There’s a political scientist at Dartmouth who, along with a colleague from Georgia State University, is examining the results of political pollsters who say that since 2006 the political landscape of America has flipped.
Six years ago, with a Republican president in the White House, three-fourths of Democrats believed that President Bush could do something about high gas prices, while the vast majority of Republicans said, “No, he can’t.” Today it’s the exact reverse, with three-fourths of Republicans saying President Obama could do something to bring gas prices down and two-thirds of Democrats saying he can’t.
This same “flip” is seen on nearly every issue. In 2004 most Democrats felt that Bush was politicizing September 11, 2001. Today a vast majority of Republicans think Obama is politicizing the killing of Osama bin Laden. “The whole political landscape has flipped,” says Brendan Nyhan of Dartmouth.
What these researchers are examining as a reason for the “flip” is a concept popularized by French sociologist Emile Durkheim in the late 19th century. Durkheim called it “cognitive dissonance.” It is the experience of holding in one’s head several inconsistent ideas at the same time. Nyhan says, “When Democrats hear the argument that the president can do something about high gas prices, that produces dissonance because it clashes with the loyalties they feel to Obama. The same thing happens with Republicans when they hear that Obama can’t be held responsible for high gas prices.” In other words, in both cases the information challenges their feelings about the president.
The researchers hypothesize that partisans reject such information not because they reject the facts, but because it’s painful. Therefore, they say that a possible solution is: if people were made to feel better about themselves it could help them more easily absorb the impact of the information that threatens their pre-existing view. Indeed, much of their current research tends to support that very idea.
Now all of this relates in a direct way to the subject before the house this Sunday. In Matthew 15, Jesus encounters a foreign woman who’s desperate to have her daughter delivered of demon oppression. She feels deeply about it. However, in this encounter she comes face to face with the power of facts, and rather than rejecting them, she embraces them.
Throughout my ministry I have been continually amazed at the power that feelings have over what we think, how we act, and what we believe. When Augustine utters his famous line that I quoted last week: “If you believe what you like in the Gospel and reject what you don’t like, it’s not the Gospel you believe, but yourself,” he’s largely speaking of one’s feelings. It’s not the facts that get in our way, it’s our feelings. So we will begin at that point this Sunday and attempt to see how, for every transformed life, the power of our old personal feelings begin to recede and new desires are created in a heart by the Holy Spirit. Indeed, it is these new desires that Jesus meets.
In preparation for Sunday, you may wish to consider the following:
1. What is known about the region of Tyre and Sidon at the time of Christ?
2. What is the backdrop for Jesus traveling there?
3. How did the Greeks define hypocrisy? How does Jesus define it?
4. What does Jesus find in this woman that’s different from the Scribes and Pharisees and illustrates His definition of hypocrisy?
5. What is this woman looking for when she comes to Jesus?
6. What would the laws of Israel require Jesus to do with her?
7. There are two Greek words for dog – which one does Jesus use? Any significance?
8. Where does her response in verse 27 emanate from?
9. On what basis does Jesus proclaim the greatness of her faith?
10. Why is the NIV translation of Jesus’ words in verse 28 so weak? What does it mean when He says to her, “Be it done for you as you desire”?
See you on Mother’s Day as we look at The Courage to Come to Christ.
