Hard to Admit You are Wrong…

I have a very good sense of direction.  I seldom get lost.  When I do get lost, however, I get really, really lost.  Once I was convinced I knew a shortcut to a movie theater in Columbia.  What should have been a simple fifteen-minute drive turned into an hour-and-half odyssey in the wilds of rural South Carolina.  My wife kept asking me, “Should we stop and ask for direction?”  I, being male, said, “No!  I know where I am!”  It turned out we were thirty miles from the movie theater.  So much for my shortcut.  I should have admitted I was wrong, stopped, and asked for directions. 

Men are not the only people who have a hard time admitting they are wrong.  I have tangled with more than a few women in Baptist business meetings who were as wrong as they could be but were determined to argue me down in front of the church.  No amount of logic or understanding reached these women.  

Why is it so hard to admit you are wrong?  I remember getting a math problem wrong in second grade (it was something hard, like division).  The teacher, I am sure, did not mean to shame me, but when she told me I was wrong, I remember my face turning red, and wanting to slide under my desk.  Funny, years later, in graduate school, the same thing happened in a graduate seminar.  My face turned red, and I wanted to slide under the desk again.  To this day, I feel ashamed if I don’t know the answer. 

One of the hardest things to admit you were wrong about is your belief system.  Everyone has a belief system.  You believe the world works in a certain way so you can predict outcomes.  Your belief system may or may not include your belief in a God.  Just as important as your belief in God is what kind of God you believe in. 

George Buttrick, famed preacher, and professor of a previous generation, was the chaplain at Harvard.  Every semester students would march into his office boldly declaring they no longer believed in God.  Buttrick, with gentle wisdom, would surprise them by asking them to sit down and tell him about the god they no longer believed in.  He would say, “This god you don’t believe in, I probably don’t believe in him either.” 

I grew up among people who were fond of saying, “God said it, that settles it, and that’s good enough for me.”  In one sense, that is a positive statement; these people took God and what he said seriously.  In another sense, however, it can mean we accept things we were taught that wind up not being true. 

I remember being told black people bear the mark of Cain.  The color of their skin was a mark of God’s punishment.  That never sounded right to me.  It was only years later in college, a professor pointed out to me that the mark of Cain was a mark of protection, a warning not to harm Cain.  Furthermore, we are only told Cain’s mark was a mark.  No mention is made about his skin or the color of his skin.  But the real kicker is all of Cain’s descendants died in the flood.  The whole idea of people with black skin bearing the mark of Cain doesn’t hold water.  A whole generation of people who heard and accepted such nonsense must admit they were wrong.  Many do.  Some do not.  Those that admit they were wrong are people of courage. 

It takes courage to admit you are wrong, especially around your belief system.  It usually means you need to change not just your thinking but also your behavior and your values.  This week in the United States, eighty churches will close their doors for the final time.  Most die because they would not change their belief system.  Ironically, their theology was probably fine.  They simply believed that everybody who needs the Good News needs to like the music they like, the style of preaching they like, and the kind of ministry they like.  The courageous people who were telling them the ’80s were never coming back left the church long ago.  The dwindling few held on, hoping one day, time would reverse, and their building would refill with people just like them, but younger.  If you never admit you are wrong, you can hasten death. 

The people who killed Jesus could not unbend their theology enough to understand that God was not about power, knowledge, and wealth.  The Messiah was not going to be a conquering king, but a suffering servant, laying down his life for the sins of the world and then conquering death by his resurrection.  The most godly people of the time (supposedly) missed the Messiah because they could not admit they were wrong.  They would not change their beliefs to fit what God was doing it. 

If you are one of those people who say, “God said it, I believe it, and that settles it,” good for you.  Just remember it is what God says, not what you say, that matters.