In the Face of Change
We can’t fix policies unless we normalize the process of changing our ideas based on new information.
Back in my day, Pluto was a planet.
Now you might, justifiably, be wondering what that has to do with either “evangelical values” or “progressive politics.” Bear with me for a few paragraphs, and then I hope you’ll see why learning to be wrong is so important for our world today.
When science changes
In 2006, most astronomers came to an agreement on a new, more scientific definition of planet, which excluded Pluto. Schoolchildren around the world decried the loss of Pluto’s planetary status, and those of us who learned “My very educated mother just served us nine pizzas” (a planetary mnemonic) aren’t really over it.¹
Humans are constantly exploring, searching, and learning new things. We have now discovered celestial objects similar to Pluto, meaning any definition of planet must either exclude Pluto (perhaps labeling it a dwarf planet instead) or include other celestial objects in addition. It’s complicated, but it’s happened before.
What we “knew” has changed — or rather, once we learned more, our old categorizations no longer made sense.
When science changes theology
This process happens in religion, too.
Perhaps the most famous example in modern times is the controversy over heliocentrism (“the earth revolves around the sun”). When Copernicus and Galileo put forward their theories, geocentrism (“Earth is the center”) was accepted by both the astronomy of the time and the Catholic Church, and members of both groups rebuffed the idea that the earth was moving.
The Church fought the concept for longer, however. Professor Sharon Short explains that verses in the Bible described the sun moving and the earth being unmoved — so Church leaders called the new ideas heresy. But the math said otherwise. She further writes:
Today we refer to such expressions in Scripture as “phenomenological language” — statements that express the way things appear from our perspective rather than precise scientific descriptions. (link original)
Theology versus Scripture
In hindsight, church leaders fighting the facts long after they were widely accepted makes Christians look pretty foolish.
Hopefully you can understand, however, why people who (at least claim to) base their way of life on a book want that book to be reliable. Most Christians since the first disciples have believed the Bible to be unchanging and perfect; the word often used is inerrant. If science appears to disprove something the Bible claims, then the Bible has an error, and could that mean the rest of it isn’t true?
The problem for Christians is that we can mistake our understanding of the Bible for the perfect Word itself. Bible teacher Ed Jarrett explains,
They [some Christians] are equating what they believe the Bible says with what it actually says. Unfortunately, those are not always the same thing. (emphasis mine)
The science of unlearning
It is literally more work for our brains to process a new idea or different opinion than it is to stay in familiar territory. As a result,
the more we identify with a belief and the more we cling to it, considering it an absolute truth, the more rejection the contrary beliefs will provoke.
When Christians resisted heliocentrism on Biblical grounds, it was because the idea threatened their identity.
The word for “what we believe” is theology. If Christians don’t understand the difference between the Scripture (which we believe to be perfect) and our human theology, then every new discovery has the possibility to uproot our identity — and we’ll fight that cognitive dissonance by denying the facts.
The solution
For scientists, schoolchildren, and Christians alike, the solution is humility. I don’t mean “feeling bad about yourself,” but simply the opposite of being overly proud: the ability to admit that you could be wrong. We have to get used to the idea that things can change, or at least that we might learn more about they way they’ve always been.
Christians are already called to humility. Thinking of oneself “with sober judgment” must include not thinking we know everything already.
Science is the constant questioning of what we think we know. We challenge, experiment, conclude, and repeat. Scientists know they might as easily prove someone wrong as be proven wrong themselves; starting with a little humility can spare them later humiliation.
As I’ve written, I was quite unnerved when I realized how different my feelings about the election results were in 2016 compared to 2004. When my identity as a Christian had been so inextricably linked with voting Republican, I felt that cognitive dissonance strongly. Thank goodness that being a Christian doesn’t actually dictate a political party, nor vice versa!
I realized that it’s nothing new for science or theology to change. My new political alignment doesn’t mean my underlying beliefs changed, even if my priorities did. Moreover, sometimes my theology didn’t change, but what I learned instead changed which policies I felt best reflected it.
Political Humility
Humans still tend to take change badly. It’s easier to cling to old beliefs than to change them — or to learn a new mnemonic, perhaps. Frankly, it’s less scary, too! But self-deception is no way to live.
The political sphere is dominated by people treating it as either a game or total war. Thankfully, it’s neither — it’s just a bunch of human beings dealing with their brains’ penchants for the familiar. Because of that, however, we all need to acknowledge that our understanding isn’t always right, our opinions aren’t immutable, and that it’s OK to admit to both.
The world is always changing. People change, cultures change, and science gathers new information, which means our knowledge — what we think we know for sure — will change. We need to normalize that “nine pizzas” can become “nachos,” and that’s OK.
[1] My mom went through something similar when my sister and I took biology. We had learned several taxonomic kingdoms that she’d never heard of. “Back in my day,” she said, “there were two kingdoms — plants and animals!” (Turns out biological classification is a branch of study that makes defining planets look simple. Now we recognize at least five kingdoms, as well as domains even higher.)
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