Proud Public Condemnation: Hubris
In the online Christian world, whether in broader Evangelical circles, or in narrower biblical counseling circles, it seems we often have a typical first response to a Christian who disagrees with our view: proud public condemnation. We publicly call the person out, not simply for having a different interpretation, but for being a heretic or a psycho-heretic. We post pejorative labels, quote selective sources, and invite our camp members to pile on.
This is hubris:
- The excessive self-confidence that my view is the only right view.
- The exaggerated sense of self-assurance of the sufficiency of my insight to trump every other perspective.
- The overconfidence that defies the possibility that someone outside my approved group might see things better than I do.
Humble Personal Curiosity: Humility
Instead, what if our first response was humble personal curiosity? For example:
1.) “This person has a long-held reputation as a mature, wise, orthodox thinker. Before I publicly condemn them, I’m going to think long and hard about what I could learn from their perspective on this.”
Or, 2.) “I think I’ll reach out to this person and see if we could interact and learn from each other in some iron-sharpening-iron conversations.”
Or, 3.) “Before I selectively collect quotes that support my position, and before I marshal footnotes that hammer their position, I’m going to do some fair and balanced research examining this from their perspective, and not only from my camp/tradition/perspective.”
Or, 4.) “Hmm, their view is different from my view, and different from the tradition I was trained in. I wonder what I/we could learn from this different perspective?”
Or, 5.) “I wonder if I and my tribe perhaps could have been wrong about this?” Scripture is sufficient and inerrant, but our man-made interpretations are neither inerrant nor sufficient.”
Or, 6.) “I’ll use their view as a catalyst to draw me back to Scripture and church history to assess my own view.”
