Why They Hated Jesus – Cognitive Dissonance
April 21, 2008
Dear Friends,
There is a psychological term called “cognitive dissonance” which describes the uncomfortable feeling we have when faced with something new. Cognitive means perception, understanding or reasoning. Dissonance means disharmony or incongruity. When our thinking is challenged – especially if the new idea challenges a long held belief or world view – we are left with trying to put our world view back together. This can be very unsettling. Depending on a person’s tolerance for dissonance, people can act very irrationally.
Why do people in the west blanch at eating horses but think nothing of eating cows? Why do we freely eat eggs that come from chickens but would be grossed out to eat a snake egg? Isn’t one animal embryo as good as another? My friend, Dave, just came back from China and shared his culinary experiences over there. Dog, duck tongue and scorpions, anyone?
Food is just one mild example of how our culture shapes our world view. The truth is that eating horse isn’t any more disgusting than eating cow than eating early-stage chicken embryos (eggs) except in the eye of the beholder. If we had grown up eating duck tongue, we wouldn’t think twice about popping the delicious little nibble on the half-beak in our mouths. When we are older, however, being confronted with Donald and Daffy’s cooked quacker can be a real gross out.
One of the main reasons the Pharisees hated Jesus is because they didn’t understand him and he challenged their world view. He was new and different. They hadn’t experienced anything like him before. They had a low tolerance for cognitive dissonance. How often is this the case in our society? We suspect people because they are different than us, speak different than us or perhaps have ideas we have not heard. Instantly our antennae go up. Who are these people? What is their evil intent? Even among brethren different customs and phraseology is looked at as suspect. We want them to do things like we do. We want them to say things like we say them.
When Jesus came, he didn’t talk like the Pharisees. Jesus didn’t follow the same customs as the Pharisees. Jesus didn’t follow their custom of ceremonial washing, for example. Jesus didn’t share their same prejudice against the Samaritans, women and the “sinners.” Jesus spoke in ways that people would find difficult to understand such as declaring the destruction of the temple (his body) and eating his flesh (taking the bread of remembrance).
Human beings can take one of several negative paths when confronted with new ideas and information. One option is that they can seek to understand. This takes a certain degree of humility. It has to be a part of our makeup to admit that perhaps our way is not the only way. I remember the first time I heard that brethren use the phrase that “baptism is for personal sins only.” I was aghast. Certainly these brothers had to know that baptism is more than forgiveness of personal sins. What about making us heirs to the promises made to Abraham? What about bringing us into Christ? Baptism for the forgiveness of sins was John’s baptism, not Christ’s. Of course, these brethren knew all of these things. They meant we are not being forgiven for Original Sin. My prejudice and lack of understanding was the problem.
A second approach to encountering something new is to immediately dismiss it and instead seek to change the other person. I was told as story (possibly apocryphal) about a brother who went to Africa to do missionary work. He was a strong believer that brothers should wear ties to meeting so he took a bunch with him to pass out. I was told there is a picture of this brother with the local brethren wearing ties. The only problem is that none of the locals had shirts with collars. The ties are all tied around their bare necks creating this absurd scene of men in t- shirts wearing ties on their necks trying to look respectably western.
The Pharisees similarly tried to get Jesus to conform to their social mores.
Then came to Jesus scribes and Pharisees, which were of Jerusalem, saying, Why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? for they wash not their hands when they eat bread. (Matt. 15:1-2)
The Pharisees were more concerned with what was happening on the outside of a person – the external show – than what was happening on the inside. How a person appeared to conform was more important than if they actually conformed. Apathetically following the lead of others is the easiest recourse in light of wholesale change even in dire circumstances. Most of the time it takes a Jesus, Martin Luther, Martin Luther King or a John Thomas to make us really examine our world view because we really hate cognitive dissonance. We dress up our apathy in pretty clothes though to make it look like we are one of the good guys. The legal self-righteousness, the sale of indulgences, racial segregation and other like- minded ideas are surprisingly easy to stomach if the majority of public opinion stands unchallenged.
The last thing that people can do when they encounter something new is to attack it. This is ultimately the path they took with Jesus. Often the only reason we attack is because it is new which to us equals “wrong.” Imagine being a Pharisee in the days of Christ and being of the persuasion of attacking “new” things while clinging to “old” things. It would be maddening. Jesus was instituting a whole new order of things. Baptism and the bread and wine were new not to mention the wholesale casting aside of the Mosaic ritual. Jesus also changed or “upgraded” several old teachings. Jesus would often introduce these new ideas with “you have heard it said” and then go on to a new commandment. This was no doubt like fingernails on a chalkboard for the Pharisees.
In the end, friends, the only way we will find the truth for ourselves is to search for it. It will be uncomfortable, but it will be worthwhile.
Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: for every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. (Matt. 7:7-8)
Have a great week,
Comments»
Kyle,
It seems often that it is not so much a “new idea†with which people have problems, but how an “old idea†is presented. For example, I don’t think Jesus presented any “new†ideas/laws when he said “you have heard it said…but I say unto you…†He may have challenged the present traditions of the day, but hardly introduced a “new teaching.†Jesus admonished us to go above and beyond the written law. He simply pointed out the spirit of the law summed up by the greatest two commandments: “Love GOD†and “Love your neighbor as yourself.â€
Often what some may perceive as a “new idea” may not be new at all, just a different way of presenting a historic Biblical message. Perhaps we should try to understand each other and give the benefit of the doubt to our brethren who may come from different cultures or use different semantics before we make assumptions or judgements. Thanks for your TFTW, I pray we can all work to understand each other despite our human limitations.
Alan Pursell