As we near a contentious election, we’ve been considering people’s commitments under four overlapping headings: opinions, ideas, beliefs, and core convictions. Last week, we looked at beliefs and ideas. Now, we’ll turn to beliefs and core convictions—the two deepest layers. The hope in examining each of these facets is to offer a constructive way forward when we run into deep disagreements, especially with those we love.
Beliefs are ideas you’re prepared to act on. Let’s say you visit your doctor because you’ve been experiencing chest pain. After some routine tests, he writes you a prescription. If you don’t take the medication, there’s a strong chance you won’t believe the man. From car mechanics to plumbers, from pastors to counselors, our lives are awash with all kinds of ideas, but it’s our actions that tell us what we actually believe.
Our beliefs will often surprise us. When asked the question, “What’s something true that you don’t believe,” the novelist Adam Roberts shrewdly replied, “That I’m going to die.” It might sound like a complete departure from reality, but if you look at our daily habits, you’ll find that many of us proceed as though death only happens to other people. Belief is highly complex and constitutes a rich field of academic inquiry. Broadly speaking, in our cultural moment, we have difficulty trusting outside voices. Much to the chagrin of practicing physicians, many people prefer the impersonal computations of WebMD to the actual care of a doctor. Making matters more complex is the fact that many of us prefer to customize our “facts,” carefully curating our experience of reality to fit our views. Once again, this habit points back to a penchant for trusting ourselves alone and seeking to align our beliefs with personal preferences rather than the nature of reality. Changing a belief involves a change to the shape of a life, so it’s no small feat. If we’re aiming at persuasion here, the main challenge will involve gently combating a consumerist mindset on the nature of reality. Convincing someone that personal preference ought not to dictate our worldview is a daunting task, one that will require prayer, patience, and creativity.
Core convictions are intimately tied to the human personality and flow from a person’s peculiar disposition. Core convictions register first as a powerful feeling. Think of expressions like “go with your gut” or “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.” It’s important to stress that feeling is not a derogatory word meant to communicate a buoyant detachment from reality. Rather, the unique set of talents and skills that each of us exhibits predispose us toward certain reactions and modes of engagement. In this sense, some of us have a natural feel for justice, a natural feel for unity and order, a natural feel for beauty and wholeness, and a natural feel for religious devotion. If we dressed up each of these sensibilities as a basic type, we could call the four characters the Judge, the Scientist, the Artist, and the Priest.
A more poetic illustration would be the aeolian harp. Named after Aeolus, the Greek god of the wind, this is a stringed instrument that’s “played” by the wind. A wind chime would be its modern descendant. The Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge offers an expansive, if somewhat pantheistic, picture of the instrument:
And what if all of animated nature
Be but organic Harps diversely framed,
That tremble into thought, as o’er them sweeps
Plastic and vast, one intellectual breeze,
At once the Soul of each, and God of all?
Running with Coleridge’s metaphor, we might think of human beings as “organic Harps” played by life’s “breeze.” The picture offers a fascinating intersection of passive and active elements. Like an aeolian harp, each of our personalities is a unique configuration, and though each of us is subject to life’s same breeze, said breeze rings unique notes from each of us. Think of your core convictions as those singular notes.
Given the fact that core convictions have their basis in a person’s very heart, changing them will require nothing less than a change of heart. It’s important here to discern pure motivations and what we take to be misguided assumptions. Imagine you have a friend who has a natural feel for justice (the Judge in our scheme) and is deeply committed to the humane treatment of others, especially those on the margins. Let’s say this person also believes that human sexuality is fluid and devoid of any intrinsic purpose or design. Consequently, they view traditional limitations on sexual expression as harmful. Obviously, engaging this person on such a topic can be intimidating, but it’s possible to affirm a commitment to the humane treatment of every person regardless of their sexual orientation while maintaining that human sexuality has an author and, therefore, a proper mode of expression. Once again, if we hope to try and persuade someone to change their lives, we must operate with care, respect, and sensitivity. After all, trying to convince someone to change who they are is a radical request.
In I Corinthians 9:19-23, Paul writes, “For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. To the Jews, I became a Jew in order to win Jews. To those under the law, I became one under the law (though not being myself under the law), and I might win those under the law. To those outside the law, I became one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) so that I might win over those outside the law. To the weak, I became weak, and I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, and by all means, I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel that I may share with them in its blessings.”
When we take into account the inner motivations of a person’s views, we put into practice Paul’s habit of becoming all things to all people. Such a strategy refuses our cultural moment’s trademark tactics of manipulation, coercion, scapegoating, and vilification. By examining opinions, ideas, beliefs, and core convictions, the hope has been to provide some practical purchase for disagreeing well with others, especially those closest to us. May our Lord grant us the grace to be all things to all people, even when they’re glaring at us across the table.
Part 2: How to Stay Convicted without Being Confrontational
Photo Credit: SWN Design
Kenneth Boa equips people to love well (being), learn well (knowing), and live well (doing). He is a writer, teacher, speaker, and mentor and is the President of Reflections Ministries, The Museum of Created Beauty, and Trinity House Publishers.
Publications by Dr. Boa include Conformed to His Image, Handbook to Prayer, Handbook to Leadership, Faith Has Its Reasons, Rewriting Your Broken Story, Life in the Presence of God, Leverage, and Recalibrate Your Life.
Dr. Boa holds a B.S. from Case Institute of Technology, a Th.M. from Dallas Theological Seminary, a Ph.D. from New York University, and a D.Phil. from the University of Oxford in England.