The digital revolution has brought us a million wonderful things. We can pick one of 30 million songs within a few clicks, and listen to it instantly; we can link up for free via video call with a friend on the other side of the world. We're in touch with all our old school friends; if we're lucky we might be able to engage our favourite celebrity in an instant conversation. So many things about the way we live, and even the way we relate to each other, has improved dramatically in the last 20 years.
Other things have changed too, perhaps less positively. Thanks to the strange new sense of distanced 'safety' we gain from our online avatars, we're much more likely to get into arguments with strangers. And it seems to me that as a side-effect of this, we're becoming ever more entrenched into – and perhaps sometimes even defined by – the positions and opinions we hold. Online, we state our opinions strongly, and we network ourselves with others who feel the same way. The statements we make are then posted semi-permanently for others to see; for us to be judged by in future.
When someone appears to change their position, politically or otherwise, that change is often used to shame them. Witness politicians speaking out on an issue, only to be reminded by their rivals that they voted very differently a few years previously. In this culture, changing our minds, becoming less entrenched, even being won over to another point of view, is seen as sign of weakness.
I want to suggest something different. I believe that in fact, being open to changing our minds is a key sign of character strength and maturity. To my mind, the ability to shift position shows that we listen to others, that we're teachable, that we're prepared to engage with the idea that we don't always have to be right. And to go one stage further, I believe that this character trait lies right at the heart of the Christian faith.
After all, what is the central act of response demanded when we encounter Christ, both today and in the context of the gospels? Conversion. The radical decision to stop heading in one direction, to respond to someone who shows us a better way, and then reorientate ourselves accordingly. Jesus tells a bunch of fishermen in Matthew 4:19 to leave behind everything they knew was right until that point: "Come, follow me... and I will send you out to fish for people." But perhaps most compellingly of all we see conversion illustrated in the story of Saul, who in Acts 9 takes one of history's biggest allegiance leaps when he shifts from Christianity's persecutor-in-chief to its most powerful proponent. Conversion is absolutely central to the Christian faith.
I'm not suggesting that choosing your political opinions compares to this in terms of eternal importance, nor am I saying that God is calling us all to switch up our allegiances. But I do find it interesting that while embracing Christianity itself requires such an extraordinary effort of soft-heartedness in the first place, we seem to be so bad at repeating that posture of humility at other times. Why is it that we who find it possible to 'convert' on the most fundamental issue of all, struggle with conceding on lesser things?
I write all this in November 2016, looking ahead to a US election where Christian supporters on both sides of the political divide seem utterly entrenched in their views, and totally unwilling to engage with the arguments of the other side. In the UK, we experienced something very similar with the recent referendum over leaving the European Union; months later the two sides retain huge animosity toward one another, continuing to refuse to engage with each other's arguments. This hard-headedness has been absolutely as present within the church as outside it.
This isn't just about politics though. We see granite-faced opinion warfare on social media every day between people who have different theologies, or views on issues of justice and equality, or judgements on certain personalities or organisations. It is very, very rare to even see someone concede an argument, let alone actually shift position entirely.
Think for a moment: when was the last time you backed down in an argument, especially online? When did you take the time to apologise to someone else, telling them explicitly (and without some dreadful negating caveat) that they were right, and you were wrong? When did you last totally change your mind on something?
I believe that we need to become much more comfortable with the idea that we might not be right all the time. That shockingly, we're not experts in all things, with more experience, knowledge and more of a general sense of what's right than anyone else. That we we're not the only people who try to hear from God or have a view on what it means to live for him. I believe we need to get better at "submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ" (Ephesians 5:21), and that means regularly entertaining the possibility that other people might even have a better opinion or rationale than we do.
We always see conversion as a sign of spiritual birth. In fact, I think we should also see it as an important marker of spiritual maturity.
Martin Saunders is a Contributing Editor for Christian Today and the Deputy CEO of Youthscape. Follow him on Twitter @martinsaunders.
