Absolute Pronouncements

Absolute Pronouncements

Like many people who use e-mail a great deal to keep up with friends, family, and business associates, I often receive multiple copies of the same joke that zooms through cyberspace. Although I have made a decision to pass on jokes only after great consideration, I’m happy to receive them and occasionally get one that I really enjoy.

One such item that has made the rounds several times in the last few years is called, “Famous Last Words.” I recently received another copy of it and found myself as amused this time as I was the first time I read it.

If you’ve seen it, you know it contains quotes of predictions of future events—I presume they are reliable although I’ve never checked the sources. Things like: “I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.” (Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943.) And, “This ‘telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us.” (Western Union internal memo, 1876). Or “Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value.” (Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure De Guerre). And then there is my favorite: “Everything that can be invented has been invented.” (Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899.)

How wrong each was! And how right these people thought there were when making such pronouncements.

While these thoughts are funny in retrospect, how much damage was done to individuals who believed the ones making those pronouncements? Thank goodness many did not and went on to pursue their dreams and hopes.

It’s really easy to be intellectually lazy and simply agree with the so-called “experts” who speak with such decisiveness. I think that is one of the big issues that underlies the religious debates that have been taking place in the “Letters to the Editor” section of this newspaper.

I know I’m treading on dangerous ground here. We’d all like to believe that our religious convictions are the right ones; that we can be absolute about our pronouncements, even if those pronouncements say, “We can’t be absolute.”

But I also know the danger of believing, with intellectual and spiritual laziness, something that the so-called experts say, even religious experts whom we may respect highly.

How do you know whose pronouncements to trust?

After long experience, and with some study into the behavioral life of healthy and unhealthy organizations, I suggest you ask the following questions about the expert and the organization that the expert may be leading:

Assuming you ask with graciousness, what is the response when the basic tenants of the belief system are questioned?
Can you question the leader’s remarks without fear of negative consequences?
Have some been expelled from the community for asking honest questions?
Is the leader open to new sources of information?
How is power shared within the organizational structure? Is it freely given away or tightly hoarded among a few chosen ones?
How are those who are different from the majority of the membership treated? Are they welcomed as they are, or are demands put upon them for change before receiving an invitation to partake in the life of the community?

Your answers will give a lot of insight about the amount of trust you should place in any one person’s pronouncements. A closed system that can’t be questioned and where power is tightly controlled suggests that something is fundamentally unhealthy.

None of these guidelines means a church or religious organization—or any other organization for that matter—can’t have a clearly defined belief structure. But someone who advocates only one unquestioned approach to religious belief may have a lot to answer for someday.

History is a great teacher, if we’ll bother to learn from it. The history of Christianity gives lie to any notion that the practices and beliefs in the first century look anything like the ones practiced now. It didn’t start out as a middle-class white man’s religion. Although some wealthy and powerful people were attracted to it, the majority of the first adherents to Christianity were the underclass, the poor, the slaves, the women. And it wasn’t absolute pronouncements that brought them in. Instead, a message of hope attracted them.

So the next time you hear “Famous Last Words” about any subject, no matter how prestigious the speaker may be, take them with a grain of salt. That person may very likely be wrong. Instead, use your own brain, learn for yourself, and if you find you can’t freely disagree from the expert, then get out. You just might come up with the idea of the century by doing so. And you might even find God in the process.