“He is convicted.”
No, that’s not a reference to someone found guilty of a crime. Rather, it’s a statement I’ve often heard about a Gospel preacher or a believer giving testimony. It’s what a church pastor wants to hear when he listens to a prospective member giving his testimony on “how he came to Christ,” happy ending, living happily ever, etc., etc.
Like anything else, such as a television commercial or a political speech, it’s meaningless. It’s a lot of style and little substance.
Externals exist to bury the truth
First, his seeming conviction doesn’t make anything he says true. So what if he seems convicted? We often run into seemingly convicted people who either lie, are ignorant, or overlook other possible explanations.
Facial expressions, mannerisms, and vocal tone are not reliable indicators of truth. Just because the speaker never starred in a movie doesn’t mean he’s not a good actor, especially in certain contexts. Manipulators often package what they say with how they say it and the visage they apply.
The ‘convicted’ contradict each other
Second, many speakers highly skilled in the art of persuasion seem convicted. This becomes highly problematic when they contradict each other.
This not only falls within the realm of religion. Think of seemingly convicted politicians. They seem convicted even though their convictions contradict the convictions of others.
In the same way, Christian preachers often contradict each other. You would be hard-pressed to find two seemingly convicted preachers agreeing on everything even if they both belong to the same denomination. A plethora of convicted preachers across the broad spectrum of Christian messaging may argue for the existence of an objective, God-given reality. Yet, their convictions still contradict those who maintain the same.
Objective truth cannot contradict itself. When two Christian leaders with a vast number of minions contradict each other, either one is right or both are wrong. But they can’t both be right.
We willfully ignore contradictions
Unfortunately, we don’t find this problematic for the most part because we’ve grown accustomed to seemingly convicted speakers contradicting each other in more than one realm of society. In fact, for the most part, we rarely intend to pursue truth because we gave up learning objective reality a long time ago.
Instead, many times we may observe a discussion between two people having already decided which one is right. And even still, throughout this discussion our resentment grows against the one we expect to find disagreeable, especially if he easily overturns our convictions despite our denial.
Sleep on it
In the case where we would sincerely observe a discussion with an open mind to both sides, we unfortunately are easily convinced that we’ll come away with a decision by the end. We’re compelled to feel that way. But we don’t have to decide now whether we agree. It’s fine to sleep on it.
Even then, we don’t have to choose. We may remain undecided forever. I’ll wait for a good argument that indecisiveness is a real problem. Decisiveness is a false virtue. It’s choosing wrong even when we know we’ll be proven wrong.
“But hey, at least I decided. That’s a demonstration of my courage, and character.”
Do As I Do
But in the end, what people do instead of say should always take precedence. It’s not so difficult for the wrongdoer to be convinced he’s right. When that comes easy, he won’t even know he’s lying.