Biased

I have a theory that the predominant theology of each era of Christians will be very largely based on a reaction to the errors in theology of the era of Christians that came before it. So rather than just letting the Bible speak for itself, we try to correct the wrong bias of the last generation of Christians, and the way that happens is by creating a wrong bias of our own in the other direction.

So over time, the dominant theological view on different topics will tends to swing back and forth to extremes, when the truth is often somewhere in the middle.

Just thinking about this because of today’s reading (Hebrews 3) (in the Bible reading plan some of us are doing together). Let’s pretend this chapter was not in the Bible. It would still be true, right? And then let’s say that next Sunday, every American Christian in the country tuned in to watch a preacher on TV, who said the words of this chapter, word for word, as his sermon. I bet 60% to 85% of the Christians who heard it would say it’s wrong, many even making accusations of false teaching. Why? It just doesn’t fit into the current theological bias (which is based on creating the wrong bias of the last generation). That’s part of the problem with our biases, there’s lots of Bible you have to ignore or contort because they just don’t fit what you’ve come to believe.

Okay, end of my theological ramblings. Sorry, I have to do that once a year, whether I want to or not.