Have you ever found yourself in an environment where it didn’t feel safe to ask questions? Perhaps you wanted to dive into Scripture to study a particular topic but were met with fear or condescension. Perhaps you’ve been dismissed or regarded as unorthodox when you’re pretty sure the other party doesn’t even know your position. Maybe you haven’t even fully formed your own position. Perhaps you encountered someone who seemed committed to misrepresenting you and unwilling to engage in respectful conversations.
How should we as Christians engage with those we disagree with? Consider that God cares about how we hold our positions as we engage others, not just if we hold the right position. What would it look like if Christians came to conflicts with a posture of humility, possessing an openness to being persuaded by those we disagree with? If humility is regarding others as better than ourselves, perhaps the first step to humility is to recognize we possess a bias towards believing that we know best.1 In this post, I write to encourage us to have a spirit of humility in cases where we believe we have reason to be dogmatic.2
We may believe that we can be completely neutral and objective, but in reality, we all bring biases to the table. Bias can be defined as a natural inclination for or against an idea, object, group or individual. We have a way of seeing and responding to the world because of our experiences. Consider that our biases are “caught” rather than taught. It’s the water we swim in. Things like our socioeconomic status, race, ethnicity, sex, educational background, church traditions, and experiences influence our biases.
My Experiences as a Chinese American
Let’s consider cultural bias for example. Culture teaches us what to value and where to find purpose and security. A temptation of each culture is to think its values, practices, and beliefs are superior to others. While a culture’s values can be a strength, it can also be a potential blind spot. As I’ve experienced American and Chinese culture, I’ve both appreciated and been frustrated at aspects of each culture.
As a Chinese American, I grew up in Long Island, attending a Chinese church in the city. My grandparents immigrated to America in the pursuit of a better life. Hard work was a value instilled in me. In high school, I was a minority in a wealthy, predominantly Jewish, and liberal school district. My dad would often drop me off at school on his way to work while classmates of mine drove BMW’s to school. Penny pinching in my mind was ‘proper’ biblical stewardship and I looked down on my spoiled classmates whose mode of transportation I found excessive. Was my judgmentalism an expression of jealousy or Christian piety?
Food is an important part of Chinese culture. I would argue that breaking bread with others, actually, breaking rice with others would be important to Jesus. Growing up, we would visit my grandparents once a week and share a meal with the uncles, aunties, and cousins. My grandma would feed me and tell me to eat more, even when I was already stuffed full. I would say, “Thank you, Grandma. I’m full. I’ve had enough.” Or in Chinese, “我吃饱了 – wǒ chī bǎo le.” And then Grandma would complain that I didn’t eat enough and add another scoop to my plate. I suppose disregarding my desires was her way of showing love given her experience with lack and poverty.
Even today, I strive to get my money’s worth at buffets. I’ll eat the most expensive food and get in line multiple times. Is that good biblical stewardship? Or gluttony? Or just the Chinese way of doing things?
But silly examples aside, cultural values can get in the way of gospel unity. I was taught to show respect to the elderly. The logic goes: they are old, let them have their way if it’s not offensive. This can be a positive cultural value, but consider the impact this can have on a team of elders serving together at a Chinese church, where saving face and showing respect may result in extraordinary deference to the oldest elder on the board for the sake of “keeping the peace.” Sometimes deference can be biblical. But other times it can be a barrier to seeking the mind of Christ through intense prayer and discussions.
The point is this, whether we are Chinese or not, we tend to crown our own particular subculture as the most biblical.
Recognize the Blinding Power of Culture
It is tempting to view Scripture through our own cultural perspectives or even ‘Christian’ subcultures, rather than let Scripture be the ultimate authority. Culture, self-interest and groupthink can be powerful biases in how we read Scripture. Timothy Keller challenges us to consider our cultural biases:
“[Our] understanding of the Bible may definitely be wrong – indeed, is always partly so – and therefore must always be open to being corrected. … Because of our cultural blinders, we must not only speak to [a new culture]; we must listen to [its people] as well. We need to listen to what they are saying and take seriously their questions, their objections to what we are saying, and their hopes and aspirations. More often than not, this interaction with a new culture shows us many things taught in the Bible – things we either missed altogether or thought unimportant, possibly even ways in which we misread the Bible through the lens of our own cultural assumptions.” (Timothy Keller, Center Church, ch.8.)
While Christians hold that Scripture is authoritative, this is very different than saying that our interpretation of Scripture is authoritative. While Scripture is inerrant, our interpretation of Scripture is not inerrant. Tribalism occurs when we give our traditions the same authority as the Word of God. Michael Reeves explains:
“Tribalism is the inevitable consequence of allowing tradition—or anything else—parity with the word of God. As soon as we adopt any rallying banner other than the gospel, we sacrifice evangelical unity. Such elevation of tradition rebuilds the old dividing walls of tribal hostility broken down at the cross (Eph. 2:14-16), promoting blocs of uniformity instead of unity… And on it goes: the more comfortable the uniformity, the more familiar the culture, the more Scripture is forced to take a back seat.” (Michael Reeves, Evangelical Pharisees, p.36)
If the authority of Scripture and a love of the gospel is our common ground, we have great reasons for Christian unity in the midst of diversity. Too often, we judge others, usurping the role of the “Supreme Judge,” believing our interpretations of Scripture to be infallible.3 Reeves explains the blinding power of culture this way:
“Sometimes it can be reasonably obvious when human opinions trump Scripture. It is evident when a preacher merely uses the Bible as a jumping-off point for a diatribe on his own views or cultural observations… Yet rarely is that obvious if we agree with him. For the real power of traditions lies in their ability to create cultures, and while the quirks of other cultures seem blindingly—often amusingly—obvious to us, our own culture strikes us as plain common sense.” (Michael Reeves, Evangelical Pharisees, p.33)
When Cultural Biases Influence Our Interpretation of Scripture
An example from history shows us how easy it is to read our cultural biases into Scripture. Slavery is a case in point. While today, contemporary American evangelicals see that Christianity is incompatible with pro-slavery ideology, this was not always the consensus. Many nineteenth century ministers and theologians used Scripture to justify the practice of slavery in America. For example, Charles Hodge, a leading Reformed Theologian of his time wrote an essay entitled “The Biblical Case for Slavery.” 4 These theologians stated that they were guided by Scripture, rather than their own desires, and said it would be sinful for them to oppose slavery because the Bible was clear and did not condemn the practice. They would point to Paul’s command for slaves to obey their masters and Paul’s decision to return a runaway slave to his master and the fact that people like Job had slaves.
The dominant hermeneutic of the time was used to label the abolitionist cause as unbiblical. Jane Anne Tucker states: “In the end, proslavery theologians did not defend the authority of Scripture. They defended the authority of their interpretations.” Proslavery theologians framed the debate over slavery as a choice between orthodoxy and heresy, slavery and antislavery. Ironically, by labelling the antislavery position as heretical and seeing themselves as infallible, 19th century theologians actually undermined Scripture.5 Today, what once was repudiated as heresy is now widely accepted as common sense: slavery is wrong.
Another area where the church is reforming is in its view of women. Anna Anderson explains that Calvin was more influenced by Aristotle than Scripture when he writes:
“. . . . (there is a glory distinction) which God has conferred upon the man, so as to have superiority over the woman. In this superior order of dignity, the glory of God is seen, as it shines forth in every kind of superiority. The woman is the glory of the man.” 6
It seems that view in the church that women are intellectually inferior and more easily deceived than men is no longer the majority view, although there are still people who argue this. Christians today have abandoned the historical position of the church that women are ontologically inferior to men.7 What are our current blind spots that we are culturally or economically predisposed to defend?
How We Can Resist Tribalism in the Church
We should be careful that we aren’t influenced more by culture than by the gospel, creating new walls of hostility. Is our allegiance to a tribe blinding us? How has Scripture shifted your views from the traditions you were raised in? When was the last time you read Scripture and changed what you believed or changed how you acted? Could it be that the silence of many Christians at how immigrants are being treated now is being driven by culture, rather than Christianity?8
We should approach Scripture with humility, learning from Christians from other backgrounds and cultures. We should listen to others with humility. It may be that we disagree with a caricature and don’t understand other’s actual positions. It may be that those we disagree with have wisdom we are not grasping. Or it may mean they are being influenced by the world and the flesh. We are called to test the spirits and examine the fruit of someone’s theology.
We should be open to being persuaded. In Christian Conciliation, conciliators will ask a party in conflict to share their story and viewpoints while encouraging the other party to listen. Sometimes it is a helpful exercise to ask the listening party to summarize what they heard the other party say. People may realize they aren’t actually listening well to each other and strive to do better or conversely, it may actually help a party feel like they are being understood. In our conversations, we want to ask good questions and flex our listening muscles.
When we disagree, we should do so in charity and love. Do the people you disagree with still want to spend time with you? In heaven, we will find out how wrong we were on many issues. Do we speak condescendingly of other believers who hold different views, quickly label them as ‘unbiblical’ or immature, or mock them? We should be careful not to put people in a box of our own making.
We should respect other’s freedom to exercise their own conscience and think differently. Too often, we turn our positions on issues into non-negotiables that we impose on others, without even trying to understand the other side’s interests, motivations, and perspectives. Margaret Heffernan gave a TED talk entitled “Dare to Disagree” where she dared us to find friends that are not echo chambers.
We should remember our identity in Christ. Tribalism finds security in being right and the other side being wrong. Where does your security lie? When our identity is found in a tribe versus in Christ, we become more vulnerable to being used or oppressed by abusive individuals. If we are secure in our identity in Christ, we should not be threatened by considering that we may be wrong on some issues. Christian unity grows out of union with Christ. It is not a result of uniformity of thought.
- Philippians 2:3 says that in humility we should count others more significant or better than ourselves. ↩︎
- Timothy Isaiah Cho explains in “Perspicuity, Pedigree, and Precaution” that the perspicuity of Scripture means that the Bible is clear on what we need to know, believe, and live out in regards to salvation. It does not mean all things in Scripture are equally clear. We should have humility and caution in our other beliefs to recognize we may be wrong. ↩︎
- See Westminster Confession of Faith 1.8 and 1.9.
“IX. The infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture is the Scripture itself; and therefore, when there is a question about the true and full sense of any Scripture (which is not manifold, but one), it must be searched and known by other places that speak more clearly.
X. The Supreme Judge, by which all controversies of religion are to be determined, and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men, and private spirits, are to be examined, and in whose sentence we are to rest, can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture.” ↩︎ - In How God Views Women by Terran Williams, he notes how Charles Hodge, the greatest Reformed theologian of his day wrote an essay, “The Biblical Case for Slavery” in which he argued that: 1) God established slavery in cursing Noah’s son, Ham, to be a slave. 2) God approved of slavery (Abraham, David, and Job had slaves). 3) Moses’s law supported slavery. 4) Jesus never spoke against slavery. 5) The apostles commanded slaves to submit to their masters. 6) The apostles used slavery as a positive picture of the gospel – slaves of Christ. See page 188 of Terran Williams’s book. ↩︎
- In Chapter 2 of Timothy Keller’s book Generous Justice, footnote 36 explains how Deuteronomic law on slavery actually undermines slavery itself, including giving a slave seeking refuge rights over the claims of an enslaver. See Deuteronomy 23:15-16. ↩︎
- Anna Anderson cites Calvin in her article “Supremacy in the Reformed Tradition.” ↩︎
- Historically, the church has viewed women as ontologically inferior to men. John Lambuth writes in “How Did We End Up Here?” that “The basic premise of women as “less than and derivative of” men was the common conceptual framework of the Greco-Roman world for hundreds of years. Unfortunately, these ideas crept into the early church, and particularly into the works of the massively influential St. Augustine, cementing the idea that women were not as full of an expression of the image of God as men.”
For more quotes from church Fathers on women, ranging from Tertullian, Origen, Augustine, Chrysostom, Aquinas, Luther, Knox, Calvin, see Kelley Mathews’s article here. ↩︎ - As I see it, the Christian Nationalism that is infecting the church is driven more by cultural feelings than faithfulness to Christ. It appears the idols of security, influence and power have blinded the church from the harder work of integrity, justice, and humility.
PCA Pastor Ben Hein wrote in his 2024 article “The Reformed Tradition and Immigration” that: “The Reformed, at their best, are guardians of the most vulnerable, including the immigrant and refugee among us. Our commitment to the Scriptures and the glory of God demands it. More than that, our belief in the power of the gospel – this “rule of love” – governs our hearts in such a way as to order our lives for the sake of others. This is the way of Jesus: to be moved with such compassion so as to act on behalf of those who cannot help themselves.” ↩︎
