Suspended Disbelief
by, Charles W. Christian
When we were children, we probably heard a question similar to this: “If your friends all jumped off a bridge, would you do it, too? Would that make it alright?” It was meant to challenge the very human tendency to go along with the crowd. Human nature suggests that compliance is to be applauded, and that being with the “in crowd” is among the highest of human achievements. Hence the countless lectures and sermons we receive throughout our teen years about the dangers of peer pressure and how fitting in can sometimes be harmful, and even deadly.
Unfortunately those lectures dissipate as we enter our adult lives. However, they are still important – perhaps even more important. In our adult lives, no longer sheltered by protective parents or teachers, more opportunities to go along with the crowd avail themselves to us. Media’s powerful arms extend toward us and enfold us with messages urging compliance regardless of the facts and regardless of the outcomes. Our tendency is to flock toward messages and messengers with whom we resonate on most issues. This is normal, and can be good. However, we often anoint those same messengers (and consequently their message) in a way that suspends or cripples our critical analysis. To use the phrase of a famous theologian, we “suspend our disbelief.”
This idea of suspended disbelief in the short run is actually healthy. It allows us to adequately hear what is being said and gives us a degree of empathy toward both message and messenger. This fosters healthy communication and accurate critique when (or if) we re-engage our critical/analytical discernment. By suspending disbelief temporarily, we cease our defensiveness long enough to really listen. We tentatively accept the speaker’s/writer’s message as coming from a place of authenticity: worthy of being heard and engaged.
The next part of this process, though, is equally crucial. We must re-engage our analytical thinking! We must allow the possibility of disbelief and disagreement to re-emerge between ourselves and the voices we are engaging. Otherwise, we become sheep: those stirred by the loudest voice and not necessarily by that which is right and true. If the leading radio and TV voices on whichever side of the political or religious spectrum we are from say something loud enough and consistently enough, are we willing to both hear them clearly and engage our critical thinking in order to open ourselves to the possibility that, despite their clarity and conviction, they could be wrong? This is what is missing in national political and religious dialogue and debate today.
We do the first part pretty well, at least when it comes to people with whom we generally agree: we listen at first uncritically. But then, too often, we stop right there and move ahead as if what they have just said or written is the gospel truth. In contrast, we fail to listen openly and honestly (temporarily suspending our skepticism and disbelief) to those with whom we have traditionally disagreed. In this way, we stop any possibility of learning from and even being instructed by what they have to say. After doing this, we often engage our intellects not to analyze what they have said, but instead to spin what they have said in a way that defends our foregone conclusions. This is dishonest, and it is not the way to promote a healthy movement toward truth and ethical living.
Years ago, sociologist and minister Dr. Tony Campolo wrote a short book called, Partly Right, the theme of which was (playing upon a famous phrase): “We have met the enemy, and they are…partly right!” In the book, Campolo, an Evangelical Christian, analyzes a wide range of thinkers and movements, many of which have been historically opposed to Christianity. While he forthrightly points out areas of disagreement between traditional Christianity and the movements and thinkers he analyzes. He is equally forthright in pointing out where these movements and thinkers have connected with truths that can challenge Christians and other people of faith to live better lives and to be true to what their faith actually teaches them. What a refreshing antidote to the blatantly one-sided (and often hypocritical) religious and political rhetoric that floods our airways and bookshelves today!
So, the next time your favorite talk show host or writer begins to opine or attack, or your least favorite politician or religious leader has a say in a certain matter, what would happen if you had the courage to listen to him or her openly, temporarily suspending the temptation to dismiss them right away? Then, after hearing them clearly, what if we engaged our critical thinking and spent our time not in spin, but in honestly evaluating whether they are being accurate, hypocritical, prophetic, or just plain wrong? People of faith are called to be above the sway of anything except for the God they profess. That’s how this “other kingdom” works.
