Black and White?
I have recently had a great number of conversations with a well-loved co-worker. The conversations have centered around the need for there to be black and white answers. I am not sure there are black and white answers in most situations. In fact, more often than not, I think that most answers are not that easy.
Some of my friends say I think too much. Others see me as wishy washy. I think there are some people who take black and white answers and try not to think. I find this is especially true in dealing with difficult issues of the church. For example, is there really a black and white answer in the Yuill saga? Is there really a black and white answer surrounding the distribution of condoms or needle exchange programs? The Army has been involved in both and condemned both. I am convinced that people on both sides of the argument love God.
Yesterday, I was in a Bible study where one saint, and I mean saint, decried the sin of abortion. I was with him. He then said I will never vote for a politician who does not condemn abortion. I personally abhor abortion. I believe in a seamless garment of life. Unfortunately, some of our strongest anti-abortion candidates are also the same that have voted to cut funding to local police departments, especially in the drug intervention programs. These are also the same politicians who refuse to raise the minimum wage and have not found a way to have health insurance available, separate from employment. It would seem to me that abortion and keeping people in poverty may both be sinful. There is also some correlation between poverty and out of wedlock births. Yet, my friend defined his truth on one issue.
You see what I mean? Is there ever really any black and white issue? Is there room for Christians to disagree on these issues and still be Christians? In fact, is there room for us to still be evangelicals and disagree? Black and White?
What do you think?
Some of my friends say I think too much. Others see me as wishy washy. I think there are some people who take black and white answers and try not to think. I find this is especially true in dealing with difficult issues of the church. For example, is there really a black and white answer in the Yuill saga? Is there really a black and white answer surrounding the distribution of condoms or needle exchange programs? The Army has been involved in both and condemned both. I am convinced that people on both sides of the argument love God.
Yesterday, I was in a Bible study where one saint, and I mean saint, decried the sin of abortion. I was with him. He then said I will never vote for a politician who does not condemn abortion. I personally abhor abortion. I believe in a seamless garment of life. Unfortunately, some of our strongest anti-abortion candidates are also the same that have voted to cut funding to local police departments, especially in the drug intervention programs. These are also the same politicians who refuse to raise the minimum wage and have not found a way to have health insurance available, separate from employment. It would seem to me that abortion and keeping people in poverty may both be sinful. There is also some correlation between poverty and out of wedlock births. Yet, my friend defined his truth on one issue.
You see what I mean? Is there ever really any black and white issue? Is there room for Christians to disagree on these issues and still be Christians? In fact, is there room for us to still be evangelicals and disagree? Black and White?
What do you think?
posted by Larry at 7:52 PM
11 Comments:
You where doing good on this issue but then you took a left turn to politics.
Some issues of life there are "black and white" answers but for most we all deal with shades of gray.
Miss you on Wednesday there is no one to help me heckle!
There is a lot of Gray in the world more than i would have admitted even a few years ago.
I would even muddy the waters a bit more than your original post and say they that in the real world some issues arent just gray many are multi layered. One isue may be black and white however it is complete attached to to ten more issue and one decision could potentionally effect them all.
As Christians However we are called to draw lines in the gray. We cannot think about things forever eventually we must take a stand and act. A good biblical example is Daniel of his three friends.
Bill,
The issues of the church also shape the political landscape. I think way too often we have let our faith be determined by political action committees instead of us determing an agenda for politicians to support.
Steve, great thoughts on layers.
You're right. The issues are black and white and we only enter into the gray when we see the interconnectedness of other issues -- a mosiac of beliefs and issues that end up not being able to be pulled apart without the whole house of cards coming down.
It's frustrating because you feel that you're somehow acting contradictory or relatively. But the mosiac of beliefs forces you to do that -- and there might not be anything wrong with that.
However it is the duty of the christian to maintain the absolute in the face of all this. To "draw lines into the gray" -- great line Steve. In the end, it, like other aspects of Christianity, falls under the umbrella of paradox.
Bill, while I really appreciated your “would anybody care” post on your own blog, I think you’ve missed the boat on this one. I don’t think Larry, or anybody else on this blog is suggesting that abortion isn’t a black and white issue (though I guess the subject of abortions to save the mother’s life makes it a bit grey), what he’s asking is whether or not politics are. Again, you vote republican to save all the unborn children (in theory, though the republicans have yet to do a THING about this issue), but send all the born children straight to hell on earth. That isn’t quite as black and white as our bible belt churches would have us believe.
No one is suggesting that truth is not absolute. Rather that our actions carry deeper signifgance than it may appear on the surface.
To keep with Larrys example I may for for a local candidate for the NYC council because he is Pro-Life and (which a lot of Christians do) but in his entire term he is never called on do do anything regarding the issue of abortion) yet he is responcible cutting after school programs, funding to the Police and fire department, or worse.
The truth is black and white but this world and how we respond to it isn't.
Tim and Steve,
Thanks. I think you get what I am talking about. Of course the Word is True. There is room for debate and interpretation. It does not make it less true. I think there are gray issues. Eddy no one is suggesting there are not some absolutes. The problem is that evangelical Christianity is often filled with absolutionists, who for whatever reason, decide that someone is hell-bound or unworthy because of one issue. It has nothing to do with postmodernism and everything to do with grace.
Ok slow down on the whole anti-PostModern speach. This is not a post modern issue this issue is as old as sin.
Truth is not in danger here. neither is our ability to know truth. God has reveal truth to us. through his inspired word (a real post modern would never make that statement)
The problem is sin. Sin is pervasive it is everywhere in this world and it has infected all of creation. Corinthians tells us that all of creation groans for redemtion. because sin is everywhere it complicates everything. As Christian seeking Holiness we want nothing to do with sin but if we live in this world we can't avoid it.
We have the truth but the wisdom of knowing how to apply that truth is often difficult. There is so much sin that a decision to do the right thing can result in unintented hardship.
The first two chapters of Daniel speak to this well. The Jews had a strict code of law that had been given by God threw Moses. but Daniel and his three friends were taken into exile.
The were given new names names that reflected baboloynian gods. they shared their meals with other baboloyians both were contrary to the law God had given them. but finally they were brought all kinds of meat and wine which was also against Gods law. this they determined was too far and thre drew a line in the grey so to speak and said they would not defile their bodies.
We have to make similiar choices in our own lives in politics most of the time we know there is a history of sin and corruption with both of the candidates (thanks to smear campaigns) our vote for either makes us in a limited why responcible for putting one of them into power.
Christians are often guilty of only looking at one or two issues that they deam 'moral' abortion, lets use gay marriage as the other. (there are others but those two are biggies)
The truth is that both are inconsistant with the truth of scripture. but the same candidates who have biblicly consistant views on those two issues may have biblically inconsistant issues on other issues treatment of the poor for instance. (i pick that issues\ because the bible, both testaments, speaks forcefully and much more clearly than either of the other issues.)
A christian who wants to do right by all the issues is in trouble. because suddenly the llines have blurred.
And yet not voting at all also makes us responcible for not using the power of our vote when we could have used it to make a difference.
Truth is not in question but how do we apply it in a world that has been fractured by sin.
Fowler talks about stages of faith development, and suggests that stage five, that of conjunctive faith, works to hold together tension, being able to live with paradox. Do I wish that there were black and white answers? Yes, on one level, because in a sense it makes life easier. We don't have to think, we don't have to wrestle nearly as much - just accept another's defining of the black and white. However, the danger is black and white answers all too easily lead to legalism and worse. I just finished a novel called the Handmaid's Tale, written about 20 years ago, that took the concept of a theocracy to the extreme, exposing the dangers of that approach. Ultimately, on those issues that the Scriptures are not specific on (such as your example of condom distribution), if the need is for black and white answers, who gets to make them? Probably the person in power (church or politics), and power can so easily corrupt (or at least cloud wisdom).
No, Larry, you don't think too much - I have to believe that the Holy Spirit continues to provide wisdom to those who thoughtfully seek it on so many of these difficult topics. And I doubt that you will come close to asking the number of questions that Jesus did.
Eddy, do you have a “clear understanding of the truth in the word”?
I once heard somebody say…
“It’s not that post-modernists don’t believe in absolute truth, it’s simply that they don’t think that you could possibly know what it is.”
As a Christian, who would probably be labelled a post-modernist, I have to admit that I find only a handful of very important absolute truths in the word, and then I find a BUNCH of grey issues. And, more importantly, I’m always fascinated by people who so easily explain away the words of the writer on one issue, but won’t even consider budging on another.
Let’s look at the subject of ordaining women, for example. Paul seems to speak pretty clearly on the matter, yet our denomination is very quick to explain it away as a cultural or even very specific statement written to a very specific group of people. Yet when using that same argument against, say, homosexuality (Paul was also the only NT writer to touch on this subject), most Christians wouldn’t even consider allowing that argument to be made. Why? Because lots about the Bible is grey.
God created the universe. Man sinned. Jesus became our redeemer. He was the son of God. He died and rose again. We can have eternal life through Him. The two most important messages of the Bible are love God and love your neighbour. Everything else is pretty grey.
When I die and go to heaven I hope I remember the song with the phrase "I can see clearly now the rain is gone". "Now all we can see of God is like a cloudy picture in a mirror." (1Cor 13:12 CEV). I do think that there is more Black and white than gray than we care to admit. In my mind God knows what is black and white. Gray maybe in Gods' mind is a luke warm color.
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