Think about it...

I want to challenge you, the reader, to think more.

You see, there is an epidemic in the church today. It is called "Dogmatism". It is the art of taking other people's thoughts and calling them your own. This kind of thinking isn't thinking at all- it is thought avoidance. The truth is, people are lazy. Maybe you aren't, and maybe I am not, but there are plenty of people out there who believe what they believe because it is popular, or because someone they admire thinks that way, but not because they came to the conclusion themselves. This sort of cop out from genuinely testing information to see if it holds up under scrutiny is for those who don't really want to invest the time and energy to come to unique conclusions. After all, if you think something different than your friends, you might become an outcast, or who knows? Your simplistic view of life might be disturbed.

You wonder what the harm is, in believing something for some other reason besides being firmly convinced through research and thorough thinking about it and finding it is true. There are several issues at hand. First of all, you won't be able to relate at all to people who spend lots of time thinking. True thinkers hate dogmatism; it is really an escape from reality. Another consequence is the inability to see things from other people's perspective. Dogmatism tends to trap the person being dogmatic, so that they can only see one point of view. This will deeply hinder a person's ability when relating to someone with a significantly different viewpoint.

The truth is, we live in a very complex world. Dogmatic people, I think, ultimately are trying to evade this simple truth. They want to believe the earth is only 6,000 years old because that keeps everything within reach, understandable. The truth is often too complex to be fully understood, and rather than face the ambiguity they want to keep it simple enough a child could understand. This is wrong. And you should care enough about what you choose to believe to put the time and energy into considering various viewpoints on topics too complex to understand at first glance. Please do us all a favor and really think about what you believe.

Your companion in Christ,
Sean