Challenge Your Views

It's safe to say that these days most of us live inside an echo chamber. Most of the time our friends hold similar views to our own and we choose our communities often based on how alike we are on certain issues. Social media doesn't help this at all as the algorithms continually feed back to us things we already agree with.

The echo chamber isn't a new phenomenon, but it has gotten increasingly worse in my opinion. As mentioned social media has played a big part in that, but so have things like cable news. There isn't a handful of common news sources that we must all share and therefore must at least try to be balanced. Now we can simply choose to watch the one that we like and already agree with.

I know people who honestly can say they don't really know anybody that has significantly different political, social, or religious views than they do. Those that do often are at odds with their own family members, but their friend groups are largely homogenous in this respect. All this leads to us not being challenged with new ideas or perspectives.

This can happen with our understanding of scripture as well. Often we only seek out authors and scholars from within our own particular tradition, which means that more than likely we will agree with what they say because they have the same doctrinal commitments that we do. We stick to those "safe" or "approved" authors and avoid those that we disagree with.

I think that is a mistake.

It is a good thing for us to engage with those we disagree with. We tend to learn the most when we are put in a situation with someone who differs from us. While I was at grad school a fellow student chose his class schedule based on which professors he agreed with. I found that ridiculous, because I learned the most from teachers whose perspectives were the most foreign to my own. It forced me to think outside the box and reexamine my own beliefs anew.

Sometimes my views changed. Other times I found myself coming to a deeper understanding of what I believed and coming out more strongly rooted than I was before. There are things I believe now that I wouldn't hold to so deeply if it hadn't been for encountering people whose beliefs differed from mine. My master's thesis was largely an exercise in engaging with people I wholeheartedly disagree with, and it was a true blessing.

So I challenge you to get outside your echo chamber and challenge your views a little bit. Maybe read a Bible commentary by someone outside your tradition. You won't always agree with them, but that disagreement should make you think. The more we intentionally allow ourselves to be challenged the more we will be able to listen to one another and carry out true reconciliation.