“Correlation does not imply causation.” (cum hoc ergo propter hoc)
“We didn’t start the fire – It was always burning
Since the world’s been turning
We didn’t start the fire – No we didn’t light it
But we tried to fight it” (Billy Joel – We Didn’t Start The Fire)
“Ryan started the fire!” (Dwight Schrute)
In the 1970s and ’80s, the fundamentalist conservative Christian church blamed many obscure things for the downfall and decay of American society: Rock-n-Roll, jeans, Ozzy Osbourne lyrics, drums in the auditorium, lipstick, mixed bathing, NIV Bible, high school dances, etc. etc. etc. Fire and brimstone preachers would stand up on their pulpits with red faces and clenched fist calling for people to repent, and to “fight the good fight” against these shameful tools of the devil. People would run to the altar in abject fear because they once wore a pair of Levi’s to church. Youth Pastors would have community bonfires of Ozzy, Metallica, Kiss, Queen, Boston, The Bee Gees, and even poor old Elton John, in an effort to cast those Satanic lyrics and tribal beats down to the pits of hell.
It was an all-out culture war, us against them, fundamentalism versus secular vice. God vs the Devil.
Forty years later we have come to find out that those issues we once would have died for, had little if no effect on the moral decay of people. Sure Rock-n-Roll may have contributed a little to promote drunken parties and sexual promiscuity, but it wasn’t the “direct cause.” If you don’t believe me, those same people who would yell at their kids for listening to that demon music now have no problem listening to it as it plays across the loudspeakers in the nearby Walmart or neighborhood grocery store they shop at. No one is doing hardcore drugs in aisle 3 because Rock-n-Roll music is playing. In fact, people will just keep buying their April Fresh Downy while “T.N.T” by AC/DC is jamming softly in the background.
Even Ozzy Osbourne is now considered harmless. That crazed wild-man, who bit off the heads of bats, can barely even mumble five coherent words. He now has to be led by his wife everywhere he goes. No longer the demon king who once use to raise a bloody fist to God; sadly, Ozzy is probably now a candidate for “Depends Adult Diapers”.
And jeans, those dangerous dungarees of rebellion, are now acceptable business attire for almost every company in Grand Rapids. I can even preach in them to the delight of many in my congregation.
Those poor blow-hard preachers of the past have lost their platforms because what they use to rail against was never the real problem. Now, years later, those who still try to live by those convictions are seen as antiquated and out of date relics of the past. They have no voice, they just bemoan how no one cares about those issues anymore as they preach to a blue-haired, relatively empty audience, “Rock-and-Roll is of the devil…hey, is anyone out there? Oh, it’s just you Ozzy, turn your hearing aid up and put that bat down. I heard they don’t offer much protein. But then again, they are gluten-free.”
QUESTIONABLE CAUSE
The problem with the old red-faced preacher is that he fell prey to the logical fallacy of “Questionable Cause.” This means that while two events or variables may seem to have a correlation, it does not imply that one causes the other. Rock-and-Roll in the ’70s seemed to be prevalent at most drug parties, and was the main event at the wild concerts that got out of hand, but it was not the main cause of the drug use or the lawlessness.
If you place blame on something falsely as the cause when it is only a correlation; you will never end up finding the real solution. And not only that, when the real solution is found, it will almost be impossible for people to accept it because they are so blinded by their false convictions of questionable cause.
It is now laughable that people assign the Devil to a heavy drumbeat and screaming guitar. As the old Larry Norman song says, “Why does the devil have all the good music?” Over time Christians have for the most part unanimously agreed that he doesn’t. God can rock it out too! You should see my Nephew Luke’s screamo band if you don’t believe it!
BE CAREFUL WHO YOU BLAME
America is broken, bloody and throwing blame around like a bad cold. After the wake of two dead African Americans, and 5 Dallas police officers, our country is in chaos. We all want to assign blame. Point the finger, howl at injustice. So, who is the main culprit of the murder and mayhem? They are, no they are, no they are…who are they?
Option 1: The White race is to blame! With their inability to understand the Black culture and the prejudices they daily face, the white race has been shamelessly driving our country down the path of hatred and injustice. The White race with their micro-aggressions, their position of privilege, their absconded wealth bought on the back of slaves: They are to blame! Right? Is Jesse Williams right when he says, “this invention called whiteness uses and abuses us, burying black people out of sight and out of mind while extracting our culture, our dollars, our entertainment like oil – black gold, ghettoizing and demeaning our creations then stealing them, gentrifying our genius and then trying us on like costumes before discarding our bodies like rinds of strange fruit.”
Is it the White race? Or is this accusation buying into the fallacy of “Questionable Cause”?
Option 2: It is the Black race that is the problem, especially with their inability to control their own. The Black race with a lack of fathers, high rates of out of wedlock births, and 93% of their group who monolithically votes for the very people who use and abuse them…they are to blame. Is the All Lives Matter people right when they say the Black Lives Matter group only wants special favors?
Is it the Black race? Or is this accusation buying into the fallacy of “Questionable Cause” too?
Option 3: It is the Blue system of authoritarian injustice and institutional abuse that is illustrated in every tyrannical police force across our country. Systemic abuse of leadership has been an ongoing power grab. And it primarily is the black race that the police are out to get. People of every race say the police are out to get us all. Who hasn’t felt like they have been unjustly pulled over? Who here wants to yell at the Secretary of State and wonder why everything from a license plate to a park permit costs an arm and a leg? The system itself is playing us, right?
Or is the Blue system being falsely accused too?
BIBLICAL BLAME
The answer is YES and NO.
YES, we all are to blame! Each color, white, black and blue, is full of people who are full of themselves and cause division and strife across the lines. There are whites who hate and hate extremely, there are blacks that know how to use the system and then act like they are targeted when they may not be, and there are blues that wrongly take justice into their own hands.
Yes, each and every person on the face of the earth has contributed to the anger, prejudice and hatred. No one is exempt. Even the nice compassionate white person who joins the picket lines with the black person, (he probably has never met, but stands arm in arm with the black man just so he won’t feel guilty for the violence), is a contributor to the divisions too. The truth is, we all falsely label and point fingers at others first.
No, you can’t just blame one group. You can’t assign causation just because you see correlation. When you do, it starts to paint a wrong and deadly narrative that will not help the problem at all. Remember an earlier quote on this idea…
If you place blame on something falsely as the cause when it is only a correlation; you will never end up finding the real solution. And not only that, when the real solution is found, it will almost be impossible for people to accept it because they are so blinded by their false convictions of questionable cause.
Color is not the cause, but if you make it the cause it will be virtually impossible for you to see a color any other way…
– If you blame whites and then a white person is the one who is trying to help, you will instantly judge motives and refuse the offer of peace. This does not help. It only escalates.
– If you blame blacks and then a black person is the one who is in authority or a position of power, you will assume special favor and reverse injustice. This does not help. It only irritates.
– If you blame blues and then a police officer is merely responding to a 911 call, you will see his action of entering the house as hostile and overbearing. This does not help. It only frustrates.
You see, assigning causation to mere correlation pours more gasoline on the fire that already rages. As Billy Joel said, “We didn’t start the fire, it was always burning since the worlds been turning.” He is right. So then, what is the cause?
You, and your dark heart. Sin is the problem. It causes us to divide, blame and fight. It causes me to think of myself better than I am. It ruined the world. Sin places labels on a person or thing in a simplistic stupid way in order to judge. Take me for instance, I am not white. I have a darker complexion of soft tan. My family tree includes Irish, German, Italian, Polish, Native American, and African American. I am not simply a white man. But people want me to be only that.
“But you are privileged!” You don’t know that. You don’t know what I daily deal with. You don’t know what I think about others. You don’t know what I struggle with. You don’t know me until you start to listen. And very few people have done that with me because most only want to talk. It is the same for the black man, Asian women, Hispanic housewife, Korean student, and bald police officer. People are not simply a group – they are wonders made in the image of God!
In fact, white people don’t monolithically speak for me, why do we assume all Black leaders monolithically speak for all blacks? They don’t. So let us very careful how we assign blame. Correlation is not always Cause… in fact it rarely is.
When I first started working as a pastor, I had a dad come up to me and tell me about how he raises his sons. He wanted me to teach the rest of the teenagers in church the same way he taught his boys. That is how we would change the culture of the church. Here was his advice, “Pastor, you need to tell those students to start dressing up for God when they come to church. They need dress pants, a tie, and polished shoes instead of those jeans and sneakers. We are coming before the Holy God, and we need to be respectful like my sons are. Look how nice they look.”
The only problem was, his boys were hellions. They were the worst kids in the youth group. Dressing up for church is not the answer to life change, somehow he wrongly thought it was. In the same way, fixing this world isn’t overpowering and isolating different colors of people. It isn’t getting mad and pointing fingers. It isn’t assuming wrong motives because my skin looks different than yours. The solution is only found in radically transforming individual’s hearts.
The way to do this is by destroying Sin and its effects. Sin is the cause, it started the fire. And Jesus Christ is the only one who can fix us.
