Humans often conflate ideology with truth, or relate to them interchangeably, but they are two very different things. Ideology mimics truth in that it can look and sound a lot like truth because it can in fact contain true things, but ultimately it falls short of fundamentally transformative saving truth, as found in Jesus and His word. It is in essence what “having a form godliness but denying the power thereof” looks like. The line between truth and ideology can also be so fine that to reject ideology makes it seem like you’re rejecting truth, that’s how similar they may appear on the surface.

I believe humans are drawn to ideology more than they are to truth and real wisdom because ideology is much easier on the ears and on the ego, and more readily accepted by the masses, whereas truth can be inconvenient, seemingly counterintuitive, and usually always ego busting.

Ideology can give us a sense of goodness and self-righteousness because it may lead to good outward behavior or saying all the right things, but embracing it as truth doesn’t transform or free us the way only real truth can.

Here are just a few of the other fundamental flaws with ideology:

Ideology does not require repentance from sin

Ideology does not require self-denial

Ideology does not require commitment

Ideology does not require humility

Ideology does not cleanse or renew the heart

Ideology temporarily "fixes" symptoms, not causes

Ideology isn’t principled

Ideology changes as needed

Ideology is works based

Ideology boosts human ego

Ideology places trust in man rather than God

Ultimately, ideology does not heal and does not save

You desire truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part you will make me to know wisdom…Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me…You desire not sacrifice; otherwise I give it: you delight not in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, you wilt not despise. Psalm 51:6,10, 16-17.

Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. I Samuel 15:22.

The context of the verse 22 in 1 Samuel is when Samuel reprimanded King Saul for not doing what God had asked. Saul deferred to his own sense of “goodness” in carrying out God’s will rather than obeying God’s explicit instructions because he thought they were too harsh. This is what ideology is: good outward acts borne out of an unrenewed or even rebellious heart. Works based religion.

What God desires is a fully surrendered and obedient heart all things, not outward shows of goodness.

I’ve been through stuff in my life that opened my eyes to the importance of seeking and living by truth and objective reality even when it hurts or seems counterintuitive. And the more I seek truth, the more I see its counterfeits for that they are. Ideology is one of them, even the kind swathed in Scripture. I want to live my life based on saving truth, not on a system of supposed good ideas.

Scripture for further contemplation: Psalm 15:1-2, Proverbs 14:12, John 8:32, 1 Corinthians 2:13-16, Romans 12:2, Jeremiah 23:9-40 (long but insightful).