On the way home from work last night, I saw this billboard on one of our busiest streets. The prediction has been showing up around the country. According to the sponsoring group, judgment day, and the end of the world as we know it, comes on May 21, 2011.
Look close. The sign promises “The Bible Guarantees it.”
The sight reminded me of what I recently read about another small religious group that made their own prediction about the end of the world for December 21, 1954. At that time, some researchers from Stanford University infiltrated the group to try and observe what would happen when the prediction failed.
As the day approached and then passed, the researchers realized that this was their moment to observe how the group would explain their mistake and group embarrassment.
At first, the failure of the prophecy resulted in confusion. But then came the unexpected. The group received what they believed to be another message from their spiritual Source. This time they learned that, instead of a failure, they had actually, by their faithfulness, saved the world from judgment.
The result was that the group became more convinced than ever of the truth and value of their mission.
The point of Chris Mooney, the author, was to provide scientific evidence showing how our human capacity for self-deception works. It began quoting the Stanford researcher who said, “A man with a conviction is a hard man to change. Tell him you disagree and he turns away. Show him facts or figures and he questions your sources. Appeal to logic and he fails to see your point of view.”
The article goes on to cover a lot of highly debated political issues. But it ended saying, “Paradoxically, you don’t lead with the facts in order to convince. You lead with the values (i.e. of the person you want to persuade)– so as to give the facts a fighting chance.”
Then I found another article, this one by David Brin,that followed up on the first. It added that there is only one solution for the self-deluding bent of human nature. Since we are so inclined to hear only what we want to hear when it comes to our deeply held convictions, the only answer is for an atmosphere of reciprocal criticism. In other words, our critics can sometimes help us more than our friends. Yet, according to the second article, criticism is most likely to be heard when the conversation is civil rather than marked by threatening accusations and characterizations.
So how does this mesh with the Bible’s counsel for conflict? Admittedly, we don’t need such science to prove that what the Bible says is true. But, at the very minimum, such articles might illustrate why the Apostle Paul taught a young man named Timothy to confront dangerous false teachers with unexpected kindness, patience, gentleness, and reason, rather than with intimidation.
Leaving Timothy in the city of Ephesus to confront false teachers, Paul told him, “The servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth; and that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will” (2Tim 2:24-26a).
Interestingly, Paul had earlier used far stronger language in describing the dangers of false teaching in Ephesus. On one of the Apostle’s trips to Jerusalem, he asked the spiritual leaders of Ephesus to travel about 30 miles to meet him at the coastal city of Melitus. When they had come together with him, he warned them in some of his last words to them that the day would come when human wolves, (dangerous false teachers), would rise up within the church to draw away people after themselves.
From a distance, Paul spoke in strong and general terms. Yet when it came to counseling Timothy who was living in Ephesus and dealing personally, face to face, with false teaching, Paul encouraged his understudy to act with great patience, grace, and kindness toward those who were in error, while trusting God to provide the change of mind and heart that was needed.
Seems to me that whether we’re discussing the issue of date-setting for Christ’s return or countless other issues of disagreement, Paul’s counsel to Timothy tells us something very important about how to deal with human nature.
When it comes to personal communication…to give the facts a fighting chance, we need to handle disagreements with truth and grace, as we rely upon the Spirit of God to change hearts that, in all of us, are prone to self-delude– when under attack.
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