Americans have always seen independence as one of our primary virtues and strengths. Emerson’s essay “Self-Reliance” was, for over a hundred years, a must-read for every educated person. The maverick, the entrepreneur, the genius, and the self-made man—those are the American heroes. Current stories and movies are replete with underdogs who fight against the odds. We praise and admire anyone who is self-sufficient or stands against the status quo. Independence is obviously revered, but in that “spirit of independence,” let us explore this American value and ask if the reverence is always warranted. Perhaps there are some forms of independence worthy of censure instead of praise.
“Independence” is one of those words, like “freedom,” that carries incredibly positive connotations but can mean opposite things depending on what we are independent from. For example, contrast independence from morality with independence from sin. “Independence of mind” is similarly equivocal. Like freedom of action, independence of mind is neither good nor bad in and of itself. Independence of mind is good when we are independent from false and bad beliefs and bad when we are independent from true and good ones. In the rest of this essay, I shall take independence of mind to mean the ability to discern the true from the false and the good from the bad. Thus to be independent of mind does not mean that we reject the status quo for the sake of exerting independence but that we reject the “world.” In the words of Paul, “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect” (Romans 12:2, NASB).
The Problem
Independence of mind is, unfortunately, not so easy to achieve. In a strict sense, it is impossible to be independent of everything. To think and communicate, we depend on shared language, ideas, culture, and values. Without them, we would be helpless, infantile. To be truly and fully independent of all past ideas would mean we could have no ideas at all.
It is normal and appropriate to adopt a language and a set of ideas from previous generations and depend on them. That is how we were built. Children are sponges for information. They hunger for it and delight in it. Our minds are very much dependent on a whole host of beliefs and modes of thought we have received—often uncritically—from parents, friends, and the wider culture. Because of the way we learn, our most basic beliefs are most often tacit and unacknowledged. They appear to us simply as “the way things are,” and we cannot fathom any other way of being or thinking. Thus we are in a double bind. Not only are we deeply dependent on our inherited beliefs, but we are also largely unaware of them.
Of course, all is well and good if the beliefs and culture we have inherited are good and true. If our parents’ generation was wise and without reproach, and if we accept their wisdom and authority, then we will be independent of the bad and the false. But we must humbly admit that both our heritage and our culture contain false beliefs and worldliness at a very fundamental level. Consider a comparison between medieval and current views. Today, due to American utilitarian ethics that values maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain, people see the coexistence of a good God and suffering and evil as a major stumbling block. The medieval world had no problem with this. In medieval times, chastity before marriage was of supreme value. Today it is all but abandoned. These are fundamental differences about important issues, and they can’t both be right.
Still, most of us believe in our bones that we do have it right. But with regard to that belief, the Bible is most insistent that we do not. Consider Israel. If ever there was a culture that had a chance to be righteous, it was Israel. But even the Israelites, who were guided and taught directly by God, became worldly: “Then the sons of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD and served the Baals, and they forsook the LORD, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed other gods from among the gods of the peoples who were around them, and bowed themselves down to them; thus they provoked the LORD to anger” (Judges 2:11-12). And they did this not once but over and over again. The Israelites were surrounded by polytheism, and they absorbed it. The sad fact is that human beings and human culture, in all times and places, need redemption.
How are we to navigate our inevitable inheritance of flawed beliefs and values? How can we renew our minds and avoid conformity with the world?
At the heart of the problem is sin, ours and our culture’s. And we must look to God to find redemption and sanctification. He must transform our hearts to want what He wants and to seek the truth. He will guide us to Himself despite our rebellion. But we play our part in that process, in the journey that He takes us on. We must uncover those beliefs, habits, and desires that are of the world. We must strive for wisdom and discernment. We must strive for independence of mind.
That striving can be directed in three different directions. We can strive to understand God—who He is and what He wants. We can strive to understand our culture and the many beliefs that it has handed down to distinguish between the holy and unholy. And we can strive to understand ourselves and what motivates us so that we might repent and seek mercy.
God
If independence of mind is discerning the good from the bad, we must start with understanding God, the ultimate good. He has given us a foundation for understanding Him in the Bible, especially in the life and teaching of Jesus. Although we often learn about God through teaching and reading books, those sources are based on His revelation. Reading and studying the Bible, then, is a key way to obtain independence of mind.
But the Bible is very hard to read and understand. There is no book in all history that has been read as carefully as the Bible. But there is also no book in all history with more differing interpretations and modes of interpretation. As Christians, part of our cultural inheritance is the variety of doctrines and church traditions. We are dependent upon our church tradition and teaching. Now, traditions are indeed an important part of our understanding and can be very helpful, but no tradition is infallible. In all of our traditions, seeds of the world have been planted and have grown up. Therefore, part of our job of seeking God is to build skills to be excellent readers of the Bible who understand context and genre and can discern the strengths and weaknesses of our traditions. To read and interpret the Bible using the lens of our tradition is a common and understandable practice, but it does not allow us to critique our tradition. We straddle the tension of being dependent on our forebears and yet independent as well. This important tension is an inevitable part of life.
To become excellent readers requires practice and guidance, like any skill. One way to gain skill in the art of careful and close reading is to practice reading other difficult books for which we have no lens. Working with others in a book group or a discussion is also a great way to improve our reading since we get input from others on our thoughts. Whatever means we find, we should always remember to try to read God’s Word according to the intentions of the biblical authors so that we may better understand Him and His ways.
Culture
A second way to gain independence of mind is to explore and understand the culture we live in. Like water in the fish’s tank, culture is part of the background of our lives that we do not think about. It forms the tacit assumptions that frame our thoughts, actions, questions, and observations. To take our assumptions from tacit to articulate requires work.
One way to reveal our own assumptions is by comparison. Other cultures and subcultures differ from ours, and by obtaining an understanding of them, we can make a comparison. If we are willing to be self-reflective, we can find not only the glaring defects in other cultures (which is easy) but also those in our own (which is hard).
Another way to reveal our cultural assumptions is to examine where they came from. There is a long conversation about the big ideas of life: Who is God? What is man? How shall we live together? That “Great Conversation” is full of winding and crossing paths with ruts and dead ends. But those paths extend into our beliefs today, infiltrating our lives like polytheism did in ancient Israel. The Israelites believed in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but they also believed in the other gods. We, like them, make idols of things like economics, politics, and technology, which all have long and complex histories. By examining our past, we see our current ideas in context. We recognize that our cultural assumptions are one set among many. We can find the reasons why our culture turned here and doubled back there. We can discern better whether our beliefs that follow those of the past are going in the right or wrong direction.
Another tool is to look at the consistency of cultural perspectives. Consider some examples. Marxism promises freedom from economic oppression imposed by rich industrialists and has led to economic oppression imposed by the state. Many in our culture say that ethics are a matter of personal choice but also claim that denying personal choice is universally unethical. Perhaps closer to home, many see technologically driven economic growth as a path to better living but don’t connect technological development to elevated levels of anxiety, isolation, and drug use. Taking an honest and clear-eyed look at the consistency of our own culture can help us on the path to discerning the true and the false, to independence of mind.
The Self
The third way to strive for independence of mind is to examine ourselves. This is by far the most difficult of the three—not with regard to intellect but with regard to will. While the intellect is useful in understanding the Bible and our culture, it is our desires that impede our examination of ourselves.
Consider the great thinkers of the past who wrote the enduring works of Western civilization. They were brilliant men and women who penetrated into the ideas of their time and offered deep insights on the big questions of life. But for all of their insight, many of them pursued the false over the true because they did not want the path of faith. The path of faith requires humility, self-sacrifice, and reverence for God. By contrast, the path of the world, which has been trodden by many of the great thinkers, values grandeur and making a mark. They may have achieved some form of independence, but, to the extent it was independence from God, it was actually slavery to the world. We may be striving to understand the Bible and striving to understand our culture, but the last step of seeking independence from our sin is the hardest and most critical. We must desire to see our own failures and want to follow the right path. We must throw ourselves on the mercy of God to free us from the slavery of sin by looking inward in repentance. We must want to follow that path to the exclusion of all others.
Conclusion
Independence of mind is of great worth—as long as we are seeking to be independent of the false and the bad. It requires great effort over a lifetime. It is not for the weak willed, for we will encounter innumerable wrong turns, enticements, and persuasions. It takes skills to read, think, judge, and discuss. It takes courage to change our own minds and fortitude to not blindly follow the crowd.
Such a path may seem daunting, but there is good news. What marks the believer is not how far one gets on the path but rather that one follows it. Rooting out all of our false notions, bad habits, and misunderstandings is not possible. It takes the Spirit of God working in us to open our eyes and hearts, helping us to humbly reflect on our beliefs. God’s grace is not reserved for the intellectual or for those who have right doctrine. Just the opposite. It is for those who want and seek Him. To follow that path, we need help. We can encourage each other, work together in the quest, study the Bible together and explore our cultural history, and hold each other accountable in friendship.
My favorite saying of Søren Kierkegaard is “Hardship is the road.” Kierkegaard meant that hardships are not obstacles to overcome along the road to get to the destination. Instead, enduring hardships in faith is the essence of what it means to be a Christian. In the same way, our striving for independence is not for the sake of “arriving.” It is the road.
This article first appeared in the Spring 2024 issue of Colloquy, Gutenberg College’s free quarterly newsletter. Subscribe here.
