The ‘Spectacles’ of Scripture

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A couple of years ago I had an interesting back-to-back Sunday experience as a pastor.

The first Sunday, after preaching during our morning service, I received an email from someone who had been in attendance. A guest who had been visiting for a few weeks, the person wrote, “I’ve been visiting the church you serve for the last couple of weeks, and I’ve been enjoying it. The worship is good. The community is friendly. That said, after what you said during your sermon this past week, I will not be coming back.” They then went on to cite some of the comments I had made and how “liberal” they were, clearly indicating that I was a Democrat who “had voted for Joe Biden,” who, at the time, was serving as president of the United States.

The next Sunday, after again preaching during our morning service, I received another email, this time from an extended family member of one of our members. The person wrote, “I was at the church you serve this past Sunday, and I’ve attended a couple of times in the past too. That said, after what you said during your sermon this past week, I will not be coming back.” The person then went on to cite some of the comments I had made and how “conservative” they were, clearly indicating that I was a Republican who “supported Donald Trump,” who, at the time, was on the cusp of announcing his candidacy for president again in the 2024 U.S. election.

So, which one is it? Am I a liberal Democrat who votes for and supports candidates like Joe Biden, or am I a conservative Republican who votes for and supports candidates like Donald Trump? Because apparently, in back-to-back Sunday sermons, I left the authors of those two emails with the exact opposite impression.

Will the Real Brandon Haan Please Stand Up?

Well, the answer, very simply, is that I’m neither.

First, as I’ve written in previous articles for The Banner, I’m one of those “politically homeless” people in the U.S. these days who is so disillusioned with both major U.S. parties (for biblical reasons) that I choose to support and vote for candidates from neither. And so, contrary to what those two emailers assumed, I did not, nor do I currently support either Joe Biden (or Kamala Harris) or Donald Trump, nor did I vote for them.

Yet those two emailers were convinced I had. They were so convinced that both of them told me they would never come back to our church.

How? How did they make that determination? How did they decide that? And how did they, on the basis of that, come to the conclusion that they could no longer attend our church or, more specifically, listen to my preaching as a pastor?

Well, I could be wrong (it’s happened a time or two), but, given what those people wrote in their emails and the respective comments they cited from my sermons and then what they said they believed I meant by those comments, it was clear to me that neither of them had actually heard what I was trying to communicate when I preached those sermons.

Instead, those two emailers read my comments through their preferred political lens, and then, once they had done that, identified me as either an ally or an opponent of “their side” and attached what they believed to be the corresponding political label.

In other words, I don’t think my comments in those sermons were necessarily liberal or conservative in and of themselves. Instead, I think that those two people were liberal or conservative, and since those were the dominant lenses they heard my sermons through, they came to the conclusion that I, as a pastor, must be either liberal or conservative too.

This unfortunately happens way too often in our culture these days.

The Lenses We Look Through

After all, we see that all the time, right? People use those labels, those lenses to organize, categorize, and scrutinize others.

We say things like, “That person’s liberal,” “that organization’s conservative,” “he’s a Democrat,” “she’s a Republican,” “that’s right-wing,” “that’s left-wing,” and so forth.

Put simply, those labels, those lenses have become one of the dominate ways we sort and sift ourselves and others these days, using them to determine who and what we agree with, who and what we like, and, sometimes, even who and what we choose to interact with and be in relationship with at all.

Yet as Christians, that’s not what we’re called to do. As Christians, those aren’t the primary lenses we look at things through. And, as Christians, that’s not how we make sense of the world and interpret it. At least, it shouldn’t be.

Instead, as Christians, we use a different lens, a better lens. As Christians, we use the lens of the Bible, the lens of Scripture, and the lens of God’s word to make sense of the world, determine what we believe, and decide right and wrong.

The ‘Spectacles’ of Scripture

Reformed theologian John Calvin writes about exactly that in his most famous work, The Institutes of the Christian Religion.

Memorably referring to Scripture as the “spectacles” (or “eyeglasses,” to put it in today’s terms) that help us make sense of everything else, Calvin says that, in a fallen world where complexity often becomes confusion, and the lines between right and wrong often become blurred, Scripture, at least for Christians, has a way of bringing things back into focus (The Institutes of the Christian Religion, I.vi.1 and I.xiv.1).

Think of a phoropter. You know, that machine that optometrists use to determine people’s prescription? It’s got all those lenses that click in and out of place until finally things become clear, right? According to Calvin, that’s how Scripture works. It sheds light on what we’re looking at, brings things back into focus, and functions as the ultimate lens that makes things clear, or, at least, clearer.

Not “liberal.” Not “conservative.” Not any other lens either. Scripture. That’s the lens, Calvin said, the “spectacles” that bring things back into focus and make sense of them for us as Christians.

Not Using Our Spectacles

What’s disappointing for me as a pastor, though, and even more than that, just as a regular Christian, is the way that so many Christians don’t seem to do that, don’t seem to use Scripture that way, and don’t seem to interpret what they see through it.

For instance, just to use the recent debates over immigration in the United States as an example, I’ve heard many Christians offer many different opinions and comments on what they’ve seen going on in the United States recently. And yet, I’ve heard very little Scripture in those debates. I’ve heard very little from the Bible. And I’ve heard very few people engage in those debates through the lens of God’s word, using the Bible as the sort of “spectacles” or “eyeglasses” that Calvin says it should be for us.

And that’s frustrating. It’s frustrating for many reasons, but, specific to the issue of immigration, it’s frustrating because Scripture actually has a lot to say about immigration. It has a lot to say about foreigners. And it has a lot to say about how we, as Christians, ought to think about and treat them as well.

Putting Our Spectacles Back On

And so, what should we do? What lens should we use? How should we make sense of and approach the world? Through a “liberal” one? A “conservative” one? Is that how we, as Christians, look at and understand the world?

No. Very simply, I think we should use the lens of the Bible. I think we should read it. I think we should know what it says. And then I think we should take what it says and apply it to our thoughts, our opinions, and our lives, regardless of whether that’s simple or easy or lines up well with our preconceived political ideas and preferred political lenses.

After all, immigration might be the current political flashpoint and controversy in the news at the moment. Other issues and controversies have held that position in the past. And there will be others still to come too. As Christians, how will we understand them? What lens will we look at them through? How will we think about and approach them?

Through Scripture. That’s how. By meditating on God’s word. By spending time in the Bible. As Christians, that’s how we think about and make sense of the world. That’s the lens we look through. And that’s how we bring things back into focus and understand what we see and hear and experience around us.

We do it through the lens, the “spectacles” of Scripture.