Holding firmly to one’s beliefs was among the earliest edicts in the faith tradition that nurtured me. That was bad advice.
It was built on the false notion that we had found all truth for all times and simply needed to protect it from the devil, the critiques of others and our own wonderings.
Putting one’s belief in concrete makes it firm but not necessarily right. And those doing the least ongoing evaluation tend to show not only inflexibility but overconfidence.
Psychologists know this latter symptom as the Dunning-Kruger effect in which someone with a small amount of knowledge assumes the role of expert on a topic. Social media reveals this effect regularly.
Those with no background, training or experience proudly and confidently present their weak conclusions (disguised as irrefutable analysis) about complex matters of economics, foreign policy, public health, migration and more.
They have read (or more likely heard) this perspective from a bloviating politician, preacher or highly-ideological media personality. Or perhaps they just saw a meme, today’s version of a bumper sticker.
What one embraces as truth worth spouting about is usually the result of such propositions aligning with how one already feels. Therefore, it is quickly consumed and then regurgitated as truth that all others are expected to accommodate without criticism or examination.
Organizational psychologist Adam Grant has stirred my rethinking and unlearning through his book, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know (2023, Penguin Books).
He notes the work of psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger — for whom the effect is named — to point out how frequently people get “stranded at the summit of Mount Stupid.”
Persons rarely opine on matters that are totally unfamiliar to them. But give them a wee bit of information (or misinformation) and they are likely to assume unfounded expertise.
A graph, showing how the Dunning-Kruger effect works, starts at the intersection of knowledge and confidence. And it spikes in confidence when just a little information is uncritically acquired.
That quick hump in the graph is what Grant refers to as Mount Stupid. And many prefer the laziness of resting there, he explains, rather than the needed task of rethinking one’s positions.
This is true of everything from current issues to scientific understandings to religious affirmations.
Now, with a digital megaphone at everyone’s fingertips, Mount Stupid is the peak from which the loudest and lousiest opinions are most often expressed today.
This perceived need to protect one’s sense of certainty, said Grant, is actually tied to fragile egos. I would add that it is symptomatic of fragile faith as well.
The fear in rethinking and unlearning is that if one domino falls, the whole house crumbles. But surely the infinite God who created our finite minds — rather than making us robots — does not fear our scrutiny.
Rethinking not only requires mental and spiritual efforts at pursuing truth. It requires getting past the crippling feeling of being threatened by new possibilities.
Uncritical thinking and unfounded overconfidence simply result in a house of faith built with sticks and straws.
“If we are certain we know something, we have no reason to look for gaps and flaws in our knowledge — let alone fill or correct them,” writes Grant.
More bluntly but no less accurately, Charles Bukowski famously said: “The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.”
It’s easy to get stranded atop Mount Stupid. Just grab a good-sounding opinion about something; don’t evaluate it seriously; and firmly hold to and advance this most satisfying conclusion as truth.
The slightest rethinking, however, can reveal that what even well-intentioned people taught us to be true just may not live up to scrutiny and new discoveries. We see this so often in matters of faith and science.
Young-earth creationism and literal interpretations of the ancient flood story (the one in the Bible among others) are consumed as biblical truth while carbon studies and the atrocities by fragile-faith church authorities toward Copernicus and Galileo are treated as fairy tales.
Tragically, people of faith tend to be particularly defensive about any rethinking.
Yet even with the slightest effort one might unlearn something once presented as truth but has faulty foundations. The result is not a loss of faith but better faith.
Many widely-assumed Christian teachings can be traced to religious movements much closer to our time than to the time of Jesus. Asking where some idea (or doctrinal position) came from is a good start at rethinking.
Oddly, those who claim to hold a “biblical” position rather than giving in to culture typically hold to culturally-shaped positions that have been ascribed to the Bible at an earlier time.
The same methodology of elevating highly selective verses while ignoring the values, example and teachings of Jesus — as done through the years to justify human slavery and other atrocities — continues.
Holding relentlessly to a poor interpretation of the Bible or rejecting scientific evidence because it is at odds with one’s beliefs is not evidence of a firm faith but of a hardened mind. It is how one gets stranded on Mount Stupid when there is a way down.
Assumptions, fear and mental-spiritual undiscipline inhibit needed rethinking. Curiosity, resourcefulness and spiritual discernment are reliable rescuers.
Deservingly, much emphasis is put on lifelong learning. And never have such opportunities been more available.
Yet there is a corresponding and — at this time in history — perhaps a greater need for unlearning. At least some seriously rethinking about what we may have uncritically embraced as truth.
So why is rethinking and unlearning so lacking if it leads to improvements?
From a psychological perspective, Grant writes that part of the problem is the “cognitive laziness” of “mental misers.”
“We often prefer the ease of hanging on to old views over the difficulty of grappling with new ones…,” he writes. “Reconsidering something we believe deeply can threaten our identities, making it feel as if we’re losing a part of ourselves.”
In the religious context, I would add, there is an overemphasis on being right.
Holding the right doctrine is often treated as the key to heaven — which deemphasizes Jesus’ call to deny self, love God with all one’s being, treat the vulnerable as if they are Jesus, and other things so many professing Christian seek to avoid.
Much of my earlier faithing involved defending my preferred doctrinal positions while identifying the deficiencies of other denominations and religions. That foolish approach was arrogant and worth unlearning.
Another lesson in unlearning was seeing doubt as friend rather than enemy. Doubting is the starting point to rethinking that can lead to finding previously unrealized truth.
English professor Daniel Taylor was a key influence for me in his 1986 book, The Myth of Certainty: The Reflective Christian and the Risk of Commitment (Word Books).
“The reflective person is, first and foremost, a question asker — one who finds in every experience and assertion something that requires further investigation,” he writes.
For those who see such questioning as unbiblical, he notes how the reflective writer of Ecclesiastes (7:25) affirmed: “I directed my mind to know, to investigate, and to seek wisdom and an explanation…”
Taylor urges Christians “to be sensitive to and fascinated by the complexity of things.” Now that is a much-needed word within Americanized Christianity today.
Often missing from the loud proclamations from atop Mount Stupid is any admittance of complexities.
Everything from abortion to immigration to guns to economics to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict gets presented as a clear, simple matter with an easy solution — while largely disregarding human dignity and protecting one’s own cultural dominance.
Simplemindedness has quite the encampment on that hilltop. So does stubbornness.
Admitting, as we all should do, that we are/were wrong about something is not a sign of weakness but of ongoing unlearning/learning and maturity.
“I started out just wanting to prove myself,” said forecaster Jean-Pierre Beugoms, according to Grant. “Now I want to improve myself — to see how good I can get.”
Such humility is a key to rethinking. It sees a changed mind not as weakness but strength — celebrating that one no longer is wrong about something.
One of my most helpful unlearning experiences came from a sociology of religion class in college. It afforded the chance to see how many of my religious convictions and assumptions were shaped by culture rather than being an embrace of divine truth for all time.
“I may be wrong…” is often the best way to preface one’s proclamations of assumed truth. And, just to be clear, I may be wrong in my assessments here.
In a frustrating way, dialogue is simply impossible with those unwilling to rethink. But it can be quite revealing.
Time and again I note the many professing Christians whose primary object of faith proves to be the Bible as they choose to interpret it — rather than God who is revealed in Jesus. But don’t expect a confession of such.
All of us — if open to rethinking in search of truth — might consider the degree to which our beliefs reflect what we want to be true. Psychologists know this as “desirability bias.”
As Grant puts it, “Our beliefs are shaped by our motivations.”
This may matter very little when referring to one’s doctrinal position on end times or creation. It matters a great deal, however, if such desired beliefs result in the abuse of those Jesus said we are to love and embrace.
Anyone seeking to follow Jesus should never fear asking: “Does my desire-based belief harm others?” Simply seeking consistency in one’s beliefs and the life and teachings of Jesus is rather easy but can be disruptive.
Throughout history many assumed “biblical” beliefs have been (and are) merely religiously disguised desires for injustice and discrimination that advance one’s own privilege.
Just because something is widely or long held doesn’t mean it’s right. I got a chuckle from Grant’s definition of tradition as “peer pressure from dead people.”
Rethinking is not a call to ditch everything one has been taught or has embraced as truth. It is rather a willingness to consider possibilities.
Professor John Eddins told our systematic theology class on the old Wake Forest campus decades ago: “Keep what you have until you find something better to replace it.” Good advice.
The most needed rethinking for much of Americanized Christianity today is the very essence of what it means to be Christian.
Though certainly not the start of uncritical faith, the Religious Right arose in the U.S. four-plus decades ago with a clear political purpose. It was pure politics wearing the mask of religion.
This movement has now fully accomplished its goal of redefining Christianity as a self-serving ideology rooted in the fear of cultural change that is expressed primarily in political opposition to abortion, gay rights and equality.
Everything else, regardless of how immoral and sinister, gets excused. Gone is the very basic idea that being Christian is defined by one’s faithfulness in following Jesus.
As a result, many professing Christians today are content with ignoring what Jesus said and did — other than dying so they can escape hell by uttering a prescribed prayer.
At this point, it seems, a defining embrace of the Christian faith — that downplays or dismisses Jesus’ life, teachings and calling — stands in the greatest need for rethinking.
Grappling with the Sermon of the Mount is highly preferred to being stuck on Mount Stupid.
John D. Pierce is director of the Jesus Worldview Initiative (jesusworldview.org), part of Belmont University’s Rev. Charlie Curb Center for Faith Leadership.