Embracing Reality, Embracing Christ
A Book Review of Brian McLaren’s Why Don’t They Get It?
Since my first theology class as a college student, I was fascinated with God’s title as the Ultimate Reality. Reality will never be clearer than when we meet God face to face; you see, there is no higher court to take our case to. (But there is no more loving a Judge!) Yet if we could begin to align ourselves to this Ultimate Reality here and now, if we could see things as God sees them, if we could break down those walls of our community fortified with our collective and individual biases, we could go forward in a mysticism of wide-open eyes! We then could take a giant leap forward into God’s Reality and we could humbly commit ourselves to begin seeing how God sees and living our lives in that reality.
Well, thanks to Rev. Brian McLaren’s book, Why Don’t They Get It?, I have come to know that I am more biased than I ever thought possible, and I understand how those same biases are clouding the vision of reality for others as well. What do I mean by a bias; a bias is a prejudice or pre-critical inclination in favor or against something – it is a pattern of distortion in seeing things. It’s like smudged glasses or severe cataracts. What Rev. McLaren does in his book is define 13 separate biases that plague human beings and distort their vision of reality. Yes, some of them were necessary for survival in the course of human development, but the refusal to see through many of them is stunting further development. As Rev. McLaren tells us Jesus encountered these same biases in the people of his day, and he details how Jesus eased people past these biases and build a loving community.
I can’t discuss all 13 biases in his book, but I’d like to discuss a couple that struck me as very important in these times. One bias that hinders us from seeing the truth is the Confidence bias. We often prefer a bold lie to the hesitant truth. Yes, the men who master this are called con men. Good cons are based on the victim’s needs, and con men exploit that need. And the success of con men is often measured by the level they flatter their victims. Sound familiar? Let’s take our cultural war over wearing masks. We had leaders who emphatically said we don’t need to wear them; they don’t do any good? A bold lie! Then you had immunologists dealing with a new unknown virus who were taking a crash course on dealing with it, but perceived the dangerous times ahead trying to carefully and judiciously and scientifically give us guidance – in other words, the hesitant truth! But we demanded to know it all in one simple statement. This comes from our obsessive need for certainty which also, by the way, infiltrates many of our churches today. I find the older I get, the easier it is for me to say, “I don’t know!” or “I feel this way, but I’m not sure,” or “What do you think?”
Brian McLaren counters that Jesus was bold, but he invited people to question, test, and evaluate. Jesus was the Messiah, but he did not have a “messianic” complex. He didn’t behave like the typical arrogant authority figure telling them to shut up and listen only to him. He taught the crowds to be critical of con artists. He invited people to think for themselves by critically challenging convention and creatively imagining new possibilities. Most importantly, Jesus was humble and he always asked questions.
This next bias I want to address played a big part in what happened a month ago in our Nation’s Capital. I’m talking about the Conspiracy bias which states that under stress or shame, our brains are attracted to stories that relieve us, exonerate us, or portray us as innocent victims of a malicious conspiracy. We can find evidence of this in our own lives if we think back when we were young and fighting with our siblings and how we pled our case to our parents, or when any of us were working hard on our job and we got passed over for a promotion, or, my favorite, when I am driving in heavy traffic and a near mishap occurs and my wife questions my driving. Yes, we all have a bias to portray ourselves as either a hero or a blameless victim. These are the stories we tell ourselves. And, boy, do we see great evidence of this in our present world!
But, as Brian tells us, Jesus told us a reverse-conspiracy narrative, in which God is secretly plotting for the ultimate good of all, urging us to faith, hope, and love instead of fear. In this story the Creator’s revolutionary love outlasts and outshines the dark and malicious intent of any created thing. Jesus, rather than attacking the conspiracy stories of his day – like the Messiah was going to be a worldly king who’d violently overthrow the Romans and restore Israel to greatness; instead, Jesus spent time telling a different story, a bigger and better story, a story that more effectively offered people a way out of defeat, shame, fear, and despair. He offered them the Reign of God, the Kindom of God, or better yet, “heaven on earth”!
Rev. McLaren deals with 11 more biases. There’s the familiar Cash bias which states it’s hard for us to see something when our way of making a living requires us not to see it because it’s going to cost us money. And what immediately comes to mind is Jesus’ warning of not being able to serve two masters at once, namely God and money. And then there’s the Contact bias which states if we don’t come in contact with any member of “the other” and get to truly know them, we will believe all the rumors our community has told us about them. Then there’s the Conservative/Liberal bias we are all familiar with and that’d take way too many words here to explain and go over Jesus’ solution to dealing with it.
When I imagine Jesus walking down that road in Judea, I see Him leading the way into God the Father’s Reality which became His Reality because the Father and Christ Jesus are One. Embracing Reality is embracing Christ! This view of Reality is not a Pollyanna Disneyland view. This Reality contains both good and bad, both life and death, both joyful events and tragedies; but we fear not— for there are times when it seems God is not in control because of our free will, yet we have all the confidence that ultimately God will use even the worst news and make it into something good for all of us. For that’s exactly what God did when 2,000 years ago we put His Son to death. I do firmly believe in that Ultimate Reality!
Thinking back to January 6th, and the riotous assault on the Capitol, I know those scenes are etched in our mind forever. But then we had the hopeful spectacle on the inauguration we watched last month, I know many of you were happy, and, yes, some of you were sad. But I myself realized once again that I love my country as I think all of you do too. But I love my country most when it becomes a part of something bigger than America, when we see through our petty biases and break down the walls we have built between our communities. And we collectively get up and accept one another, care for one another and serve one another until that happy day in the future when “everyone shall find rest beneath their own vine or fig tree, and we will live in the peace of Our Lord!”
Dan Vanoli
February 7, 2021
(The book is Why Don’t They Get It? By Rev. Brian McLaren, and an excellent podcast discussing the biases in the book is called Learning How to See.)
