A philosopher friend who teaches critical thinking recently posted on Facebook asking if anyone could suggest an article on “confirmation bias” which focuses on recent events like COVID-19 and the race protests.
Confirmation bias is the well-confirmed (ha!) human tendency to pay more attention to facts and data which confirm our existing beliefs and give less attention to that which is contrary to our present beliefs (or to beliefs which appear more desirable or in our own favor). Thus it can be difficult for us to change false beliefs because we give undue weight to information which continues to support those falsehoods.
The Greek historian Thucydides wrote “… for it is a habit of mankind to entrust to careless hope what they long for, and to use sovereign reason to thrust aside what they do not fancy.” As I come to the conclusion of a series of sermons on hope, it only seems right to give some attention to the words of the prophet Jeremiah, who called out his own Jewish people for their careless hope and confirmation bias during the Babylonian exile.
Our text, Jeremiah 29:1-15, is the beginning of a letter the prophet sent from Jerusalem to some of those who had already been carried into exile in Babylon. Towards the end of the text is verse 11, often lifted out of context (in a way which is probably confirmation bias in itself) to embroider on wall hangings or post of Facebook to express the confident hope that God is in control and has great plans for our lives. But just before that well-loved “promise” come verses 8 and 9, which say,
For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Do not let the prophets and the diviners who are among you deceive you, and do not listen to the dreams that they dream, for it is a lie that they are prophesying to you in my name.
In Hebrew, “the dreams that they dream” is literally something like “your dreams that you cause to dream.” An attempt to translate that more accurately is the NIV’s, “do not listen to the dreams you encourage them to dream.” In other words, God is warning His people through Jeremiah not to listen to prophets who just tell them what they want to hear. Such “dreams” are false hope.
The particular concern of Jeremiah is that the exiles are in for a long haul. Those who received this letter, the first wave of captured and deported exiles, were looking at seventy years before any Jew would return from Babylon to Jerusalem. Almost all of them, in fact, would be dead. Thus prophecies of a swift end to the exile and a restoration of their fortunes back in their own country were all false. Instead, Jeremiah counsels them to settle down in Babylon, build houses, plant gardens, get married, and have children. They will be in that foreign place a long time. Don’t let anyone tell them different.
As I said last week, we as Christians need to understand our hope in God in that same “long haul” way. We need to listen to Jeremiah and be skeptical of “prophets” who tell us the things we want to hear, such as that there will a coronavirus vaccine soon or that racial injustice will be easily remedied (or even that it doesn’t actually exist). We have dreams, but they are not the dreams the loud voices of this world dream, and they are not even the dreams we might like them to dream. If we listen to those dreams, it is only a “careless hope.” Jeremiah and the whole story of God’s people in the Scriptures calls us to a better hope.