I was 13.
I remember that I was 13 because when I was 13, I was in 7th grade, and you weren’t allowed to go to the youth group’s New Year’s Eve lock-in until 7th grade. We milled about the choir room, our youth pastor standing in the corner while fiddling with a remote, attempting to get a countdown onto the projector. I sat next to my best friend Debbie in the position that all nervous middle schoolers do—hunched, arms between my knees, feet pigeon toed out, biting my lip and intermittently twirling my hair between my finger tips. I looked the part, for certain: flaired jeans, a graphic tee, Addidas tennis shoes I convinced my mom to buy, a bright colored scrunchie made to look like fake hair, blue eyeshadow, and an embarrassing amount of green cheek glitter.
So far the night was fun, full of friends and games and every attempt to make teenagers throw up*. Chaperones were volunteered to participate in Backstreet Boys dance recreations. At 8 pm we gorged ourselves on pizza and Mountain Dew. Some shyly looked at their crushes across the room. All of us put brave faces on and insisted that NO, we were NOT tired, we were going to stay up the whole night. I’m certain there was a piñata, somewhere, but I couldn’t tell you if we used it. Were there scooters? I’m pretty sure there were scooters.
For me, because I’ve always been an anxious person, the night was just a tiny bit…tainted.
That night was December 31st, 1999.
After being successfully immersed in Christian pop culture, I spent the last five years as an influence-able kid who was low key terrified the world was going to end at any minute. Most of that I can thank Tim Lahaye and Jerry B Jenkins for, with the publishing of the Left Behind series and and inevitable, endless follow up sermon series that made its entrance time and again. A circulating obsession with the book of Revelation seemed to follow me everywhere, though it was unwanted. Before that, I believe it was the Ozone hole. Before that, Columbine happened. Before that, I think there was something with El Niño. All of it ushered everyone quite nicely into the very real fear of Y2K—an overwhelming** terror that every digital medium we came to rely on would crash and leave us in the dark ages for who knows how long.
People wonder why Millennials turned into anxious, jaded alcoholics like we weren’t raised in constant fear of apocalypses.***As you can imagine, 2001 did not help that one bit.
To mine and everyone’s relief, the best thing possible happened—nothing. We welcomed in 2000 and expressed thanks to seeing such a historic thing. I played more throw up games and promptly passed out on my bed the next morning. What a night.
Despite the heavy content I was actually no worse for the wear. The benefit of being young allows time to grow out of things and the resiliency to do it. But it did affect the lense in which I saw things—and more accurately, people. I believed that time was desperately short and many around me were mistaken about important things. It was an odd bias, one that I didn’t really grow out of until late high school and didn’t even confront until college.
If you would believe it—My Bible professors were the reason.
I remember my first day of Old Testament survey vividly, and it’s because our professor started it by holding up the Holman Christian Standard Bible. “This,” he stated, matter of fact, “is the Holman Christian Standard Bible. I have asked you to purchase it for this class, because I helped to translate it and every time someone buys it, they give me money.”
Now this? This was a man who was not going to lie to me.
I know I give my old institution a fair amount of deserved criticism. One thing you need to know about it, though, is that there existed an unspoken and universal rule that the main Bible and church history professors were awarded a specific, fond respect. Their classes were coveted, and it wasn’t because of status or an inflated desire for sophistication.
One was notorious for running to every class, a coffee mug in one hand and briefcase in the other. He did not spill a drop, and sometimes raced students to the door. I remember him in particular because he was so kind to me when I was trying to figure out how to take a test and be at a D-now at the same time. Another wore a suit and tie every single day, and seemed like a stuffy scholar until he started talking about either Koine Greek or growing up in rural Texas. Another condemned someone to hell every class period.(PLEASE understand that this wasn’t an inconsideration of religious trauma but a cultural commentary on the church’s history of willy-nilly condemnation practices). One was 1000% a Calvinist who I loved to spar with regarding Luther, who even spent half a class period analyzing the spacing between a comma and another word in Ephesians. And, ok, one was notorious for putting people to sleep in his class.They were absolutely fallible and you will not find me putting them on a pedestal. But they were also beloved, because they were honest. There were times when we were not spared from the messy conversations. After being out of school for so long, I’m finding that other Christian universities didn’t do that.
You wouldn’t expect an unraveling of indoctrinations to happen in a traditionally Baptist religious studies class—and I can smell your skepticism. But even though it was incredibly surface level, there is not an amount of money I would trade for the day Dr M spent on Revelation, showing us all the ways Christian Pop Culture had taken liberties and preyed upon our fears, filling in a few context holes and pointing out things we weren’t even really certain about.
You would think I would have no bias now, but in truth it simply changed. Instead of being certain that our time is short and everyone is mistaken, I’m simply resentful of anyone who tries to convince me the world is ending. I have to take it in stride and reckon appropriately when there are very real, scientific concerns about things like global warming. Just because I’m resentful doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.
Bias, as it turns out, is like a butthole. Everyone has one.
Or rather, bias is like BO. Everyone is mostly concerned with everyone else’s when the real problem may be their own.
It wasn’t the end-of-worlds belief that was the bias—it was the way it shaped my interactions. People didn’t know what I knew, they were obviously ignorant, and I had to save them.
Most of my degree revolved around detecting bias, taught by someone who was pretty good at it (except that he would get triggered if someone just said the word “postmodernism.”) It was always an interesting process because I would spend the majority of it picking apart letters, writings, official statements, first and second hand accounts, rememberings, legends, all of it—asking critical questions like “why would they, specifically, think this way?” and “why would they do that thing this way instead of the way I’m used to?” and “who benefits from this point of view?”I would then gather all of this objective information up and present…not an objective argument. Because no arguments are objective. Objective arguments do not exactly exist the way that we think they do. Facts exist, objectively. Some things are objectively true. But objective arguers do not exist. Confronting that on a personal level was what made a good paper.
When I see accusations of bias, I start with skepticism, because most of the time it isn’t that the material was incredibly biased, it was more that “this information upset me but I want to sound intellectual about it.” Or, sometimes, it’s “this does not follow my bias, therefore it is biased.” When someone points out propaganda it’s generally by those thinking of the Nazi variety, forgetting that Dr Suess and Walt Disney also produced their fair share— and I don’t mean metaphorically, I mean they were literally hired to make actual war propaganda. Most of the danger of bias comes from those under the illusion that they don’t have it.
You can find that in CNN and Fox News, as it turns out. Bloomberg and Breitbart. The New York Times, and The New York Post. Don’t even send me something from The Blaze, I won’t read it.
I think it’s good that we are becoming more educated about bias. It remains an important component of all kinds of literacy. But it’s only one tool in the toolbox. We do our critical thinking a disservice if we examine everyone else’s and forget about our own. So next time, before getting upset about something we read, let’s take a beat. Ask ourselves why. Consider context we are unfamiliar with.
And maybe put on some deodorant while we are at it.
Footnotes:
*They teach you that in 90’s youth pastor school. Games are only fun if someone throws up.
** Or overrated, depending on who you talk to
*** you should know my parents tried to combat our fears with common sense and boy, did they have their work cut out for them.
