Several times
recently I have seen the phrase “unethical amnesia.” I discovered that this
refers to our human tendency to forget our own moral lapses and bad behavior, crowding them out
of our minds with thoughts of what we do right.
Organizational
psychologists, of Northwestern University and Harvard Business School,
respectively, found through some rigorous social science testing that recalling
our own bad behavior, (sins in biblical language) causes “psychological discomfort.” As a result people have
blurred memories of the bad things they’ve done and much clearer memories of
the good things they have done.
This reminds me of
the biblical challenge, “Do not deceive yourselves” (1 Corinthians 3:18). Paul
and other writers of scripture didn’t need modern social science research to
know that the human heart has a real tendency to shade the truth to make us look
better than we really are…even to ourselves.
One
quality of the pure heart the Bible so often calls us to have is that it is
eager to be completely honest about what is really in there. One does not have
to have lived flawlessly to have a pure heart. We just have to want to be
truthful about what we have done and what we still struggle with, all with a desire to grow and change so we do God's will more fully.
And
it is right here that we find a great promise: “But
if we walk in the light [letting our true selves be seen and known], as he is
in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his
Son, purifies us from all sin.” The next verse reminds us, “If we claim to be
without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. (1 John 1:7-8).
Outside
of Christ, our conscious and subconscious mind may tell us we have no choice
but to cover our faults to even us help us accept ourselves, but in Christ we
find the freedom to be real and the grace to be purified and transformed.
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Footnote to my article on guns: Yet another child killed herself with a handgun yesterday in Louisiana.
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