Identifying bias in sources: confessional, ideological and commercial

Program / Course 23: Research Methodology / Lesson 5.3

What you will learn

• Define bias and explain why having a viewpoint is not the same as being unreliable.
• Recognize confessional, ideological, commercial and personal bias in a source.
• Use a source with known bias by checking its claims and balancing it with others.
• Describe your own sources fairly in a paper, naming their commitments where relevant.

The big idea

Every source is written from somewhere. Bias is a pull in a source’s selection, emphasis or wording that comes from the author’s loyalties, beliefs, interests or audience. It comes in several kinds: confessional (loyalty to a church or school of thought), ideological (a political or philosophical program), commercial (the need to sell) and personal. Bias does not make a source worthless. It means the source should be read with attention to what it selects and omits, and balanced with sources of other kinds.

Key terms

Bias

A systematic leaning in how a source selects, presents or interprets material, arising from the author’s commitments or interests.

Confessional

Belonging to or written from within a particular church or faith community and its creed or confession.

Ideological

Shaped by a developed set of political, social or philosophical convictions that guide how evidence is read.

Commercial bias

A leaning produced by the need to sell books, attract readers or promote a product.

Apologetic

Aimed at defending a belief or institution against criticism.

Polemical

Aimed at attacking an opposing view or group.

Hagiography

Writing about saints that aims at edification and tends to praise, not to analyze.

Selection bias

The distortion that arises when the evidence a source presents is chosen to support one conclusion.

Background

It is sometimes said that a good scholar has no bias. That is not possible and not even desirable. Everyone has beliefs, loyalties and a place from which to look. The aim is not to have no standpoint but to know yours, to say it where it matters, and to deal fairly with evidence that does not fit it. The same holds for the sources you read. A believing historian of the church and a skeptical one may both write fairly and both write with a slant, and the reader’s task is to notice which is which.

Confessional bias is common in religious writing. A Catholic, Orthodox or Protestant history of the same period may emphasize different events and judge the same figures differently. Often the facts are shared and the weighting differs. Ideological bias arises when an author reads the evidence through a program, such as a political theory or a philosophical system. Commercial bias appears when a book or website is shaped to sell: a sensational claim about a lost gospel or a hidden truth is more marketable than a cautious one. Personal bias is the author’s temperament, grievances or friendships.

The proper response is not to throw away the source but to take its measure. Early Christian writers who attack heretics are valuable evidence of what they believed and feared, even though they describe their opponents unfairly. Modern denominational histories preserve documents and local detail that others lack. A critic’s work can show what a tradition’s own writers avoid saying. Balanced reading means setting such sources beside each other, and acknowledging the strengths of each.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: Ask where the author stands

Find out who the author is, and what church, school, institution or movement they belong to. Read the preface, the author’s note and the publisher’s description. A Catholic priest, a Reformed professor, an Orthodox monk, a secular historian and a novelist may all write about the same event, each with a different position.

Ask also who the intended audience is. A book written for fellow believers may assume what a book for outsiders would argue.

Step 2: Look at what is selected and left out

Bias shows less in outright falsehood than in selection. Which events are reported and which skipped? Which sources are cited and which ignored? Which scholars are named as opponents, and how are they described? A book that never cites anyone outside its own camp deserves caution.

Compare accounts of the same event or text by authors of different commitments. The differences show the pull of each.

Step 3: Look at the language

Loaded words signal a stance: ‘heretics’ or ‘dissenters’, ‘fathers’ or ‘authors’, ‘so-called’, ‘claims’ versus ‘states’, ‘admitted’ versus ‘said’. Praise that never qualifies, or denunciation that never concedes a point, suggests advocacy.

Notice emotional appeals and sweeping claims. Careful writers show their evidence and acknowledge difficulties.

Step 4: Consider interests and incentives

Ask who benefits if the claim is believed. A publisher selling a dramatic claim, an institution defending its history, a movement recruiting members or an author defending a reputation each has an incentive. Interest does not make a claim false, but it is a reason to check the evidence independently.

Include your own interests. A source that flatters your convictions deserves the same scrutiny as one that offends them.

Step 5: Use biased sources wisely

Use a source for what it can show. A polemical treatise shows the author’s arguments and what was at issue, even if it distorts the opponent. A hagiography shows what a community valued. A critic’s book may expose weaknesses that insiders avoid. Corroborate important claims with sources of different commitments.

In your paper, tell the reader about the source’s commitments when they matter: ‘Writing as a Reformed pastor, Smith argues...’ This is information, not an accusation.

1. What church, school or movement does the author belong to?
2. Who is the intended audience?
3. What does this source leave out or treat briefly?
4. Which words show approval or disapproval?
5. Who benefits if this claim is believed?
6. Do I read my own side’s sources as critically as the others?

Examples

Different perspectives

Catholic

Catholic writers sometimes note that scholars from secular or Protestant backgrounds may read the early Church through assumptions about a later corruption. They also acknowledge that Catholic histories have at times been apologetic. Modern Catholic historians commonly aim at fairness and engage non-Catholic scholarship.

Orthodox

Orthodox writers often observe that Western scholarship frames the Fathers through Western debates, such as those of the Reformation. They call for reading the Fathers on their own terms. Orthodox histories can in turn be shaped by an idealized view of the tradition, and Orthodox scholars of the last century have themselves criticized it.

Protestant

Protestant historians have sometimes been accused of reading the Reformation back into the early Church, or of treating the medieval Church as simply corrupt. Many modern Protestant scholars have corrected these views, while others retain the confessional frame openly. Evangelical, mainline and liberal scholars differ among themselves.

Secular scholarship

Secular historians may bring assumptions about religion, such as that supernatural claims can be set aside for purposes of method, or that religion is best explained by social factors. Believing scholars sometimes see this as a bias of its own. Secular historians reply that their method is limited by design. Reading both helps.

Why it matters

A person who cannot notice bias is led by it, and a person who sees bias everywhere trusts nothing. The middle way is to see the standpoint of each source, use it for what it can show, and compare it with others. This gives a more accurate picture and a fairer one. It also makes you a more trustworthy writer, since readers can see that you have taken account of the lean of your sources.

Common misunderstandings

Knowledge check

Think it through

1. From which sources do you learn most about church history, and what standpoint do they share?
2. What would it be like to read a history of your own tradition written by a fair critic?
3. How can you tell the difference between honest advocacy and misleading selection?
4. How does Proverbs 18:17 apply to reading a single source about a controversy?

Independent assignment

Two accounts of one event

In your own notebook, choose one event or text from church history and find two accounts by authors of different commitments, such as a Catholic and a Protestant author, or a believing and a secular scholar. Write about 400 words comparing them: what each includes and omits, the language each uses, and the evidence each cites. State what you think each source is best for and what you would check elsewhere. Do not send this to anyone.

Further study

• Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine (5 volumes) Notice how the author tries to state each tradition’s position fairly.
• Justo L. Gonzalez, The Story of Christianity Read a chapter and note the author’s standpoint and the choices of emphasis.
• F. F. Bruce, The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? Read critically as an apologetic work, and consider how its purpose shapes it.
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Philosophy of History Read the sections on objectivity and perspective in historical writing.
• Proverbs 18:17 The first to present a case seems right until another examines him.
• Romans 12:3 Think with sober judgment.
• 1 John 4:1 Test the spirits.