JESUS: THE CURE FOR DOGMATISM

When men are the most sure and arrogant, they are commonly the most mistaken.—David Hume

Those who refuse the long drudgery of thought, and think with the passions rather than the head, are ever most fiercely dogmatic.—Peter Bayne

Our Lord may have been positive but he was not arrogant. If dogmatism is “stating an opinion in an arrogant manner,” as Webster indicates, then Jesus was certainly not dogmatic. To the contrary, Jesus came teaching, and his ministry was a rebuke to dogmatic religion. He did not come to debate but to persuade. “I have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now” (Jn. 16:12) are not the words of a dogmatist. When he was brought before those in authority “He opened not his mouth,” to the consternation of his enemies. He did not always have to answer back. He had no points to prove—only a Father to reveal.

Yet dogmatism has long been a besetting sin of those of us who profess to be his followers. Many of us have been “most sure and arrogant,” as Hume puts it, about matters that are not all that important. We have to be right! And about what? Not so much what C. S. Lewis calls “mere Christianity,” such as the meekness and gentleness of Christ, but the main points of “the party line.” When this is the case, we convince folk of but one thing, that we are arrogant and dogmatic.

One of our readers, a professor in a Christian college, writes us about what he calls “the new, up-coming ‘feeling generation,’” which he sees as more open, better versed in Scripture, and less dogmatic than their teachers. He added some words that especially impressed me: “Perhaps it is because the more you know (about) Him, the less dogmatic you become. Truth is truth, but the more one knows of it, the more one’s attitude seems to become like God’s, ‘truthing in love’”!

We must overcome our arrogant dogmatism, and Jesus is our answer. The more we know him the less dogmatic we are. This is because dogmatism is actually a defense mechanism that hides our insecurity. When we find our security in Jesus there is no need for dogmatism. When we are right where it really counts, which is our relationship with him who came to seek and to save the lost, we don’t have to be all that right about a lot of other stuff. Jesus is really the only big deal. Once we are at peace with him, we don’t have to have the last word. Love keeps no score of wrongs is the way one version renders 1 Cor. 13:5. It could be said that love keeps no score at all. One does not have to “win” when the victory is already won.

We must concede that Peter Bayne is right when he says that the most fiercely dogmatic people are those who refuse the long drudgery of thought. They think with their passions, he says, which is not to think at all. Pilate was thinking when he concluded that it was because of envy that Jesus’ enemies were after him. But his enemies were not thinking. Mob violence is always irrational, and irrationality has immersed this world in darkness.

Thinking is often painful, “Drudgery” as Bayne has suggested, and we fear it will lead to conclusions that we cannot handle. But pain is part of the price of liberty. It is truth—truthing in love —that makes us free. It may hurt but it liberates.

For many years this journal has sought answers to the problem of a divided church. We are persuaded that freedom from dogmatism will go far in healing us. When the apostle urges “Let your forbearing spirit be known to all men” (Philip. 4:5) he provides an antidote for the quarrelsome spirit behind most of our factions. Forbearance listens; dogmatism does not. Forbearance realizes that by the bowels of Christ it may be wrong, while dogmatism can not bear the thought of being wrong.

I think of my friend Perry Gresham, who was president of Bethany College when I taught there. He tells how he would respond to the critical letters he received. “You may be right,” he would say to his critics. This was not a mere ploy, but an attitude toward truth. One may believe he is right while acknowledging he may be wrong. We can certainly believe we are right without insisting that everyone else is wrong.

A little more of this kind of attitude—sweet reasonableness and loving forbearance—rather than an intolerable dogmatism will do more to generate peace among our fractured people than a thousand confrontations. Jesus, the Prince of Peace, points the way.—the Editor