i told me so: self-deception and the christian life

I Told Me So: Self-deception and the Christian life

Consider: Based on surveys…

·         94% of professors think they’re doing an above-average job.

·         100% of high-school seniors thought they were above average in terms of ability to get along.

·          60% estimated they were in the top 10%, and 25% estimated they were in the top 1%. 

What do you make of this? Is it a problem? Is it helpful to know?

It looks as if we are deluded about ourselves. I do find it pleasant to feel smart by quoting studies. But is there anything constructive we can do with this awareness? In I Told Me So: Self-deception and the Christian life, Gregg Ten Elshof offers help both with understanding the problem and responding appropriately. I’m especially pleased that the book is oriented toward Christians. Self-deception can make a farce of spiritual development. I think it's quite rampant in the church, and we’re more likely to listen to correction when it comes from someone we're inclined to trust.

Here's the picture that Ten Elshof draws:

I like having a high opinion of myself. Earning the self-image I crave can be tough. So life offers me a deal: there are ways to believe I’ve earned that high opinion without putting in the work to actually earn it. In other words, cheat. Similar deals are available for securing other kinds of agreeable beliefs. Whatever the payoff, in order to successfully execute the deal, I can’t catch myself in the act. Most people tend to take the deal. If I take the deal, it will seem (as it does in fact seem) as if I hadn’t.

Is it not impressive that this deal works? What arsenal of self-deceptive strategies makes it possible?

Attention Management: Filling your consciousness with arguments for what you already believe (or want to believe), or focusing on tearing down opposing arguments, yet believing you are seeking to understand the truth of the matter.

Example: Ashley, a Christian, reads lots of Christian apologetic literature, and loves the arguments she finds there. She doesn’t read much atheist literature or apologetics from other religions. When she does, she focuses on finding weaknesses in their arguments. Ashley feels that through all this reading, she has pursued the truth and come out with a justified confidence in the rational superiority of the Christian worldview.

Procrastination: When you believe there is something you ought to do or choose, but would rather not do it, delaying the choice – often with the effect that later on, what seemed right at the time becomes easier to ignore. 

Example: An organization gives a presentation in church, and Gregg feels he ought to give to their cause. But instead of giving there and then, he tells himself he’ll go home and research them online, look at his finances and then probably give even more generously than he would have done on the spot. The cause then loses urgency, and he never does that research nor gives any money.

Perspective switching: Choosing to see a situation from somebody else’s perspective when their perspective is more agreeable than your own.

Example: David orchestrates the premature death of Uriah so he can marry the man’s wife. The deed is played out such that it looks like Uriah was merely a casualty of war. David chooses to think of Uriah’s death as more of a convenient casualty than a murder, and goes on living without feeling morally troubled until Nathan calls him out on what he has done.

Rationalization: Constructing a rational justification for a behavior, decision, or belief arrived at in some other way – fictitious because the rational justification played no causal roll in the behavior.

Example 1: A Christian mortgage broker implicitly encourages his clients to lie about their income on their applications. The true reason that the broker really does this is that it is standard practice and seems like the only way to support his family in his line of work. But he rationalizes that the lie is really his just client’s responsibility and anyway leads to a win-win situation for both the client who wants the loan and the bank that wants to give it.

Example 2: Ed goes to an apologetics class marketed with the phrase “Find out WHY you believe what you believe”. Really Ed believes what he does because his authorities told him it was true and it just feels right in his gut. But subconsciously somehow this doesn’t seem to him like a good enough reason for belief-- certainly he doesn't want to tell his non-Christian friends that. Ed will convince himself and proclaim to others that these rational arguments are why he believes the Christian message despite that in reality they play no causative role in his faith.

Ressentiment: Changing your feelings, values or judgments to escape coming to terms with a disagreeable situation. Ten Elshof describes three types of ressentiment:

1.       Scorn for an unavailable good

Example 1A: Aesop’s fable of the fox and the sour grapes. (After unsuccessfully trying to grab a high-hanging cluster of grapes, the fox decides they were probably sour anyway.)

Example 1B: Gregg, who doesn’t have lots of money, drives an old clunker. He praises the benefits of this situation: he doesn’t have to worry about it getting scratched, stolen or mistreated. Insurance costs less. He’s less susceptible to materialistic vanity. He tells himself he really prefers driving the old car. But when his parents offer to pass on to him a much newer and nicer vehicle, he happily accepts.

Example 1C: Around the beginning of the 20^th century, ideas began being taught in the universities that many felt threatened the plausibility of the tenants of Christian orthodoxy, making it more difficult for a lot of conservative Christians to stay fully engaged in the intellectual scene. Anti-intellectualism then grew among them, sometimes displayed through outright distrust of higher education.

2.       Pushing the unavailable good to the edges of consciousness by super-valuing something else

Example 2: In the situation of example 1C, other Christians effectively discredited the value of the life of the mind by way of emphasizing the importance of faith and the heart (which of course were appropriate values).

3.       Identifying an unacceptable sentiment as something else

Example 3A: Ashley is angry with Jennifer, but casts it as being “concerned for her” or “sad about what she’s doing”. Admitting anger might imply that Ashley hasn’t forgiven Jennifer, which would be unacceptable as a Christian.

Example 3B: Chris is envious of Mike’s fancy new TV, but spins his feelings as being concerned that the TV will be unhealthy for Mike and his family.

Perhaps you’ve noticed that often self-deception is evident on the outside. If I wanted to stop deceiving myself, could it not be as easy as asking for an honest assessment from a friend? Sometimes. But often the people around us are complicit in our self-deceptive strategies. These tend to be one form or another of groupthink.

Groupthink: Stifling a group’s capacity for critical thinking and careful decision-making due to a value of conformity or harmony. As defined by psychologist Irving Janis, groupthink is characterized by eight symptoms: an Illusion of invulnerability, collective rationalization, a belief in inherent morality (ignoring ethical consequences because the group’s cause is right) , stereotyped views of out-groups, direct pressure on dissenters, self-censorship (a reluctance to voice doubts or reservations), an illusion of unanimity, and self-appointed “mind guards” (people who keep the leader from being bothered by problematic information). In Janis’s analysis, numerous US foreign policy disasters were largely a result of groupthink, including the US failure to anticipate the Japanese assault on Pearl Harbor, President Johnson’s involvement in the Vietnam war, and the failed US invasion of Cuba known as the Bay of Pigs Incident.

Manifestation 1: Corporate Groupthink: Often subordinates wish to ingratiate themselves to their leader, and this leads to a pressure toward conformity. The conformity pressure in turn means everyone goes along with the boss’s favorite picture. The group then backfires: instead of being an engine of critical thinking producing a fuller picture on which to base better decisions, the group reinforces the leader’s blindspots, making him more confident in whatever half-baked idea he might pursue.

Manifestation 2: The Game of Happy Family: Sometimes the members of a family (loosely defined) cooperate to keep certain things hidden from themselves. Psychiatrist R. D. Laing characterized this group-level deception as employing the following rules:

Rule A: Don’t.

Rule A.1: Rule A does not exist.

Rule A.2: Do not discuss the existence or nonexistence of Rules A, A.1, or A.2

Example A: An alcoholic father is abusive to his family. The family members systematically ignore the evidence of the problem, and do not hint of its existence to each other. When the problem finally gets dealt with, the victims are astounded at what they experienced but disregarded.

Example B: In a prosperous American church, though tithing is encouraged, nobody usually raises the question of whether there’s a moral problem with Christians (who can afford these things) buying nice cars, fine food, new appliances or making large expenditures on entertainment.

Rule A: Don’t question the moral legitimacy of buying a new BMW.

Rule A.1: Rule A does not exist.

Rule A.2: Do not discuss the existence or nonexistence of Rules A, A.1, or A.2

Sometimes a member returning from a short-term mission trip to a developing country may become troubled about these questions and wonder why nobody else seems to be. But typically in time they readjust, become comfortable again and make no long-term changes in their lifestyle.

 In contrast, people of various different social strata often feel morally queasy about the exorbitant materialistic lifestyle of those in the next stratum up.  Jesus’ warnings about having your heart carried away by wealth may ring true when one imagines those richer people, but not in one’s own life.

So what can we do about all this? My next blog will explore Ten Elshof's positive suggestions.