Flip flopper! has almost become a swear word in the modern political arena. If you’re hoping to become a senator or governor or president, it’s best that your mind was entirely made up by age 30 on questions related to life, love, finances, religion, international relations, sociology, and any other issues that have come along in recent years. If your opponent can point to evidence that you have changed your mind, your public record becomes a liability.
Would you dare admit that you now think differently about poverty, war, bioethics, or Third World debt than when you made public comments a decade ago? Your change of heart will be featured in multi-million dollar ads that paint you as a frail and vacillating human being, unfit to be trusted with public office.
This is an astonishing weakness in our electoral process. The plain truth is that healthy minds do change, and to insist that our leaders become fossilized forever around certain positions, just to maintain the façade of intellectual strength, is downright dangerous.
Changing our minds is one of the greatest gifts we can give to those around us. As we get new information and new insights, and as we humbly recognize that we might have been somewhat wrong about certain things (or a great many things), we are gradually delivered from the scourge of Terminal Certainty about every subject in the world.
It’s been fascinating to see some of my conservative friends become more liberal as they get old, and my liberal friends become more conservative. As I chat with them about these shifts, they don’t strike me as flip-floppers. They are maturing as they’ve had a chance to process things. If they presented themselves as candidates for leadership, I would want them to be able to say, with courageous honesty, “I’m still thinking long and hard about that.”
Experience is a great mind-changer. Most of us understand our parents differently when we ourselves become moms or dads. Travel opens up new avenues of understanding, as does reading and reflecting on the words of others. And it’s impossible to overstate the effect of a crisis — whether a self-inflicted event or something that happens to us — on the state of our thinking.
As a young pastor I foolishly believed that the kingdom of God was one day away from collapse if I didn’t work as hard as I possibly could. I attended as many meetings, made as many phone calls, and knocked on as many doors as I could — sadly ignoring the precious people in my own home who were counting on me. That pace of life nearly cost me my marriage and my ministry. I thank God that he gave me the chance to change my mind about those choices before it was too late.
While time and experience are effective mind-shifters, followers of Jesus know they are blessed with the ultimate asset for mental renewal: the indwelling Holy Spirit. The apostle Paul wrote, in Romans 12:2, Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. True spirituality should feature an ongoing, inside-out pattern of positive change.
There are two English words with “form” in Paul’s sentence. The word conform translates the Greek root schema. That refers to the external appearance of something. Think of a schematic of a building project. Humanly speaking, my schema includes my haircut (including how much hair I might have remaining), the clothes I am wearing, and my physical features. Entire industries are dedicated to helping people change this aspect of their form.
Paul says, “Don’t waste your efforts there. Don’t be a chameleon, continually changing to fit your environment.” Politically speaking, this would translate to, “Don’t change your platform depending on which audience you are addressing.” No one is fooled by such an expedient “change of mind.”
The word transform, however, is altogether different. It translates the Greek verb metamorphiso, which speaks about a change of one’s essential nature. Under the influence of the Holy Spirit, healthy minds should regularly experience metamorphosis. We should continually be moving from having to be right about everything to expressing love instead. We should be growing in gentleness, instead of acting like the guy who just trounced his two opponents in Jeopardy. By God’s grace, a mind that is being renewed will see the world more and more through the lens of maturity and compassion.
And that’s something about which our minds should be made up: That would indeed be a very good thing.
Glenn McDonald is pastor of Zionsville Church in Zionsville, Ind.
