The Danger of an Echo Chamber

Pastor Dave Monreal, Lead Pastor

“But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. In fact, I do not even judge myself. For I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me.”

1 Corinthians 4:2-3

The Apostle Paul writes these words under the backdrop of false accusations about his ministry. There were some who were seeking undermine his ministry by questioning his motives and integrity. Paul feels the necessity to challenge their accusations, but he is careful to not base it merely on his own self-perception. He realizes that the objective reality of his faith is based on God’s evaluation of him and not his own self-evaluation. He knows that as much as he tries to be objective about his life and doctrine that he could be biased in his understanding. This doesn’t mean that he rejects his opinions and convictions but rather that he humbly realizes that he may be mistaken.

In our contemporary culture there is the danger of listening in an “echo chamber.” The idea of an echo chamber is that we only listen to people whom we know already agree with what we believe and are going to say back to us the things that we are already saying. Liberals spend their time watching MSNBC and reading the Huffington Post while conservatives sit in front of the TV watching Fox news and read their news from The Washington Times. I attended a church where the powers that be were dispensational in their theology. They only read books by “traditional dispensationalists” and made a rule that only those who graduated from Dallas Theological Seminary and agreed with traditional dispensationalist of the 1950s-1980s would be hired at their church. They believe that DTS began to stray in the 1990’s when “progressive dispensationalism” took over.

My purpose isn’t to debate dispensational theology (I am not dispensational) but to make a broader observation. Convictions are good but we should not get to the point of thinking we could never be wrong, and we should not be afraid of reading things from people we disagree with. I have friends who will only read books by authors that they already agree with (or already agree with them) and they are not challenged to think outside of their own perspective or humbly evaluate their position in light of criticism. If what we believe it true it should be able to stand against the strongest criticisms lobbied against it. Granted, when one is immature it might be wise to become established before reading critics but there is a wisdom of reading works by people we disagree with once we are more mature.

Paul didn’t say what he did because he thought he was self-deceived or that his opponents were correct. But he did realize the need to acknowledge that he could be biased and, in the end, only God’s perspective really mattered. It is good to have convictions and I would submit that we all think that we are right. If we didn’t think we were right, we wouldn’t believe the things we do! But we should also be willing to continue growing and be willing to challenge our beliefs to either reaffirm them or allow them to be corrected. The more mature we are the more settled we become in our beliefs but the more we also are aware of our own fallenness and realize that there are many things we don’t know. No one other than Jesus has perfect theology so there are always things we can learn if we are willing to listen.