“Certain people came down from Judea to Antioch and were teaching the believers: ‘Unless you are circumcised, according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved.’ This brought Paul and Barnabas into sharp dispute and debate with them…
The whole assembly became silent as they listened to Barnabas and Paul telling about the signs and wonders God had done among the Gentiles through them.”
Acts 15:1-2a, 12
One of the unfortunate byproducts of this highly polarized moment is the rise of echo chambers.
More and more of us are retreating into habits and habitats that are ideologically homogeneous. Blue neighborhoods are getting bluer, and red ones are getting redder. Same with churches, book clubs, dinner parties, tennis teams, and just about everything else. Even our selection of podcasts, blogs, and news outlets can have the effect of ensuring that we only encounter perspectives that reinforce our existing commitments and conclusions.
It is as if we have come to see ideological and theological difference in the way the Old Testament sees ritual impurity: It is a type of contagion that can be spread by contact. If touched, it renders us unfit to enter holy spaces and so therefore it must be contained and avoided at all costs.
Ideologically homogeneous environments can provide safe space for recovery from hurt and for needed affirmation of core parts of who we are. That’s a good thing. Even so, they are counterproductive for pastoral leadership. They act as self-affirming echo chambers in which our viewpoints are never challenged, stretched, or subjected to the sort of dialogical questioning that is the engine of knowledge production and innovation. In our self-righteous silos, honest feedback and even the gentlest forms of constructive criticism are received as assaults on our personhood and as evidence that the other person is not a true Christian / advocate for justice / political ally / colleague / friend. Worse still, these bubbles tend to put a stranglehold on empathy and compassion as those outside our bubble are seen as little more than two-dimensional caricatures that are hardly worth knowing or trusting.
Things have not always been this way. Acts 15 tells the story of how a number of controversial issues threatened to fracture the early church into different sects. Chief among those issues was the extent to which Gentile followers of Jesus had to adhere to Old Testament laws and customs. At this pivotal moment, the early church refused to withdraw into hermetically sealed theological bubbles. Guided by the adroit leadership of Peter, the church found a way to stay together.
Importantly, what bound the different parties to one another was not theological agreement on the particulars of how followers of Jesus should engage Old Testament law. Disagreements on that matter continued on and were the subject of considerable debate in the writings of Origen, Justin, Marcion, and Tertullian. What Bound the church together was an agreement that the Gospel itself allowed for and could make sense of different perspectives co-existing within the same faith community. But it wasn’t just “let’s agree to disagree.” There was a belief that the presence of theological heterogeneity strengthened the body, made it more nuanced, adaptive, and resilient. A chorus of varied voices produces better music than an echo chamber.
Ideological purity was not a guiding value for the early church—nor should it be for us today. It’s time we start popping the self-righteous bubbles we have created. Doing so would stretch us theologically and it just might help us connect more deeply with the humanity of those we disagree with.
Questions for Reflection:
- Where have you seen ideologically homogeneous bubbles forming in your own community? What are they oriented around?
- Have you ever felt excluded from a group because your beliefs did not line up perfectly with those in it? What was that experience like and how did it affect you?
- What is one small thing you could do to begin to stretch or pop the ideological bubbles that might be forming in your own life? What would be some of the risks and benefits of doing so?
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