Unhealthy Assumptions
Note: I wrote this blog a few days ago, only to shelve it fear of sounding pretentious. However, our polarized world has pressed painfully upon me since then. So, I’m going to let this one slip out anyways, instead of being afraid of disagreement, or being afraid of being just flat out wrong.
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I’m not sure why this is on my mind today, but it’s there, and it’s not leaving.
Shouting matches are very vogue today. Health care, homosexual ordination, the Olympics (my favorite line of the week…”It turns out that some Republicans do indeed hate Barack Obama more than they love America.”), and the list goes on. At the foundation of these uproars, like everything else, is context. For better of worse, context is the sneaky little spark that fuels all public conversation.
We can’t get past context. There is no way around it. No matter what I do, I will be a white middle class American that was raised in South Carolina in Baptist churches. That has a profound impact on my worldview, and there’s only so much a person can do to stretch beyond it. And there are both advantages and disadvantages to my– and every other– limited worldview.
One disadvantage is the misleading power of assumptions. In the forefront of our minds, these are truth, and they are obviously so. They’re not up for debate. In nearly every argument of policy, structure, religion, and everything else that makes us turn red in the face, assumptions are both the starting point and the end. We start with our assumptions, and the conversation is doomed in the end because of them.
But I’ll stop being vague. These are the assumptions on my mind; some of them have plagued me in the past, and some of them plague me still, and all of them (I believe) are unhealthy and crippling genuine conversation.
-The U.S. was founded as a Christian nation.
-Traditional churches are old, backwards, and ineffective.
-Contemporary churches are “too hip” and lack depth.
-America is in the toilet morally when compared to 50 years ago.
-The church needs social media to stay alive.
-The church should avoid social media.
-The United States is God’s gift to the world.
-Socialism is the way of the devil.
-Barack Obama is a socialist.
-The answer to all of our problems will come when my favorite political party gains power.
-Lower division college sports are inferior.
-It really matters whether you use a Mac or a PC.
-Gay men and women universally desire to destroy your way of life.
-Government social programs and taxes can fix this nation’s deficiencies.
-Government social programs can’t help at all.
-The style of music we play on a Sunday morning is of utmost concern to God.
-Racists, criminals, terrorists, crooked politicians, and the like do not deserve our love.
I suppose I could go on all day, but that would stop being productive very quickly.
I imagine that you may disagree with some of this, but that is part of the point. In some cases, I need to be willing to let go of what I understand to be true and false in order to even hear your point of view. I feel that those who find themselves currently shouting or just really angry should learn to do the same.
