: ‘Dear Sirs: I am. Sincerely Yours, G. K. Chesterton.’

We assert that the Word says…and the Word is truth. Or that the Spirit says…who guides us into all truth. And if you say otherwise, we’ll say biblical worldview. And if you ask again, we’ll say the Bible says. But all along the “I am” stands in the corner, unknown to us, but with enormous power to shape our identity, colorize the “other,” change our loves, and filter our world. Like a Trojan Horse, it takes over our understandings, shaping our “biblical” assertions. And like an Oculus headset, we become immersed in a new reality that’s created and fashioned by the “I am.”

Founding father John Adams once said “Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.” That’s probably a minority opinion today, yet I thought it would helpful to throw out some data with minimal commentary to show the daunting length of this truth hill we face along with its intense steepness in parts.

1. Truth assessment is difficult, but not impossible. Many of our truth issues lack baselines, reference points where we can all agree what is true. Its science v science or expert v expert and in today’s post-truth world, finding agreement is difficult even when credentials are lopsided. But sometimes we find issues where baselines are known or where the probability of knowing is very high. Consider the next three graphs which compare actual data

with perceptions of that data first from one conservative-liberal ideology and second from the perspective of trusted news sources.

Now the preceding data focused on political ideology but I’m more interested in how truth is handled by people in our tradition which is predominately white evangelicals. So here are some survey results regarding recent events where Republicans are split into two groups: evangelicals and non-evangelicals.

Note that for three of the four questions we have baseline truth or a very high probability thereof:
A. Widespread voter fraud: Those in authority, from election officials, to secretaries of state to governors to Trump’s attorney general, to 90 judicial appointments including the Supreme Court of which many were Trump appointed has said Biden was legitimately elected. I’ve read a number of the 61 court cases Trump lost. There is a 0% chance otherwise.
B. Deep State undermining the Trump administration: Likely not, but still an uncertain proposition
C. Antifa responsible for the capitol attack: Trump’s DOJ investigated the claim and found it baseless.
D. Trump secretly fighting a group of sex traffickers: that’s QAnon – enough said.

2.  Partisanship = hate your enemies and the other side is the enemy.  Full stop. The partisan divide is deep with distrust on both sides.  Assignments of “they the enemy” are normative as extremists on both sides cancel the other. Such canceling, of course, is nothing new, long seen in American history: e.g., Nathaniel Whitaker, the Massachusetts minister, who spoke the “curse of Meroz” in 1775 to anyone loyal to the crown.

3.  White Evangelicals almost equal the mirror image of the republican party.  Here are some data from pastor and sociologist Ryan Burge of Eastern Illinois University (and, to be fair, black protestants approximately mirror the democratic party).  He has data on other types of questions, but I found these interesting due to their long history in public opinion research gauging animus and prejudice toward minority groups.

4.  Polarization R us.  Increased devotion, as measured by church attendance, doesn’t move the needle on partisan polarization. And the more one believes in an “American is a Christian nation” type of Christian nationalism the less open they are to changing their opinion or to consider alternative opinions given new information.

5. Peculiar people.  Here is a graph about Christian Nationalist’ endorsement of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy ideology. 

These four categories, which you saw in a previous graph, are derived from combining responses to six questions, each scaled from 1-5: (1) “strongly disagree” to (5) “strongly agree” with (3) “Undecided” in the middle. This index ranges from 6 to 30 and has a Cronbach’s α = 0.86, which means that these questions yield consistent results when repeated. Index values are then separated into four types of responses to the questions with those at the low end of the scale called Resistors and those at the top end Ambassadors.
A. “The federal government should declare the United States a Christian nation,”
B. “The federal government should advocate Christian values,”
C. “The federal government should enforce strict separation of church and state” (reverse coded),
D. “The federal government should allow the display of religious symbols in public spaces,”
E. “The success of the United States is part of God’s plan,” and
F. “The federal government should allow prayer in public schools.”

In the graph below, the column on the left has 10 discrimination categories and the different colored dots are the six different demographic groups for which their perception of the discrimination categories is provided.  Here we see 59% of white evangelicals think there’s more societal discrimination against Christians than transgender people (52%) or Muslim people (49%). Note also the spread in discrimination perception.  White evangelical perception of marginalized groups such as Muslims, LGBTQ, black, and transgender people are much different than the perceptions of other Americans.

Note that unless cited, all graphs are from Twitter posts with the source provided on most graphs.  Those without source information but labeled “PDES” are from Whitehead and Perry, of which some can be found here.  Also note that these data are statistically derived from scientific surveys.  What you see are mean values.  What you don’t see is the dispersal of the underlying data.  For example, although 59% percent of white evangelicals may believe that Christians experience a lot of discrimination, there are some that think otherwise (e.g., me) and hence pull the mean value down.  Nonetheless, through these statistical surveys/analyses (instead of anecdotal perspectives), we gain important insight into the underlying beliefs, attitudes, and behavior which are driving America’s faith and social communities. 

I will stay true to my promise of minimizing commentary on the foregoing graphs. I primarily focused on white evangelicals for three reasons: (1) that is my background and hence what I understand, (2) they make up the majority of our congregation, and (3) they are the largest segment of Christianity in America. Given that change must start at home, if we are going to deal with truth in the body of Christ, it seems like we will need to deal with, inter alia:

a) strong partisanship on both sides that sees the other side as the enemy
b) white evangelicals are highly partisan, nearly the mirror image of the Republican party.
c) highly resistant polarization within white evangelicals, no matter how devoted they are to their faith
d) an increasing unwillingness to change one’s opinion or consider new information the stronger the belief in a Christian Nation (78% of evangelicals are in the top two Christian Nationalism categories)
e) white evangelical perceptions markedly different than the rest of American, especially when it comes to having empathy for people not like them.
f) An appetite among many Christians for disinformation and conspiracy theories (although for brevity sake, I’ve only given a couple examples and haven’t shown the breadth and depth of that appetite).

There are many additional graphs I could provide that would be helpful, showing many additional dimensions generally consistent with those provided. But first of all, I’m interested in what you see. And then if you have any thoughts about the sort of steps needed to meet our calling, which is, as Stanley Grenz once said, “at the heart of the biblical narrative is the story of God bringing humankind to be the imago dei, that is, to be the reflection of the divine character, love, where we show the world what our God is like.”

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We Amplify What We Fear

Posted on February 14, 2021 by steve.ignell

“Fear’s a dangerous thing, it can turn your heart black, you can trust.
It’ll take your God-filled soul and fill it with devils and dust.” – Bruce Springsteen

I can still vividly remember sitting at the front of church Sunday after Sunday silently weeping, relentlessly tormented as I listened to sermon after sermon. It felt like I was in a vise that was slowly closing, crushing all hope from this six-year-old kid. Or this 10-year-old kid. The worst of all fears, hell damnation, covered me like a suffocating blanket. There was nothing I could do.

I acutely felt this hopelessness because I inherently understood probability. I knew that if I had unforgiven sins the second before Jesus came, I would go to hell. It was as simple as that and here was my despair: since we didn’t know when Jesus was coming (as a thief in the night), and since sin was unavoidable, often outside our control and even awareness (e.g., sins of omission), there was a substantial probability that I would have sin in my life whenever Jesus came back. I was screwed, hence the tormenting fear, and it wasn’t until college that I learned about grace, bringing hope once again to my future.

As bad as that was, however, it was just the tip of the iceberg. There was an unpardonable sin, a sin with no possible forgiveness, for those who blasphemed the Holy Spirit. And we, because we didn’t fully understand it, as every preacher defined it differently, it brought a new dimension of uncertainty to my future.

Although those may have been my biggest fears, whole additional genres of fear remained in play. We played a “who’s that Antichrist” game with a revolving door of candidates, each biblically supported and to be feared. For those who missed the rapture, there was still a tiny sliver of hope, but it meant going through the tribulation for which only 144,000 would be saved. The Mark of the Beast was another formidable fear, with bearers of that mark forever condemned. And because we didn’t know when or how that mark would be applied (a computer in Brussels, bar codes, social security plus zip codes), the missing-the-rapture needle never went above Defcon 3.

Now it might seem that I’m being awfully hard on my past, but I’m just calling balls and strikes. All those fears felt real and they were backed up by simple math which could be intuitively understood or easily calculated. Say the likelihood of going to hell was 20% for each independent event (unconfessed sin at time of rapture, unwittingly taking on the mark of the beast, and committing the unpardonable sin), values that seemed pretty reasonable as a kid. Then the overall probability can be computed as (1 – product of each probability of not going to hell) = (1 – (0.80*.80.*80)) = 0.488. So it’s no wonder I felt such acute helplessness and despair as I was just one coin flip away (48.8%) from the eternal lake of fire.

Fear: Yesterday, Today, and Forever
My encounters with fear were just par for the course given how evangelicals have traditionally engaged culture. Like a river running through it, fear is an evangelical constant ever since the Puritans first landed in America. The threat of an erroneous theology in 17th century American led the Puritans to hang four Quaker “Boston martyrs.” Then the threat of moral decline led to another Puritan hanging over accusations of witchcraft which proved false. The 18th century ushered in a new set of fears targeting immigrants and anyone Catholic. These prejudicial fears become entrenched within American society inspiring 19th century Protestants to help form the nativist Know-Nothing Party. A whole new set of fears rose to prominence in the 20th century led by modernism, secular humanism, and cultural change. The backlash to those fears drove evangelicals back into politics over the fear of losing “Christian America.”

Scripture tells a much different story of “Don’t be afraid. I am with you. Don’t tremble with fear. I am your God. I will make you strong.” So why does fear occupy such a prominent place in evangelical language and belief? There are a number of plausible answers but let’s start with two important ones because of their ability to reinforce the fear messages in our lives.

Our Neurology Amplifies Our Fears
Brain imaging studies show there’s a region of our brain which is used to detect threats and is reactive to fear. The same part of the brain shows a heighten resistance to change when confronted with evidence countering one’s beliefs. This fear enhanced threat detection creates a tight social connectedness which focuses on family and country. The size of this region and its importance to life functions varies from person to person. It’s also a key area where moral information is processed and moral/political judgements developed.

Our brain is plastic until later in life and repeated usage of one region changes its capability. We know, for example, that a London cab driver’s brain adjusts over time to better store a mental map of the city. In a similar manner we know that the fear-based part of our brain adjusts in response to repeated messages of fear.

Our Cognitive Biases Amplify Our Fears
We all routinely deviate from a practice of rationality because the need for simplicity and coherence in our stories supersede truth. Through probability neglect we mischaracterize dire risks by creating imaginary scenarios from thoughts of danger and fear. The affect heuristic occurs when people make judgements by consulting their emotions rather than the facts, substituting the easier question “what do I feel about it” for the harder question “what do I think about it:” The availability heuristic leads to bias in our perceptions according to the vividness, prevalence, and emotional intensity of the messages we encounter.

Media coverage plays a significant role in amplifying cognitive biases as our assessments of risk are directly influenced by our exposure to repeated messages that engage our emotions.

The Manipulation of Fear Amplifies That Fear
In the late 1970s, Jerry Falwell Sr. and other conservative evangelicals formed a political coalition to fight against moral decay. Forty years later the same moral issues remain with the goal of “Christian America” still unmet. Yet they have been phenomenally successful in enlisting white evangelicals as a force in today’s cultural war.

Cal Thomas, once a leader of Falwell’s coalition, describes how this enlistment relies upon fear. “First, they identify an enemy: homosexuals, abortionists, Democrats, or ‘liberals’ in general. Second, the enemies are accused of being out to ‘get us’ or to impose their morality on the rest of the country. Third, the letter assures the reader that something will be done…Fourth, to get this job done, please send money.”

That playbook of fear amplifies concerns into threats so they can whip up a state of alarm. Those threats are then woven into partisan stories that are repeated again and again: e.g., Democrats are evil socialists trying to take your guns, bibles and liberty away, Muslims are terrorists, and immigrants are “animals” bringing drugs and crime to ruin our land. And if you repeat any story often enough people will eventually accept it as true.

As David French recently wrote: “the religious right has already been conditioned by decades of conservative media telling them that the godless left wants to destroy their way of life. They’ve been told for 20 years that the left hates them and wants them dead. They’ve been told the Democratic Party wants to kill the church.”

Perfect Fear Drives Out Love
Those fear-induced beliefs create an alternative world of facts while inflaming a fallen nature called to die. The fruits of the Spirit then yield to the works of the flesh from which arise a political quest for power. In the heat of the battle, we become different people through unleashing those desires “that war within us.” And it doesn’t take long until “in time we hate that which we often fear” (Shakespeare) and where the oppressed can become the oppressor.

We see this in surveys where white evangelicals are resistant to extend civil rights to the other side. Since there’s a concern that the left will oppress their Christian faith, they turn the Golden Rule upside down: do unto others before they get the chance to do that unto you.

White evangelicals are also more likely than any other religious demographic to see immigrants threatening traditional American values. Over half of white evangelicals believe Muslims want to limit their freedom and nearly half believe Muslims threaten their safety (again, greater than any other demographic). Yet white evangelicals see themselves as persecuted victims exceeding even that of their Muslim “enemy.” (Notwithstanding the fact that Muslims experience dehumanization greater than any other group in America).

Yet white Christians have no peer when it comes to disregarding African Americans fears (the most Christianized ethnoreligious group in America and hence, in the vernacular of my religious past, their “brothers and sisters”). Whereas 82% of black Christians believe police-involved killings are part of a larger pattern, 72% of white evangelicals believe the opposite. Most (70%) white evangelicals see the Confederate flag as a symbol of Southern pride, whereas 76% of black protestants set it as a symbol of racism.

Perfect Fear Drives Out Unity
Francis Schaeffer once said: “Love–and the unity it attests to–is the Mark Christ gave Christians to wear before the world. Only with this mark may the world know that Christians are indeed Christians and that Jesus was sent by the Father.”

But when you:
-Unite yourself with theological/political communities that promote constant messages of fear;
-Embrace a populism which turns a fear-based world into “we the good” and “they the enemy;”
-Get sucked into a tribalism that binds and blinds us away from the other side;
-Live 24/7 in media echo chambers which deeply embed false narratives and alternative facts;
And then when our neurology along with the practice of cognitive biases, amplify those fears even more, it’s no wonder we become trapped in a fear-based feedback loop as we spiral downward into rabbit holes of tribal division.

The Choice Before Us
As I write today, America is divided with levels of enmity I’ve never seen before. There’s a palpable feeling of disgust for the opposite side, who are no long seen as the imago dei. There’s also a sense of hopelessness which is crushing to our spirit as our nation continues to divide.

There’s a calling on God’s people to be ministers of reconciliation so you would think that if anyone could unite it should be them. But scientific studies show that in today’s hyper partisan American, God’s people are among the most divisive of them all. There’s got to be a change but any change cannot happen until we break free from this fear induced, echo chamber reinforced, and demonizing spirit of partisan bondage.

“But when he saw the wind, he [Peter] was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!” The fear Peter experienced when he took his eyes off Jesus is a natural response to the storms that encircle our lives. He chose correctly the first time, but chose poorly the second time, when confronted by the soldiers arresting Jesus.

Peter’s two choices are set before us in how we reconcile the endless cultural war with Christ’s mission. Will we respond to our fears by turning back to the One who changes us from the inside out? Or will we keep swinging the sword while cutting asunder our witness of love and unity – the two attributes of a Christian which Christ called the proof of His reconciliation mission to this world.

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You Are What You Love

Posted on February 1, 2021 by steve.ignell

I grew up memorizing scripture, lots of scripture in fact. Mom had her favorite verses and many of those were of the “two birds with one stone” type. We learned scripture but with a learning that was purpose driven, attending to some need for behavioral formation in our youth.

We learned to “be ye kind to one another” in the hope of keeping the peace amongst us kids. We learned about coming judgment for “every idle word that men shall speak” in the hope of keeping our speech pure. We learned to think about “whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable–if anything is excellent or praiseworthy” as one more requirement of being holy.

Of course, mom had a backup plan if the desired outcome wasn’t immediately forthcoming. If the “be ye kind” didn’t work, the “rod of correction” was kept nearby. If an idle word slipped out, soap was just one bathroom away. And if the “whatever is pure” fell short, a lecture on hell fire could be readily brought to bear.

We were called to be a “chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation” and mom knew how to get there. Christian formation was kindness, self-control in speech and thought, abstaining from immorality, temperance, and the shunning of bad habits. All were typical holiness moves back then, a witness to the deep holiness and fundamentalist roots in our Pentecostal movement. Of course, there was prayer, reading the bible and swinging from the chandeliers (just kidding). But that holiness stuff was king.

It’s all about the fight
Fast forward 60 years to last January when Rodney Howard-Browne, an evangelist who once frequented our church in Alaska, lashed out at John Bolton over the news that the former national security adviser had written a book that might confirm the existence of a quid pro quo between Trump and Ukraine, an allegation that had been made by House Democrats leading up to Trump’s impeachment.

“You are a slime ball of the highest order,” Howard-Browne said. “I should have knocked your sorry butt through the door of the Oval Office into the rose garden when I saw you. I would have gladly been arrested.”

A few months ago, Eric Metaxas, one of Trump’s court evangelicals sucker punched a protester on a bicycle from behind. Metaxas claimed that it was self-defense, but the video of the incident clearly shows otherwise as Metaxas had to step out of his way to punch the biker as he passed.

Trump’s term may be over, but the culture wars live on. As Peter Wehner in the Atlantic tells of a colleague who, after interviewing a number of evangelicals said: “I have never witnessed the kind of excitement and enthusiasm for a political figure in my life,” he told me. “I honestly couldn’t believe the unwavering support they have [for Trump]. And to a person, it was all about ‘the fight.”

Wehner opines: “Part of the answer is their belief that they are engaged in an existential struggle against a wicked enemy—not Russia, not North Korea, not Iran, but rather American liberals and the left. If you listen to Trump supporters who are evangelical you will hear adjectives applied to those on the left that could easily be used to describe a Stalinist regime…For them, Trump is a man who will not only push their agenda on issues such as the courts and abortion; he will be ruthless against those they view as threats to all they know and love. For a growing number of evangelicals, Trump’s dehumanizing tactics and cruelty aren’t a bug; they are a feature. Trump “owns the libs,” and they love it. He’ll bring a Glock to a cultural knife fight, and they relish that.”

Wehner is a longtime Republican operative with fellowships at conservative and faith organizations. Hence, his observations cannot be discounted as another partisan attack against the church. Particularly since they are backed by the results of the 2016 American National Election Survey (ANES). Called the “gold standard” of political surveys, ANES data show white evangelicals as the ethnoreligious group with the strongest support for “rough politics” in the public sphere.

Jesus Brought Something New
We live in a fallen world. A world marked by self-interest that inevitably leads to strife and conflict. A world marked by incredible beauty, but also by genuine evil as the ages will attest. And a world which too oft seems like Joseph Conrad’s moral abyss – covered over by a civilized thin veneer with an underlying barbarism ever ready to break through and expose the black cauldron below.

Jesus came to earth to bring something new, through the launch of a kingdom that was not of this world. As citizens of that kingdom, we are to be instruments of God’s new creation, planting signposts in hostile soil that show a different way to be human. Our task – then as image-bearing, God-loving, Christ-imitating, Spirit-filled Christians, following Christ and shaping our world – is to announce redemption to a world that has discovered its fallenness, to bring healing to a world that has discovered its brokenness, to proclaim love and trust to a world that knows only exploitation, fear and suspicion.

So how can that be? To wit: how can image-bearing, Christ-imitating, Spirit-filled Christians, called to show the world a different way to be human, not only want to live for the “fight” but be excited about it, to the extent they surpass all other groups in embracing “rough politics?” And how can such cruelty be even possible for those destined to be “His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works?” Especially given the injunction in Colossians to “clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience,” another verse mom had us memorize, which scripture calls an outgrowth of being God’s “holy people.”

You Are What You Love
What we say, act and think provide a window into our heart, for “out of the abundance of our heart a man speaketh.” Although who and what we worship ends up fundamentally shaping our heart, our awareness of what we worship is often lacking. There are drives deep within us and often at a subconscious level but then life’s pressures incite our passions and we find out who we really are as that thin veneer gives way to expose what lies below.

The pressure cooker of politics provides the ultimate heart truth tester. Its influence over our heart is a primary theme of James KA Smith” book “You Are What You Love.” Smith shows that the harmful outcome of this political influence is a repeated refrain throughout history. Earthly power is assimilative and through that assimilation our loves become distorted, away from the mission of the kingdom. Although we desire to shape culture, culture ends up shaping us; rather than witnessing the transforming power of the gospel, the gospel instead becomes transformed. It’s because our loves are informed by what we are devoted to and our devotions are drawn to the battle.

There’s a battle which lives loudly within today’s white evangelical church and our preoccupation with this culture war may be the biggest hinderance to the gospel. This battle acts like a Star Wars tractor beam, assimilating us into a partisan tribal collective – an assimilation with far reaching tentacles that invade every part of our life. It changes deeply held values as it reshapes our identity into a syncretistic mixture of two kingdoms. The transformation becomes complete through our passion to defend our new identity. Hence, we become what we love and our loves tell a new story of a devotion no longer solely focused on Jesus.

Once the dogs of war have been unleashed, it’s hard to call them back. Those dogs of war, which are fed by fear, crowd out the priority of love. Those dogs of war, fed by a populism-inspired “they the enemy,” are at odds with teachings of Christ. And the dogs of war, which bind and blind us to the tribe, changes our gospel witness of a God “who so loved the world.”

Jonah Goldberg said: “if you see yourself in a Manichean existential battle with the unholy Forces of Darkness, it’s much easier to overlook the adultery, greed, deceit, and corruption of your anointed champion.” Especially when that battle opens up a pandora box to a host of ungodly sensibilities, from the black cauldron of our human and fallen nature of which the cruelty is just one visible symptom.

The Upside-Down Exchange
Calvin spoke about a “wonderful exchange which, out of his measureless benevolence, he has made with us; that, becoming Son of man with us, he has made us sons of God…Having undertaken our weakness, he has made us strong in his strength.”

The preoccupation with the culture war turns this wondrous exchange upside down when we rely upon our political muscles in a battle for the soul of the nation. Of course, there are many calls for prayer, but our actions speak louder than words. Those actions choose the coercive force of political power rather than the “foolishness” of the cross. Those actions choose the a top-down cultural pressure, rather the power of Spirit-led influence. And those actions are confirmed when a “love one another” faithfulness becomes exchanged for rough politics in the public square because of the “righteousness” of “owning the libs.”

They say this exchange is needed because Christian identities and norms hang in the balance with the rules of engagement governed by the terms of the state. Success belongs to the victor, with the cosmic ends of this struggle justifying any means. Religious behavior is desirable, but no longer a first order goal. Our Christianity must be saved and our Christian nation restored to greatness too.

Jesus never engaged in political debates but focused instead on ushering in God’s Kingdom. Christ within us is the hope of the gospel, as long as that gospel stays true and as His character is formed within us, God’s culture changing kingdom power becomes unleashed.

We are called to be the shadow Jesus casts as we imitate the King. We are called to love our enemies through an unconditional love without borders. We are called to demonstrate his Kingdom for we are His ‘workmanship” in this world. As citizens of that kingdom, we choose the cross instead of the sword. By an ethic of serving others, we choose a power submissive to others rather than a power coercive over others. And as we enlist in God’s kingdom’s plan to transform society from within, we bring Calvary’s radical countercultural love – a love that’s removed “as far as the east is from the west” from today’s cultural “knife” fight.

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Metrics of Disunity: Whataboutism

Posted on January 23, 2021 by steve.ignell

The first Bible verse I ever learned as a kid was Ephesians 4:32 – “and be ye kind one to another, tender hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ sake has forgiven you.” In fact, I just wrote that perfectly from memory, in King James Version no less, as it’s still indelibly imprinted on my mind. I’m sure my mother’s goal for this memorization was all about sibling relations. Especially with my sister who would repeatedly remind me that she was 2 years, 6 months and 25 days older than me! Of course, she had to memorize it too as kindness was a first order issue, faithful to the priority of scripture and very much needed between us siblings!

Mom’s priority of character development was ably matched by mom’s rod of correction, one of the many wooden spoons lurking in a kitchen drawer every ready to justify its existence. There were always multiple backups too as redundancy was a critical value in mom’s universe of wooden spoons. Not so much for cooking, as one would surmise, but to ensure ready replacements when the biblically inspired rod broke in half.

Resistance was always futile, a timeless outcome which never changed. Arguments were futile too and likely to make the punishment worse. Character development meant owning the crime, learning to take personal responsibility. Its goal was moral development, transforming self-centered kids into virtuous adults. I learned quickly that the outcome of a “but Sheryl” argument was statistically 2.3 additional swats more. Hence, any whataboutism was shunned, even punished as it was deemed incompatible with Godly moral formation.

The term whataboutism first surfaced in northern Ireland in the 1970s and used by both sides of that sectarian conflict to up the ante of moral indignation when confronted with an accusation. It found a second home during the cold war for a kind of Russian argumentation intended to match “every Soviet crime with a real or imagined western one.” But it wasn’t until the election of 2016 that it became a household term, increasing in use nearly 100-fold by late 2017 through its incorporation into our media discourse and by the call-out culture of social media. And its sustained popularity means that its here to stay as measure to the degree in which American identities have become politically tribalized.

Wide is the Gate…To Hackery
Whataboutism is a logical fallacy (“tu quoque,” Latin for you also) used to avoid the issue while counter-attacking through an accusation of hypocrisy. It acts like a mirror keeping the spotlight on the other while avoiding accountability for one’s beliefs or actions. It amplifies the power of populism by fostering a binary worldview of “we the good” vs “they the enemy.” It’s a force multiplier for echo chambers through its avoidance of any honest engagement with an opposing view. And it’s an effective tool of tribalism because it’s always pointing at the other while being uninterested in the truth.

It simplifies political life because, as Andrew Sullivan once said: “One of the great attractions of tribalism is that you don’t actually have to think very much. All you need to know on any given subject is which side you’re on…When criticized by a member of a rival tribe, a tribalism will not reflect on his/her own actions or assumptions, but instantly point to the same flaw in his enemy”

Alan Dykstra in “The Rhetoric of “Whataboutism” in American Journalism and Political Identity” says: whataboutism rhetoric appears to be truth-seeking under the guise of engaging in a debate. But it is a relatively empty exercise, unmoored from a common understanding of truth. He concludes by saying whataboutism is a sign of “group division, polarization and tribalization of political identity in American Society…In such a mode, insulated knowledge spaces and tribal conceptions of social reality develop.”

I think mom knew instinctively what political scientists have found empirically. Whataboutism incites division, a sin that strikes at the heart of Christianity’s core. It undercuts the formation of character through the avoidance of personal responsibility. It removes the spotlight from right and wrong. It’s a violation of 1 Peter 3:9 who enjoins us to not repay “insult with insult.” And it contaminates our gospel witness through its reliance on tribal sensibilities.

As Jonah Goldberg, the long-time conservative pundit recently tweeted in response to what he said was the “5,000th Trump apologist pundit make the same argument…Conservatism claims to believe in serious notions of right & wrong. We (claim to) champion moral clarity. If your first response to every misdeed of your side is to criticize the other side for condemning it. That’s not principled conservatism, it’s hackery.”

Jonah again: “I’m not an expert on Christianity. But my understanding is that if you sin and are called to account for it, replying “Yeah, but look at what the Muslims do” is not a defense. Again, no expert so I’m open to correction.”

What if we quit worrying about whether people are on the ‘left’ or ‘right’ and just viewed our own actions in the context of right vs. wrong? What if we cared more about the factual basis of an issue, rather than finding refuge in a rhetorical tool meant to deflect? What if we adopted a many-sided perspective, evaluating truth claims according to their individual merits rather than through a false binary responsive to a tribalistic narrative. Then if an appeal to fairness seems meritorious, at least it should follow some form of honest evaluation of the levied charge.

Whataboutism as a Metric of Division
Many drivers of disunity (e.g., populism) are difficult to quantitively pin down. Whataboutism, however, is easy to discern which makes it an ideal candidate to measure. Simply count the number of whataboutisms someone uses when engaging an opposing view. And then normalize it by some standardizing measure (e.g., total number of arguments) and voila, you have a whataboutism indicator of the percentage of arguments one avoids through a whatabout deflection.

It may be simple to measure, but its meaning is a bit more unclear. Does someone’s frequent use of whataboutisms just measure someone’s laziness, an unwillingness to seriously engage? Or does it measure someone’s underlying character, one’s commitment to truth and avoidance of hypocrisy? (I know that mom would surely vote for that.) Yet for many, it’s clearly the argument of choice. An instinctive response centered around the defense of their tribe. Yes, I believe this meaning is most common for that’s how this fallacy is defined. A divisive measure through a “but you” response which is really a measure of one’s fealty to a tribe.

Metanoeo – Changing Our Mind
We are called to citizens of His kingdom, to be agents of reconciliation as the Apostle Paul enjoined. But as Steve Pecota, my former pastor, recently wrote in his excellent blog, “there can be no reconciliation without forgiveness. And forgiveness requires repentance.”

Repentance in scripture (from the Greek word metanoeo) means to have a change of mind. It’s demonstrated by a complete change of direction; a 180 degree turn from the past. But repentance must start with a reckoning, by acknowledging how we have “missed the mark.” And without that initial acknowledging, it’s like sewing up a wound without first cleaning out the debris.

Peter Wehner, the long-time Republican speechwriter, wrote today that “President Biden inherits a nation sicker, weaker, angrier, more divided and more violent than it has been in living memory.” Our nation needs to heal and the renewed cries for unity have never been more important. But unity without repentance leaves the wound within our nation unclean. For you just can’t post an image of Lincoln with the message of “A house divided against itself cannot stand” while continuing to post whataboutisms based on a divisive populist message. Nor will calls for God‘s healing and God’s help, made from evangelical leaders such as Franklin Graham, sooth a nation made more divisive from their endorsements of partisan conspiracy theories. And to quote Steve again in regard to the baseless assertion of election fraud: “Our calls for unity within our nation will ring as hollow as empty soda cans if they are not accompanied by genuine, sorrowful repentance for the harm we have done. We must repent for helping to propagate a lie.”

Isn’t it time we heed Haggai’s admonition to first “consider our ways” as we “leave behind every weight, those sins that so easily beset us?” Then, as a prelude to unity:
• shouldn’t we acknowledge the sin of demonizing the other as we repent of a populistic world view that labels other tribes to be the enemy;
• shouldn’t we acknowledge the sin of a tribalistic identity as we repent of inhabiting echo chambers so that we can be set free from the syncretism (idolatry) those partisan bubbles impose; and
• shouldn’t we acknowledge our sin of hypocrisy as we repent of an instinctive whataboutism mindset thereby canceling one of the most effective partisan tools that divides our nation in half?

Then perhaps with these 180-degree turns, through a repentance based on honest reckonings, together we make some progress towards the much-needed healing our land.

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