People
in Jeremiah's day were blind to their faults and easily led to
presume their innocence. What accountability mechanisms do you have
in place to help detect spiritual blind spots in your life? How can
your group or family help in this? (Serendipity Bible 10th
Anniversary Edition, page 1066).
Too
often character flaws are seen as just that – flaws of character –
not the unavoidable results following failure to establish
accountability mechanisms. This is a serious mistake for all humanity
is readily vulnerable to self-presumptions of innocence. It takes
accountability mechanisms to enable us to see otherwise. In regards
to myself, I have an unrelieved presumption of innocence. It takes
looking outside myself – to external mechanisms – for any promise
of seeing otherwise. Of course the central problem is that when I
look to others for midcourse corrections, the others I choose to
provide this service are those I choose. That is, I self-select
people who will politely agree that I am forever innocent and clean
as the new driven snow and who will find all my motivations are above
reproach. Most of the tortured steps in human progress can be
finally identified as this – the arduous establishment of reliable
accountability mechanisms. The scientific method is clearly one such
mechanism. So is the concept of divided government. So is the concept
of marketplace competition. In other words, the delusional,
self-deceptive biases in human nature are being overcome through the
use of corrective external mechanisms.
This
accounts for the persistent signification of the Bible. It is a
readily accessible reference. It is a light unto our path no matter
what path we are on or where we find ourselves today or tomorrow.
The words – especially those of Jesus – constitute an external
reference for the validity of tone. It helps us to identify false
prophets who fail to ring true to the tone of Christ. It is
universally applicable wherever mankind interacts with others or even
when he interacts with the inanimate world. That is the essential
reason why the religion of Jesus is so important.
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