As we near a contentious election, we’ve been considering people’s commitments under 4 overlapping headings: opinions, ideas, beliefs, and core convictions. Last week, we checked out beliefs and concepts. Now, we’ll turn to beliefs and core convictions—the 2 deepest layers. The hope in examining each of those facets is to supply a constructive way forward once we run into deep disagreements, especially with those we love.
Actions Confirm the Reality of Our Beliefs
Beliefs are ideas you’re prepared to act on. Let’s say you visit your doctor since you’ve been experiencing chest pain. After some routine tests, he writes you a prescription. If you don’t take the medication, there’s a robust probability you won’t consider the person. From automotive mechanics to plumbers, from pastors to counselors, our lives are awash with all types of ideas, however it’s our actions that tell us what we actually consider.
Our beliefs will often surprise us. When asked the query, “What’s something true that you simply don’t consider,” the novelist Adam Roberts shrewdly replied, “That I’m going to die.” It might sound like a whole departure from reality, but in case you take a look at our every day habits, you’ll find that lots of us proceed as if death only happens to other people. Belief is very complex and constitutes a wealthy field of educational inquiry. Broadly speaking, in our cultural moment, we’ve difficulty trusting outside voices. Much to the chagrin of practicing physicians, many individuals prefer the impersonal computations of WebMD to the actual care of a health care provider. Making matters more complex is the indisputable fact that lots of us prefer to customize our “facts,” rigorously curating our experience of reality to suit our views. Once again, this habit points back to a penchant for trusting ourselves alone and searching for to align our beliefs with personal preferences quite than the character of reality. Changing a belief involves a change to the form of a life, so it’s no small feat. If we’re aiming at persuasion here, the important challenge will involve gently combating a consumerist mindset on the character of reality. Convincing someone that non-public preference ought to not dictate our worldview is a frightening task, one that can require prayer, patience, and creativity.
Understanding the Core Convictions that Define Us
Core convictions are intimately tied to the human personality and flow from an individual’s peculiar disposition. Core convictions register first as a strong feeling. Think of expressions like “go together with your gut” or “I’ve got a nasty feeling about this.” It’s vital to emphasize that feeling isn’t a derogatory word meant to speak a buoyant detachment from reality. Rather, the unique set of talents and skills that every of us exhibits predispose us toward certain reactions and modes of engagement. In this sense, a few of us have a natural feel for justice, a natural feel for unity and order, a natural feel for beauty and wholeness, and a natural feel for religious devotion. If we dressed up each of those sensibilities as a basic type, we could call the 4 characters the Judge, the Scientist, the Artist, and the Priest.
A more poetic illustration can be the aeolian harp. Named after Aeolus, the Greek god of the wind, it is a stringed instrument that’s “played” by the wind. A wind chime can be its modern descendant. The Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge offers an expansive, if somewhat pantheistic, picture of the instrument:
And what if all of animated nature
Be but organic Harps diversely framed,
That tremble into thought, as o’er them sweeps
Plastic and vast, one mental breeze,
At once the Soul of every, and God of all?
Running with Coleridge’s metaphor, we would consider human beings as “organic Harps” played by life’s “breeze.” The picture offers a captivating intersection of passive and lively elements. Like an aeolian harp, each of our personalities is a singular configuration, and though each of us is subject to life’s same breeze, said breeze rings unique notes from each of us. Think of your core convictions as those singular notes.
Given the indisputable fact that core convictions have their basis in an individual’s very heart, changing them would require nothing lower than a change of heart. It’s vital here to discern pure motivations and what we take to be misguided assumptions. Imagine you could have a friend who has a natural feel for justice (the Judge in our scheme) and is deeply committed to the humane treatment of others, especially those on the margins. Let’s say this person also believes that human sexuality is fluid and devoid of any intrinsic purpose or design. Consequently, they view traditional limitations on sexual expression as harmful. Obviously, engaging this person on such a subject might be intimidating, however it’s possible to affirm a commitment to the humane treatment of every one no matter their sexual orientation while maintaining that human sexuality has an writer and, due to this fact, a correct mode of expression. Once again, if we hope to attempt to persuade someone to vary their lives, we must operate with care, respect, and sensitivity. After all, attempting to persuade someone to vary who they’re is a radical request.
Being All Things to All People
In I Corinthians 9:19-23, Paul writes, “For though I’m free from all, I actually have made myself a servant to all, that I’d win more of them. To the Jews, I became a Jew as a way to win Jews. To those under the law, I became one under the law (though not being myself under the law), and I’d win those under the law. To those outside the law, I became one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) in order that I’d win over those outside the law. To the weak, I became weak, and I’d win the weak. I actually have develop into all things to all people, and by all means, I’d avoid wasting. I do all of it for the sake of the gospel that I’ll share with them in its blessings.”
When we bear in mind the inner motivations of an individual’s views, we put into practice Paul’s habit of becoming all things to all people. Such a method refuses our cultural moment’s trademark tactics of manipulation, coercion, scapegoating, and vilification. By examining opinions, ideas, beliefs, and core convictions, the hope has been to supply some practical purchase for arguing well with others, especially those closest to us. May our Lord grant us the grace to be all things to all people, even once they’re glaring at us across the table.
Part 2: How to Stay Convicted without Being Confrontational
Photo Credit: SWN Design
Kenneth Boa equips people to like well (being), learn well (knowing), and live well (doing). He is a author, teacher, speaker, and mentor and is the President of Reflections Ministries, The Museum of Created Beauty, and Trinity House Publishers.
Publications by Dr. Boa include Conformed to His Image, Handbook to Prayer, Handbook to Leadership, Faith Has Its Reasons, Rewriting Your Broken Story, Life within the Presence of God, Leverage, and Recalibrate Your Life.
Dr. Boa holds a B.S. from Case Institute of Technology, a Th.M. from Dallas Theological Seminary, a Ph.D. from New York University, and a D.Phil. from the University of Oxford in England.
