Preconceived Notions Causes Loss of Perception?

"Because we approach the gospel with preconceived notions of what it should say rather than what it does say, the Word no longer falls like rain on the parched ground of our souls. It no longer sweeps like a wild storm into the corners of our comfortable piety. It no longer vibrates like sharp lightning in the dark recesses of our nonhistoric orthodoxy. The gospel becomes, in the words of Gertrude Stein, ‘…a pattering of pious platitudes spoken by a Jewish carpenter in the distant past.’

Brennan Manning