IGNORANCE ISN’T GLAMOROUS

By Akin Ojumu

Ralph Waldo Emerson probably didn’t have church folks in mind when, in his essay titled “Self-Reliance,” he coined the phrase, “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...” 

The point Emerson was trying to convey by his catchy axiom is that when confronted with irrefutable evidence that blows their long-held beliefs into smithereens, small-minded people will still refuse to reconsider those beliefs. In face of indisputable facts, obdurate folks often dig their heels in. Perhaps, out of fear of change, they cling rigidly to their erroneous ideologies.

There’s nothing admirable, honorable, or praiseworthy about clinging to a conviction that has been proven to be erroneous simply because “that’s what we’ve always believed and that’s how we’ve always done it.” In fact, it is not normal. You must be brainwashed to refuse to re-examine your perspectives on issues when presented with evidence that demolishes those perspectives.

Sadly, this is the reality with the vast majority of church folks. Like caged laboratory rats used as subjects in psychological experiments, these folks prove over and over again that they are victims of spiritual manipulation and indoctrination. And like the children of Israel wandering in the wilderness, a veil covers the minds of church folks when they read the Bible.

2 Corinthians 3:14-16

“But their minds were closed. For to this day the same veil remains at the reading of the old covenant. It has not been lifted, because only in Christ can it be removed. And even to this day when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts. But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.”

There’s no greater folly than to persistently hold on to erroneous doctrines simply because that’s what we’ve always known. The bane of contemporary church folks is their insistence on clinging to false theologies. Even when presented with sound biblical evidence that disproves what they believe, they obstinately hold on to their unbiblical and ungodly ideas.  

This intransigence to reason and imperviousness to facts is not at all surprising when you consider the fact that nearly all the establishments that call themselves Churches today are nothing more than business hubs, motivational centers, and psychotherapy clinics that dish out to their members exactly what their itching ears want to hear. 

2 Timothy 4:3

“For the time will come when men will not tolerate sound doctrine, but with itching ears they will gather around themselves teachers to suit their own desires. So they will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.”

Compounding the propensity to have their itching ears scratched by smooth talking charlatans is the fact that the vast majority of church folks are stark biblical illiterates. When it comes to handling the Word of God with accuracy and precision that God demands, these folks are woefully deficient. 

Untaught and unschooled in the requisite skills for Bible interpretation, contemporary church folks treat Bible texts the same way a shaman or witch doctor handles his book of charms. They’ve turned the Words of God into mystical chants and incantations to evoke supernatural phenomena.

Showing absolute irreverence and total disregard to the actual context, they glibly and flippantly deploy Bible texts to promote all sorts of ungodly ideas. With them, it’s a constant drivel of strip-mining the Bible for verses and phrases to Christianize their ungodly practices.

It’s not uncommon today to find Christians reveling in their theological naivete. In fact, many of them wear their profound lack of knowledge of the Bible as a badge of honor. Some even think it’s cool and glamorous to be theologically illiterate. It’s so bad that they equate theological ignorance with spiritual maturity. The greater the proficiency at twisting and distorting a Bible text to make it say whatever you want, the greater is the anointing.

In order to cover up their theological cluelessness, church folks dismiss those who care about theology as being unspiritual. They believe those who consider sound exegesis and expository teachings as the only way to truly understand the meaning of Bible texts are more concerned about the letter of the Law than the spirit of the Law; an egregious asinine position that further undermines their Bible knowledge.

Worse still, many of these people who call themselves Christians today are either intellectually incurious or just too scared to use their mind to discover for themselves what a Bible text actually means. Instead, they hang on to what their General Overseer tells them it means. Bewilderingly, they rely on someone who himself is as ignorant of Scriptures as they themselves to teach them doctrines and nourish their soul with the milk of the Gospel. Is it any wonder then that all they feed on is spiritual poison? 

What’s more dangerous than a man who doesn’t know what he doesn’t know is a man who not only thinks he knows what he doesn’t know but who goes on to make a fool of himself by making uninformed utterances which dispel any doubt about the fact that he doesn’t know what he doesn’t know. 

Proverbs 17:28

“Even a fool who keeps silent is considered wise; when he closes his lips, he is deemed intelligent.”

On top of all the aforementioned shortcomings of the contemporary church folks, there’s yet another scourge afflicting the modern-day church. It is the unholy fascination with power and encounters. For many of these people, personal unsubstantiated esoteric experiences are given more weight than the Word of God contained in the Bible. In fact, if it comes down to choosing between their otherworldly experience and what’s written in Scriptures, experience wins all the time.

This obsession with supernatural occurrences has eclipsed the love and devotion of church folks to Christ Jesus and His Gospel. Fabulous stories of personal subjective experiences like drinking tea with God or traveling to heaven, for instance, have replaced the historic eyewitness accounts and testimony of those who actually saw the Lord Jesus live, die, rise, and ascend to heaven 40 days later: objective accounts written down for our benefit on the pages of the Bible.

And here’s the reality about the preponderance of church folks of our time. No matter how pious or passionate they may seem, in their core, these people have no regard for God and His Word. These folks are impoverished as to the biblical basics that are able to anchor one’s faith securely in the harbor of God’s truth, love, and grace.

The Bible couldn’t be clearer. If truly you are of God, you will submit and surrender yourself to the Scriptures. No one can claim to belong to the Household of God and adamantly reject, twist, or distort what’s written in the Bible. 

John 10:27

“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.”

It’s eternally damning to be willfully ignorant when it comes to the Word of God. Those who intentionally or unintentionally distort the Word of God, cause great harm both to themselves and others. Destruction awaits all those who twist and distort the Bible. Anyone who engages in the intentional or unintentional manipulation, misinterpretation, and misapplication of biblical texts for the purposes of advancing their personal agenda or to propagate false teachings will be met with eternal ruin.

2 Peter 3:14-16

“Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace. And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.”