Avoiding the Extremes

If one wanders around in theological discussion groups on social media or elsewhere, it is inevitable that at some point there will be someone you disagree with, or you will say something that will fire up someone else to come after you.  Dogfights on social media these days are an unnecessary but unavoidable reality at times, and even with our best efforts, nine chances out of ten even the most innocuous thing you say will tick off somebody.  That is equally true in political discourse as well. With this being an election year, coupled with the recent Trump impeachment issues, the tension among people is thick enough to be cut with a knife honestly.  So, as a person of faith, how would one handle this?  That question has compelled me to expound upon this openly.

Recently, one of my cousins posted that she was getting kind of sick of politics and hearing about it, especially the hateful vitriol she (and I am sure others of us as well) has been exposed to.  She is perfectly right to feel that way, as those issues will wear you out physically, mentally, and even spiritually if we allow them to get out of control and eat up a lot of our time and energy.  It was her comments that led me to explore this, and she has some valid concerns I believe many of us share. 

For someone of Christian convictions, religious and political issues are inevitably intertwined, as what we believe and where we exercise our faith determines much in the shaping of our worldviews.  The Assemblies of God pastor that actually officiated my wife's and my wedding, Rev. John Broome, said once in one of his Sunday sermons that "every issue for the Christian is a theological issue."  Of course, he was right, and to be honest, I have taken that to heart and still agree with that to this day.  As a result, how we vote is determined by how we pray, in other words - that is, if we take our faith seriously.  Can we get some things wrong though, and is there room for growth?  Of course, as the fact is we are all fallible human beings, and even our best intentions can sometimes need some work.  That is another reason I wanted to write this today, as at times we do need to step back and reassess a few things as we grow in our faith.  Fundamental convictions that are universally true are not what changes, as God's laws are eternal, and the natural law that is subject to God's sovereignty is also immutable as well.  However, how we view those convictions and act on them may require some "tweaking" if you will, and for the remainder of this discourse, I want to focus on something I read recently.

There is a friend of mine who I have known for years who operates a website in which she gives her perspective on issues, and this particular friend and I have a long history - her grandfather, who was a retired minister, was our landlord at one time, and her brother was for a short time the pastor at the church we attended years ago.  Her father, likewise, served as the Dean of Students at my alma mater where I received my Bachelor's years ago.  So, she has a deep heritage in her faith tradition.  On many things she has written about I actually agree with her, but she does tend to be problematic in other areas - she is virulently anti-Catholic for instance, and she also tends to come across somewhat harsh and callous in her convictions at times, even outright condemning people.  She serves as an example of how often there is a fine line between right belief and wrong action and conviction, and one issue stands out concerning some things this person has written that I want to address.

Over the past several months, my friend has been tackling the issue of premarital sex on her blog, and the issue of children being born out of wedlock was front-and-center of the discussion.  First, let's address what I agree with in regard to what she said.  One, premarital sex is a sin, and it is wrong - it is known as fornication, and Scripture does forbid it.  Two, there is no doubt that the laxity in sexual morality in our society has led to an upturn in couples cohabitating without the virtue of a marriage covenant, and in many cases, children are produced from those disordered unions.  On both of these, there is no dispute.  Three, many people doing this are also professing to be "Christian," and that does create a contradiction between faith and action on their part, and thus a lack of proper discipleship and other issues are at the root of the problem.  Again, I agree with that as well, as I have witnessed that sort of behavior in couples even within our own parish community, unfortunately.  Now that those facts have been established, the problem with addressing it is that oftentimes people like my overly-zealous friend tend to go to a certain extreme, and in this case, it is pretty serious.  Let me address that now.

In her own missives on this subject, my friend basically condemns children of unwed parents as being "bastards," and although she doesn't come right out and say it, she has essentially denied the fact that such children are also loved by God and that Christ died for them too.  Let us look at John 3:16 again shall we?

"For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him shall not perish, but shall be saved"

You do not have to be a learned theologian, Biblical scholar, or be versed in Greek or Hebrew to understand what that plainly says - whosoever implies anyone!  Now, this is where my friend missed the boat big-time, and there are two areas she got it wrong on:

1.  Fornication is the sin of the parents, not of the unborn child that may result from such a union.
2.  A child is a person, a human being, and despite how the child was brought into the world, the gift       of Christ of Himself is still as valid for the "bastard" as it is for anyone else.  We claim oftentimes       as Christians to be "pro-life," so let's validate that by not condemning innocent children.

My friend, although coming from a more Wesleyan-Arminian Pentecostal background, is nonetheless acting as a quasi-Calvinist when she is more or less arbitrarily condemning a child to eternal damnation for something that child was not responsible for, and that is where she errs seriously.  If I were my friend, I would be careful of that, as it borders on heresy to spout such things.  If you cannot love the unborn child of even an adulterous union, then the love of Christ is not in you as it should be.  And, that leads to a couple of other observations.

As mentioned, the child is not accountable for the sins of the parents - they need to account for their own sins and do something about them.  If a couple is living in a disordered relationship - in the vernacular, meaning "shacking up" - yet claims to be Christian, they are in need of some serious counseling from their pastor or priest to find a way to remedy that.  Marriage is a sacrament of the Church, and as such it imparts a grace of its own to those who enter into it.  That grace is vital and important, and cannot be underestimated or cheapened by some selfish, lazy requirement that "we are married in the eyes of God and don't need the Church."  People are playing a dangerous game when they do that.  It also bears mentioning that as marriage is a sacrament of the Church, it cannot be ignored, re-defined, or violated in good conscience by those who profess Christ either. Therefore, if a child is produced out of such a union, then the parents need to seek to legitimize that union as husband and wife and not produce any more offspring until they do so.  But, if the sin of fornication does result in the production of a child, the child should nonetheless be seen as a blessing and miracle of life - irregular, but still a miracle.  It is up to the parents to legitimize their relationship, and an innocent child should not bear the sins of their parents for which they had nothing to do with. 

If the hyper-Fundies are going to one extreme, there are some Christians that go to the other, and they are equally wrong.  God's laws don't change, and he established boundaries for our protection, and if we profess to follow him, we are obligated to honor those commands.  Some in the Church though have advocated for laxity in regard to sexual morality, and they often use absurd reasoning to justify it.  One person that comes to mind here is the so-called "Rainbow Jesuit," James Martin.  Although Martin is an ordained Catholic priest, his celebration and legitimization of "same-sex unions" is not in conformity with the teaching of the Church.  So, while we treat those involved in the LGBT lifestyle with the dignity afforded all humanity, we do not embrace their lifestyle choices as "good," and the Church never has despite what some liberal revisionists like Martin said.  Martin and my aforementioned friend are both guilty of the same lack of grace, although they manifest it in different ways.  In the end, neither has the true love of Christ in the way they handle things, nor do they have the necessary balance to uphold the truth with love as they should - one ignores love, the other ignores the truth, and you need both.  That is why both of these extremes need to be avoided by all of us who seek to follow Christ, as neither is truly following Christ if they are allowed to manifest.  Thank you for allowing me to share, and will be back again soon.