The Progressive Paradox: Fleeing Spain For Gaza

Sometimes a story seems almost designed to raise questions about how people form their political and cultural beliefs.

A gay couple in Spain recently attracted attention after saying that if the conservative Vox party came to power, they would leave Spain and seek asylum in Gaza. One reportedly said he would go "immediately," while describing Palestine as progressive place to live.

The obvious question is whether they understand the society they are proposing to move to.

Spain has extensive legal protections for LGBT people and has recognized same-sex marriage for more than two decades. Gaza is culturally and religiously very different. Homosexual conduct between men remains prohibited under a British Mandate-era penal provision still applicable in Gaza.  Several stories of homosexual individuals being put to death in Gaza have come out over the years and Palestinian Islamic society remains highly critical of homosexuality.  Do they really think they could march in a pride parade in Gaza City? 

The contradiction makes for an attention-grabbing story, but the more interesting issue extends far beyond these two men.

We live in an age when almost unlimited information is available within seconds, yet people can develop extraordinary confidence about causes, political systems and even religious doctrines they have never seriously studied.

The Gaza controversy provides one example.

Western demonstrations have included LGBT activists, feminist groups and progressive organizations whose social values differ substantially from those prevailing in Palestinian society. Yet those differences often receive surprisingly little attention.

This doesn't necessarily mean protesters are unaware of every contradiction. Political movements frequently bring together people who disagree on other issues. But it raises a legitimate question about how much the average person carrying a sign or repeating a slogan actually knows about the history, religion, political factions and culture involved.

Social media makes acquiring an opinion remarkably easy. A complicated conflict involving competing national movements, wars, terrorism, religion, disputed territory and more than a century of history can be compressed into a handful of slogans.

The danger is that the conclusion arrives before the education.

Once that happens, researching contradictory information can feel less like learning and more like betraying your side.

The same problem can appear in attitudes toward socialism, particularly when the word itself means dramatically different things to different people.

For some younger Americans, "socialism" may primarily evoke affordable healthcare, reduced inequality, stronger social programs or making wealthy people pay more taxes. Yet those policies do not necessarily constitute socialism in its historical economic meaning.

Any serious examination of socialism requires studying not merely its promises but its record, including the Soviet Union, Maoist China, Cuba, Eastern Europe and other experiments conducted under socialist or communist systems.

That doesn't tell someone what economic policies they must support. It does suggest they should understand what they are supporting.

There is a profound difference between saying, "This sounds fair," and asking, "What happened when societies actually attempted this?"

Christians aren't exempt from the same problem.

Countless people have strong opinions about Christianity without seriously studying the Bible. More troubling is that churches themselves can demonstrate the same intellectual shortcut.

A pastor can stand behind a pulpit, use Christian terminology, quote selected verses and speak repeatedly about Jesus while promoting doctrines that appear to directly contradict other clear biblical teachings.

Contemporary churches are debating sexuality, gender, marriage, salvation, biblical authority and doctrines Christians considered foundational for centuries. The word "Christian" attached to an idea does not automatically make that idea biblical any more than attaching "socialist," "progressive" or "conservative" to something tells us everything necessary to evaluate it.

Interestingly, Scripture itself warns Christians against outsourcing this responsibility.

Acts 17 praises the Bereans because they examined the Scriptures to determine whether what they were being taught was true. Paul later warned that people would gather teachers who would tell them what they wanted to hear rather than enduring sound doctrine.

The standard wasn't the popularity of the teacher.

It was whether the teaching was true.

There is a common thread running through all three examples.

The activist trusts the movement. The young socialist trusts an appealing description of an economic system. The churchgoer trusts the pastor.

In each case, the temptation is to allow someone else to perform the difficult work of determining what is true.

Perhaps that is the most interesting lesson from the strange story of two gay men contemplating Gaza as an escape from conservative Spain.

Human beings have never possessed easier access to history, Scripture, economic data, government records and competing viewpoints. The device in our pocket can access more information than the greatest libraries available to previous generations.

Yet access to information does not guarantee understanding.

Knowledge still requires curiosity. Understanding requires investigation. Discernment requires being willing to discover that something we desperately want to believe may not actually be true.

In an age overflowing with information, ignorance is increasingly becoming a choice.