The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools.
- Herbert Spencer

When I read this quote I thought about how dangerous it is that many Christian leaders with good intentions will try to shield people from dangerous ideas, doctrines, or teachers. I know it is not exactly what the quote is about, but it just set me on a course of thought. I have seen how people in churches are susceptible to the phenomenon of group think. Its not healthy. One way they fall into this trap is getting everybody to read the same books and steering them away from others.

I gather that the thinking goes something like, "If they read that they might believe it and start doing whatever follows from that thinking and that would be awfully foolish of them, so best to do whatever I can to protect them from this fate." I know I have fallen into that thought pattern in the past, and I often get a question in regard to house church that I think also stems from this thinking. It goes something like, " but what about rightly dividing the word and refuting error, won't there just be doctrinal chaos without an elder board, seminary trained pastors, and hierarchical leadership?" I see a couple subtle mistakes in this thinking. One, it lacks faith in peoples ability to discern truth from error, assuming they are stupid or ignorant. Two, it lacks faith in the Holy Spirit to teach the saints and guide them into truth and protect them from error.

So, am I going somewhere with this? I guess my conclusion is that we shouldn't shield people from bad teaching or train them to avoid "evil" sources of information. That just stunts their growth. Instead we should be doing a better job at encouraging the virtue of discernment, or to get back to the quote, instead of shielding men from folly expose them to it, and show them why it is folly. In doing so we will help them become wise which is a mark of spiritual maturity.