When Certainty Becomes an Idol
We live in a time where algorithms sell us mirrors and we call them windows. We scroll, we curate, we “like,” and—if we’re honest—we crave a kind of theological invincibility: the quiet rush that comes when our tribe wins the argument. But the desire to be convinced that our way is the only way can harden into an idol—a golden calf hammered from proof-texts and podcasts—standing right in front of the mercy seat.
Rich Mullins once joked his way into a thunderclap of truth: “If we were given the Scriptures, it was to humble us into realizing that God is right, and the rest of us are just guessing.” He said it at a church in Lufkin, Texas, in the summer of 1997; they even caught it on tape. It’s not that truth is unknowable; it’s that Truth is finally personal—“I am the way, the truth, and the life,” says Jesus (John 14:6, NKJV). The difference matters. Truth-as-weapon makes enemies. Truth-as-person makes disciples.
Scripture itself warns against the lust for airtight mastery: “For we know in part and we prophesy in part” (1 Cor. 13:9, NKJV). Paul in Athens didn’t sneer at the altars; he honored a fragment of longing—“To the Unknown God”—and traced it to the crucified and risen Lord (Acts 17:22–31). Knowledge puffs up; love builds up (1 Cor. 8:1). The poetry of the Church has carried this posture for centuries: In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity—a line often ascribed to Rupertus Meldenius, a 17th-century peacemaker.
Augustine famously prayed, “If you understood Him, it would not be God.” Not a surrender of the mind, but humility of the mind. Calvin spoke of a sensus divinitatis, a God-ward awareness sewn into human hearts by their Maker (Rom. 1 hinted at it; Calvin systematized it). So the world is shot through with hints—pale reflections of a Face that shines in Christ (2 Cor. 4:6). Can we recognize the hints without mistaking them for the Face?
Conviction without Contempt
Let me be clear: it is good to belong to a tradition with your whole weight—Presbyterian or Pentecostal, Catholic or Baptist, Anglican or Anabaptist. Vows should be made with both feet on the ground. But conviction without charity curdles into contempt, and contempt blinds. “He has shown you, O man, what is good… to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God” (Mic. 6:8, NKJV). How can we walk humbly if our certainty is a clenched fist?
Ask harder questions: Is my theology producing the fruit of the Spirit in me (Gal. 5:22–23), or am I more animated by outrage than by love? Do I argue to serve the neighbor, or to secure my place in the pecking order? Do I remember that the Judge at the end of all our debates bears scars in His hands (John 20:27)?
Jews, Jesus, and the Temptation of Partisan Piety
A traditional Jew does not confess Jesus as Messiah in the way Christians do. Shall we therefore withdraw support, solidarity, or neighbor-love? God forbid. Paul, the Hebrew of Hebrews, ache-bleeds for Israel in Romans 9–11 and warns Gentile believers against arrogance. The Jewish people are not props in our eschatological pageants; they are beloved of God. To stand against antisemitism, to pray for the peace of Jerusalem, to labor for the safety and flourishing of Jewish neighbors—and, yes, of Palestinian neighbors too—is not syncretism but obedience to the One who said, “Whatever you do to the least of these… you did to Me” (Matt. 25:40, NKJV). Rich Mullins himself, at a talk in Lufkin, Texas cited Karl Barth quipping, “Find me a Hittite in New York City”—a wry way of noting God’s peculiar fidelity to the Jewish people.
Support, then, is not the uncritical endorsement of any state’s every policy. Christians are not court chaplains for power; we are witnesses for a Kingdom not of this world. We seek the good of the city (Jer. 29:7), tell the truth, oppose terror and vengeance alike, and insist on the dignity of every image-bearer. That is costly, concrete love. It is also a guardrail against the idolatry of ideology.
“Would Jesus Have Been a Good Buddhist?”
I’ve heard the line—sometimes playfully, sometimes provocatively—that Jesus would have made a good Buddhist. I understand the instinct. The Sermon on the Mount resonates with Buddhist virtues: compassion, peacemaking, freedom from grasping. Christians should gladly affirm any practice that heals and humbles—wherever it’s found. But let’s think carefully.
Buddhism, in many of its schools, is non-theistic; Christianity confesses the Triune God and the Word made flesh (John 1:14). Buddhism speaks of non-attachment; Jesus calls us to cruciform attachment—to love God with all, to lose our lives and find them in Him (Mark 8:34–35). There are bridges of practice—mercy, mindfulness, the refusal to retaliate—and Christians can learn from neighbors who practice them well. Yet Jesus is not finally an exemplar among exemplars; He is “the exact imprint of God’s nature” (Heb. 1:3). If He resembles a bodhisattva at moments, it is because all true compassion whispers His name.
So let’s refuse the lazy relativism that flattens every mountain into a molehill. But let’s also repent of the swagger that dynamites every other hill just to prove that ours is the only peak. Paul didn’t mock the Athenians; he proclaimed the Resurrection. That’s the dance: generosity of spirit, boldness of witness.
A Short Lament (with both knees on the ground)
O Lord, our Certainty and our Surprise,
deliver us from the piety that sneers,
from the zeal without knowledge,
from the knowledge without love.
Take away our stone hearts and give us flesh,
that we might recognize Your image
in those who disagree with us,
and recognize our own pride when it hisses in Your courts.
Kyrie eleison. Christe eleison. Kyrie eleison.
Practicing Critical Charity
How do we train our souls out of idolatrous certainty and into cruciform conviction?
Begin with Scripture for humility, not ammunition. Read a Gospel with this prayer: “Lord, show me where I am wrong, and how to love rightly.” Keep Mullins’ line nearby as a guardrail: the Bible humbles us into remembering God is right and we’re guessers.
Name the essentials—and hold them with open hands to Christ. The Church at her best keeps the center strong and the edges porous: “In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity.” Make a short list (Creed-level truths), and stop demanding creedal uniformity on everything else.
Honor grace wherever it appears. When you see justice, mercy, and humility in your Jewish neighbor, say so and join it. When you encounter gentleness and compassion in a Buddhist friend, recognize common grace while bearing witness to the Giver of all grace (James 1:17). Calvin’s “sense of divinity” means the traces of God’s goodness glint beyond our fences; let the glints lead you to Christ, not away from Him.
Refuse performative outrage. Ask: Would I say this the same way across a table as I do online? If not, don’t say it. “Let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath” (James 1:19, NKJV).
Take up a small, costly solidarity. This week, befriend a neighbor from another tradition. Bring a meal, listen without interrupting, ask what “shalom” or “compassion” means in their practice. Then, when asked, tell the truth about Jesus—gently, clearly, joyfully.
Worship with the Church, not just your corner. Sing the old hymns, pray the Psalms, confess the Creeds. The breadth of the Church will sand down your sectarian edges.
Even when God reveals Himself, Augustine says, He remains mystery; that’s not a glitch—it’s the glory. We walk by faith, not by surveillance. Hold your confession like a cross and not like a club. Love the Lord your God with all your mind; love your neighbor—Jew, Buddhist, skeptic—with all your life. And when you don’t know what to say (which is most of the time), say what the Church has always said, because it is always enough:
Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.
Embodied takeaway (this week):
Choose one neighbor from a different tradition. Share coffee or a meal. Ask one sincere question about their practice. Then read John 13 and Philippians 2 that night, and ask: Where is pride making me deaf? Where is Jesus inviting me to kneel? Finally, pray Compline’s ancient line: “Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, O Lord…”—and rest. God knows the answers. The rest of us are just guessing, and learning to love.
