When I was a boy I heard a pastor described as “so narrow, he could see down a straw with both eyes.” Oddly, he was the kind of man who would not have viewed it as an insult. If there was ever a perfect predictor of a ministry, business, or group in trouble, it is when the group of advisors around the leader all share exactly the same vision, values, and vices as the leader.
Every group must have a shared vision to succeed, but this vision must be broad enough to provide room for differences in emphasis and approach. Most large organizations will cultivate the local curmudgeon who challenges the easy answers of the group. Read C.S. Lewis’ prophetic novel That Hideous Strength and you will see the ideal community of Saint Anne’s has McPhee, often willing to challenge the groups assumptions. He is loyal, but he is critical. Every group needs a McPhee and the leader who drives away all the McPhee’s is hiding something . . . usually his own insecurity.
There was a nasty old song, one dare not call it a Gospel song, that was said “I can’t walk with you, you can’t walk with me, we can’t walk together unless we both agree . . .” This is true, the Bible says it, as far as it goes. Every group needs basic agreement, but too often I have seen this general principle misused to demand a mindless submission to every opinion of the leader or the in crowd.
Perhaps the simplest way to explain the problem is that the bad leader ends up with an in group that nobody can penetrate. Jesus had an inner circle of disciples, but the Savior had other followers who could get through to the Lord. He was not screened from the poor, the sick, the sinner by Peter, James, and John. He could also hear from Thomas or be reached by a deeply hurting woman who needed help. Jesus was willing to talk and even commend Romans, Samaritans, and lepers.
There is truth that we must agree to walk together, but beware the man who wants fifty pages of agreement before going for a walk.
Narrow people always become nasty and this is because they do not know enough people or love the people they know. Jesus called us to love our enemies, but such types churn through people in search of someone that will not disappoint them. This never happens because the narrow man is misusing the truth. Truth is a guide to give love boundaries, but they use it to exclude or to gain self-worth.
The narrow man is always looking for ways to exclude, the loving man to include. Of course, the vice of compromising the truth provides the narrow man all the excuse he needs to remain narrow. “If I love my enemy,” he argues, “then we will become our enemy or condone their bad behavior.” This is absurd. The compromised man can be condemned without dehumanizing him or refusing to listen to other things he says.
I am (on the whole) a political conservative, a follower of Burke, but I would be in deep danger if I had no liberal friends. I do not have to agree with them, but I do need to love them. Our politics must never become so wish-washy that we cannot debate or so nasty that we cannot love our foes. I hate many of the views of Hillary Clinton, but I must not hate her as a human and part of being loving is to listen. I must find all the good I can before rejecting her candidacy.
This is common decency. It also prevents me from missing good ideas she might have and the “group think” that may make me blind to the problems in my preferred solutions. When my party narrows down to only those who reflect all my ideas, then I am in deep danger.
I need more friends.
The bottom line is this: being narrow is not being precise about ideas. I want truth, all the truth, and nothing but the truth. However, this is hard, very, very hard. Error is easy and one of the easiest ways to find error is to limit the input I receive to too few sources and allowing no correction to my deepest ideals and values in my reading or my social circle. Truth leads to new questions and more growth. Narrowness is afraid, gets smaller, and doubles down on power.
God, help me to never quit learning, to love Truth, exact truth and to hate error, but to never confuse my opinions for the truth!
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