The “Pick-a-Bible” mentality

Many people say we are living in a post-truth society. I am not sure I even understand exactly what that means. According to Dictionary.com, “post-truth” is an adjective meaning, “relating to or existing in an environment in which facts are viewed as irrelevant, or less important than personal beliefs and opinions, and emotional appeals are used to influence public opinion.” This definition is applicable to what we see – one’s personal beliefs and feelings supplant absolute truth. Truth is not transcendent, but rather related to and defined by the culture.

How unlike post-truth culture Christians should be! How like post-truth culture contemporary Christians are! The modern “Pick-a-Bible” mentality fits well into this mindset and structure. I recently listened to a guy named Matt Baker on a YouTube channel called UsefulCharts. He said:

Anyone doing serious Bible should never rely on just one translation. It is always best to compare several different versions.[i]

Such statements can be multiplied many times over – many of them made by much more well known Christian teachers. This quote simply happened to be the most recent in my hearing. This reminds me of the adage that someone with two watches never knows what time it is.[ii] The adage refers to the problem of having too much conflicting information. This saying has been loaded in all sorts of spin cycles, with the resulting “wisdom” based on what setting is used by the one loading for spin. Yes, it is possible that the one watch you have is not correct. Nevertheless, it is very true that the more watches you wear the less certainty you have about what time it is, when they send conflicting information.

Interestingly, there is a “Coordinated Universal Time” (or UTC).[iii] UTC is a closely synchronized (coordinated) time standard by which the world regulates clocks and time. Government clocks and personal wristwatches all find a standard in UTC. There is objective truth. It may be “5 o’clock somewhere” but people do not get to govern what time it is by saying what time they feel it is in their hearts! Somehow, we have ditched such a standard in theology, and there is no standard in Christianity. Every man does that which is right in his own eyes.

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[i] I know nothing of Matt Baker, but was reviewing some Bible history which he was presenting. In his talk, he said he uses the NRSV New Testament because “it’s very ecumenical and the one that most academics use.” I am suspect of the NRSV being “the one that most academics use” but his statement is certainly liberal leaning.
[ii] In this form – “A man with one watch knows what time it is. A man with two watches is never sure” – it is often known as Segal’s Law. Someone wrongly credited the saying to Lee Segall of Dallas, Texas, and it was later thus attributed in print with a misspelling, Segal’s (sic) Law. It seems to have actually originated in the San Diego (California) Union newspaper, September 20, 1930 in this way: “Confusion.—Retail jewelers assert that every man should carry two watches. But a man with one watch knows what time it is, and a man with two watches could never be sure.” It can be seem widely quoted in other newspapers after this, with credit to the San Diego – which seems to support this as the earliest source.
[iii] Some of us in older generations knew UTC as Greenwich Mean Time, but that is no longer the terminology used.