Season: 10 Episode: 150
Listen to episode 146 in Spanish:
Summary:
You’ve likely been accused of being closed-minded if you say you believe in God. Arriving at a belief in today’s postmodern culture is often seen as ignorant and unintelligent. But what if those who accuse you of being closed-minded are the closed-minded ones? Shanda talks about when it is and when it’s not okay to have a closed mind. She will also take you through scripture where Jesus correlated a closed mind with a hard heart. By the end of this episode you will understand why you can be confident when arriving at a belief based on evidence, and why you shouldn’t be offended when someone accuses you of being closed-minded.
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Hey guys! Welcome back to another episode of Her Faith Inspires podcast where we take cultural issues and align them to Biblical truth. I have a great episode for you today but before we get into it, I want to remind you of the Be Salty, Stay Lit long sleeved tees that will be out of the shop at the end of February. If you want to place an order, go to the website at shandafulbright.com and do that asap. Also, the emotionalism junkie quiz will be available the first weekend in March. I am launching that weekend at the Anchored conference in North Carolina where I’ll be speaking on emotionalism, so stay tuned for that. And finally, we have a brand new mini course called Is Hell Real: Understanding a place nobody likes to talk about. Dr. Frank Turek and I co-wrote this second curriculum where we lay the theological foundation for middle schoolers on eternity. We touch on human nature (free will, temptation, sin, etc), we talk about the attributes of God, what does Satan look like, and why Jesus came, and finally we talk about Hell from a biblical perspective.
Now, I know some people are going to be like, “you’re teaching kids about Hell. Isn’t that scary?”
Not the way we do it. But we aren’t the only ones talking about Hell. Guess who else is talking about Hell? Little Nas X. The people at the Grammy’s who are worshiping Satan. Disney, who creates shows with the daughter of Satan. So yes, we’re talking about it from a Biblical perspective and when you think about it, you will only get a description of Hell from the Bible because other worldviews don’t believe in Heaven or Hell. And if you’re like, what? I need to learn more of this. Good! Because I am going to do a podcast on worldviews and I am even considering creating an adult course in understanding other worldviews and how they compare to a Biblical worldview. Stay tuned. I am writing like a mad woman right now and don’t have an estimated date for that.
Alright, I took way too long making those announcements, but I am excited to talk to you today about the question:
Are Christians closed minded?
I feel like I can go off on a tangent with this question so it’s a good thing I have notes to keep me on track here.
Let me just give you some background info on why we’re asking this question. First, a lot of people accuse Christians of closed-mindedness. They say that to believe God exists or that the Bible is absolutely true is closed-minded. What does it mean to be closed-minded? I think in it’s most basic form, it means you arrived at a belief and closed your mind to all opposing beliefs. Which often means you won’t hear or consider any other options. The formal definition is having or showing rigid opinions or a narrow outlook.
That sounds very negative, right?
Well, people who call others closed-minded aren’t being positive. It’s not a compliment.
It is closed-minded to be Christian? No. You can say that about anyone who has arrived at a belief and won’t consider any other options. But let’s stay on track. Here are the questions we are going to explore in this episode:
- What does it mean to be closed-minded and should Christians be open-minded?
- When is it absolutely necessary to close your mind to other opinions and beliefs?
- When does hard heartedness contribute to being closed-minded? Because in the Bible, that’s usually where we see the connection between being closed-minded and hard hearted.
So what does it mean to be closed minded and should Christians be open-minded?
I kind of touched on this already when I gave the definition of closed-mindedness. No one is ever flattered when someone says you are closed minded. Now, you might not be told exactly that you’re closed-minded but you might be accused of being dogmatic about something. Or you might be accused of being based. There are different ways to say it. I was recently accused of being dogmatic when I expressed some statistics about different worldviews. Is it wrong to be dogmatic as a Christians? What does it mean to be dogmatic? So what’s the definition of being dogmatic? It means to lay down principals as controvertibly true. Incontrovertible means they cannot be denied or disputed. However, this same person was being dogmatic about me being dogmatic. That’s one thing, secondly, is it wrong to arrive at a belief that you think is incontrovertibly true? Do you have to remain locked in skepticism in order to seem more intelligent? Some think so.
In fact, the opposite of closed-minded in our current culture is to be a free thinker.
It’s to be skeptical of anything that claims to be absolutely true because the only person who has the power to know is the person themselves. This is the consequence of postmodernism – lived experience and you cannot tell anyone they’re wrong UNLESS they claim to know the truth. This is why Christianity is becoming increasingly offensive. If you claim to have arrived at a belief, you become dogmatic and closed minded. But again, we have to ask ourselves is that true? This will cause some to preface their statements with insecure words like, “To me …” Or, “I know this might not be what you think, but I think …” No. You can be absolutely sure that the evidence points to an infinite God. You can be absolutely sure that truth exists because to say truth doesn’t exist is a truth claim, and you contradicted yourself when you say that. If you listen to IDHEF podcast, you know exactly what I’m talking about.
In politics today, we hear people being called based.
That just means they’re grounded in what they believe and in what they represent. They don’t double talk. They’re consistent in their beliefs. That’s becoming more rare and when you think about it, you can’t count on someone who double talks. They can’t be trusted.
The younger generations talk about being free thinkers, and I’ve heard some young Christians claim to be free thinkers. But is that biblical? Is that what God wants us to be? A free thinker is someone who rejects accepted opinions, especially those concerning religious belief. The Bible doesn’t encourage us to be free thinkers, but people who think like God. We are meant to land on true knowledge. I talk about this often but Proverbs 1:9 says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; but fools despise wisdom and instruction.” Here we see two ways of thinking – we see that the person who fears God has begun to know, to land on a belief. But the fool despises the instruction that leads them to the knowledge of God. Which ones sounds like they’re being closed-minded from this verse?
Doesn’t it sound like the one who despises the instruction?
They have closed their mind to information that introduces them to the fear of the Lord? In fact Romans 1 gives us an example of this because we know God through two ways: one of them is through general revelation and the other through special revelation.
Special revelation is through the word of God. So you know about God through the world He has created. You get to know God through the word He inspired.
General revelation is how God reveals Himself through what has been made. So everyone can look around and see that the world we live in is not here by chance or accident.
It must be because there is an all powerful, all knowing, infinite creator who lives outside of space, time and matter.
I’m going to read you Romans 1:18-25 and I want you to make that connect with Proverbs 1:9. It says, “But God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who suppress the truth by their wickedness.[i] 19 They know the truth about God because he has made it obvious to them. 20 For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God.
21 Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn’t worship him as God or even give him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. As a result, their minds became dark and confused. 22 Claiming to be wise, they instead became utter fools.”
Here we see that the people knew God by the world He created.
God is not trying to be mysterious. He gave us all the information we need to know that He exists. Now, again, we you won’t know Him intimately through general revelation, you will only do that through a relationship with Christ and as you read the word. But you have to suppress the truth in unrighteousness in order to deny God. Does that sound a lot like choosing to be closed-minded? To look around at the revelation of God through what He has made and still say, “No, He doesn’t exist or I won’t serve Him”? And when people do that, the first place it affects is their minds. Notice what verses 21 and 22, “They began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. As a result, their minds became dark and confused. Claiming to be wise, instead became utter fools.”
Those who refuse to believe in God and arrive at the belief that He exists are the ones who are closed-minded.
These verses show us that. Christians are not closed-minded.
In fact, it means you have hopefully examined the evidence and see that Christianity is the worldview that aligns to reality. It answers the biggest questions to life that every religion and worldview (like atheism) has to answer: how did we get here? Why am I here (purpose)? What happens after I die? What’s wrong with the world (the problem of evil). So yeah, it actually fires me up when people accuse Christians of being closed-minded because they’re the ones who are actually closed-minded.
When is it absolutely necessary to close your mind to other beliefs and opinions?
Should we always stay in a state of unbelief or skepticism about God, the truth, or anything, really? Mr. B from Red Pen Logic posted a rebuttal to a meme that said, “I would rather have a mind opened by wonder than one closed by belief.” First, isn’t that a belief itself? Mr. B made a great point and said, “We should shut our minds on things we have reason to believe are true – but also be willing to re-open our minds if contrary evidence presents itself.”
I agree and here’s why. First, we arrive at a belief because either there are good reasons to believe it’s true, or because we were told to believe it. I’ve talked about this before.
I get a lot of people making claims and when I ask them why they believe what they do, they don’t know.
So true belief should be based on good reasons. Second, once you find new evidence, you should open your mind to the evidence, examine it, and then come to a reasonable conclusion.
On the Mr. B thread, a commenter made a great point. He said, are we closed minded about gravity since we believe gravity is a natural force? Or should we remain open-minded to whether or not gravity exists? Let’s face it – there are lots of things we can be sure of. We can be sure the earth rotates around the sun. We can be sure the earth is round. There’s certainty that we are alive right now and we will all die one day. We have arrived at those beliefs based on evidence and experience.
To deny that you cannot be sure about anything is foolish.
It is not cool to be a free thinker. It is not cool to claim ignorance where God has provided truth. In fact, Proverbs would say if you do, you are the very definition of a fool who despises wisdom and instruction.
Now, as far as the big things or big questions of life – like how did we get here, does God exists, where do we go when we die, etc, there is evidence that points to God’s existence and we should all be willing and open to examine the evidence. Can we arrive at a reasonable conclusion based on the evidence? Yes, or there would be no Christians. In fact, we’d all be locked in skepticism. That is no way to live. However, some Christians don’t agree.
In fact, some Christians are so open-minded, they believe that having faith is more important than which faith you have?
According to George Barna, 62% believe this way.
Is that open-minded? No. That’s dangerous and foolish because not all believes are equally valid. Why? Because they contradict each other. In fact, per Barna, these Christians have adopted a postmodern worldview which says that there is no way to know whether or not God exists so just have faith in something and you’ll be better off. According to whom? What source did you draw that belief from? Because I can tell you it’s not in the Bible. And those who have a biblical worldview say that having faith is more important than which faith you have. A whopping 42% believe that. What? If that’s what you want to call open-minded, then that’s dangerous because what we believe determines how we live. In fact, this is what 2 Corinthians 4:4 says, “Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe.
They are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News.
They don’t understand this message about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God.”
What does this mean? It means those who close their minds to the truth about God are close-minded. When I teach kids Let’s Get Real, we examine the evidence for God and we start with the scientific evidence that points to God’s existence. We look at and evaluate what atheist scientists say and even use some of the evidence they have found that confirms God’s world, even if they don’t attribute it as evidence for God.
That doesn’t mean our confidence in God removes all doubt.
It means the evidence points to God behind a reasonable doubt. The same standard required in a court of lie to determine whether or not a criminal is guilty or innocent Not one on the jury was present at the time of the crime. They have to examine the evidence and come to a conclusion beyond a reasonable doubt. That’s what we do when we arrive at a belief. The only way for us to change our minds about God is if new evidence contradicts the evidence we’ve already examined.
So the question: is absolutely necessary to close your minds about beliefs and opinions is it depends. It depends on what it is. When I ask my students to answer the question, “Does God exist?” That question is easy. And I tell them that. But when I ask, “Why do you believe He exists” that question is hard.
It requires reasons and many people who adopt beliefs about things don’t have valid reasons for them.
I also tell my students that, “I don’t know” is a valid answer. But one they’ve examined the evidence, they should be able to arrive at a conclusion so they will go from not knowing to knowing what they believe and why.
As I think about what we should really be untrue of, I don’t know that the uncertainties outweigh what we can be certain of. For example, all knowledge comes from God. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge but fools despise wisdom and instruction. We might not know if days in Genesis 1 is literal as in 24 hours or if it means ages or eons, but does that change the fact that God created the earth and called the evening and the morning the first day? If knowing the timeframe is just as important as knowing how the earth got here, God would have told us. But since He didn’t, we can be sure the unknowns are not dependent upon whether or not He exists. God gave us all we need to be confident He exists.
Our final question is:
When does hard heartedness contribute to being closed-minded?
As I read through the gospel of Mark in January and February, I noticed a correlation of the hard heartedness of the students and their inability to understand. Let me give you a few examples.
This is all taken from the gospel of Mark, so keep that in mind. In chapter 3, Jesus continually reminds His disciples to be careful how they hear. Those who love instruction (Prov 9) will be ready to listen and be open to His teaching. So an open-minded person must be willing to hear and be careful how they hear.
In chapter 4, Jesus tells the parable of the sower and the disciples did not understand. Jesus asks this question in verse 13: Don’t you understand this parable? How then will you understand all the parables?”
What did He mean by that?
This is what my apologetics commentary says, “Proper listening is the theme that connects the parables in chapter 4, and Jesus spoke in parables to distinguish between “anyone who has ears to hear”, that is those with responsive hearts and those who do not. If you do not have a responsive heart, you are hard hearted and you will not be open minded to hear instruction.
Second, in order to be open to learning what Jesus says, there is a scaffolding that takes place as we grow in knowledge. Jesus alluded to this in verse 33 when Mark said, “He was speaking the word to them with many parables like these, as they were able to understand.”
This is the balance of being a teacher – knowing the mental capacity of your students.
On the other hand, the student must also understand when they are capable of acquiring new knowledge and understanding it, and developing the mental discipline it takes the listen to instruction. In other words, being open to hearing the words of God and growing in the word is intentional.
There’s another incident when John the Baptist is imprisoned by Herod and Herod enjoyed hearing John teach. In 6:20, Mark tells us that “When Herod heard John he would be very perplexed, and yet he liked to listen to him.” Perplexed means completely baffled or puzzled. That means Herod didn’t come to the understanding of the truth. We know this because eventually, Herod’s wife Herodias encouraged her daughter to ask for John’s head on a platter so Herod, who wanted to please his guests, had him beheaded. What’s the point? There is an openness required to bring someone to understanding.
In Mark 7:14, Jesus again tells the crowds to listen to Him and understand.
After He left, His disciples asked him to explain the parable because they didn’t understand when Jesus talked about the traditions of the elders and that what comes out of the mouth is what defiles a man, not when you eat out of dirty cups and bowls. He wasn’t please and asked them, “Are you also lacking understanding?” Jesus didn’t excuse them of their ignorance, He expected them to understand and part of the lack of understanding was in how they listened to His teaching. And in 8:17 it gets worse. After Jesus feeds the four thousand and Jesus instructs them to be careful of the leaven of the Pharisees, meaning their hypocrisy, They didn’t get it. And the next thing Jesus says is why I believe closed-mindedness to the truth and a hard heart are correlated. He asked them, “Don’t you understand or comprehend? Do you have hardened hearts? Do you have eyes and not see; do you have ears and not hear?”
Being closed-minded is a spiritual problem.
In fact, when someone says they won’t believe in God because they don’t have enough evidence or because we can’t know anything or sure, they are the ones who have eyes and do not see. They have ears and do not hear. If they did, they would believe.
In fact, in the same gospel, Jesus is asked questions by religious leaders and others and He won’t answer. Why not? Why doesn’t He answer when they ask Him if He is the son of God? Shouldn’t He answer when He has an opportunity to convince them? Because they don’t want to be convinced. Jesus performed so many miracles during the three and a half years of His ministry and they still asked for a sign.
In fact, we see a depiction of this in the story of the rich man and Lazarus.
When they died and are in Abraham’s bosom, the rich man asks Abraham to send Lazarus to his family so they will not come to the place of torment that he ended up in. And Abraham told him that they have the prophets and Moses. Let them hear them. But the rich man said no. But if someone rises from the dead, they will believe. What Abraham said next is telling. He said, “If they will not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not believe though one rises from the dead.” The evidence will never persuade one who wants to remain in unbelief. And that is the one who is truly closed-minded.
Close:
I want to close this out by encouraging you to share the gospel anyway. We don’t know who will listen and who won’t. But that’s not our job nor our concern. Although I will say it’s hard not to be concerned with how people respond. But that’s when we take our concern to the Lord in prayer.
I also want to encourage you as a Christian not to care when people call you closed-minded because they will. People who think they’re the trendy ones for being “open-minded” free thinkers don’t understand that they are the ones who refuse to believe when God has given us everything we need to arrive at the belief that He exists.
We have to have thick skin and hopefully good conversations.
And remember, some people don’t need an explanation or an answer. Jesus recognized those who just wanted to trap Him in His words and didn’t care about the words He spoke. Wipe your hands of them and go your way. Ask God for the wisdom to do this.
I hope that encourage you and helps you understand what it means to be close-minded. If you enjoy the podcast, please leave a 5 star rating and/or review as that is the only way to get the podcast into the earbuds of others. If you have any questions for me you can email me at hello@shandafulbright.com. As always, I’ll catch you on the next one.
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