We Americans like to think of ourselves as independent thinkers. Each of us has been culturally impacted with the importance of expressing our individuality, or whatever stamp we imagine ourselves to bear, in a way unlike others around us. This is in contrast, I've heard, with the Chinese, who instead pride themselves on how alike they are, how they find power in sameness, in oneness. And yet, I'm not sure how individual we Americans have all learned to be. The teenage years are probably the time of life when one would expect self-expression to be at an all-time high, and yet...don't you see a lot of teens that can be more or less categorized into groups based on appearance? (I know, this is a shallow approach, only skin-deep, and may seem judgmental. I'm only developing a point so far, so bear with me.) Teens (and the rest of us) don't generally want to appear too different, too unique, too without precedent. There is a line most don't dare to cross, and most know exactly where that line is, whether for themselves or those around them. To an extent this effort is conscious, and to an extent it is an unconscious response to the culture. If teens want to be different from anyone, it is likely that they want to be different from their parents--whether to say, perhaps, that they've found the modern look that has eluded their parents, or to say that they are individual and unique, apart from parental influence, or to lash out against their parents' values, teens tend to be the same as others in their age group, or just a few years older, who they admire.
So yes, Americans are individualistic--to a point. To a point, though, we have a herd mentality and like to find similar folk who believe and dress and live in the same way that we do. I've been pondering this in terms of our political parties. There are two strong parties, and a few insignificant parties that don't stand a chance in the elections. The Republicans and the Democrats monopolize the scene, and we voters willingly group ourselves in one camp or the other. As a Christian I've ended up in the Republican camp though I've always said that I vote not Republican per se, but pro-life. That has been the determining factor for me, and if a candidate doesn't state a stance on that issue or says he's pro-choice, he generally doesn't get my vote, even if it means I don't vote at all.
The odd thing is that these two parties tend to swing to one side or the other on various issues. The Republicans tend to have the pro-life candidates, but not all of their candidates are pro-life. The Democrasts tend to have pro-choice candidates, almost without exception. The alignment of issues within the parties doesn't speak to me as being consistent, though. I would think that logically, compassion would rule in the camp that is pro-life, and expediency would rule in the camp that is pro-choice. It seems instead that the opposite is true, and I have a hard time trying to fathom the reasoning behind it.
It would seem that Christians would be not only pro-life, but environmentalist, seeing that God's creation is something over which we are to be good stewards. We should also be concerned about moral and humane issues at home and around the globe. We should be the least concerned about the economy, because as believers we know that God provides for His own, that if we are about His work, He will provide for us (2 Corinthians 9:10-11 Now He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness; you will be enriched in everything for all liberality, which through us is producing thanksgiving to God.). It strikes me that the unbeliever would be the logical one to be concerned most about the economy, about roads, about big business. You would think that the unbeliever would care less about the environment if it takes more effort to do so and is inconveniencing. I truly don't understand this alignment of issues! I wish we had more candidates, more parties if necessary, and could choose someone who would reflect the things that God's word says that we should concern ourselves with.
So whereas I used to find politics a fairly cut-and-dried arena of life, this year I find it confusing, perplexing, disheartening. I can't in good conscience vote for a pro-choice candidate, because I find their hearts to be murderous and bent on expediency in the worst regard; yet how do I vote? What is the right alignment of issues? Why do we so blindly follow these two camps? Why are their stances so strong and yet confusing? This in America, where individualism and independence supposedly reign supreme. It's a scrawny supreme, in my book, where politics is concerned.
Showing posts with label opinions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label opinions. Show all posts
Friday, July 25, 2008
Friday, February 08, 2008
Knowledge, Love and the Building of the Church
This post was inspired by a number of circumstances in my life, as you may observe--the last being a call from my daughter, telling of a prominent Christian speaker who was tearing down the beliefs of other Christians, even calling their salvation into question, based on his view, which they don't share, of the Scriptures.
Tim will often ask me, pondering the thought processes of some animal that has caught his attention, how smart that animal is. "Mom, how smart is a barnacle?" And not knowing of any way to assess the intelligence of such an animal, even though I suspect its intelligence to be quite limited, I don't know how to answer him. So I say something to the effect that, "It is just as smart as God intended it to be--it has all that it needs to live its life in its particular surroundings." It's true. It's smarter than I am about how it needs to go about living its life--I would never know how I could fasten my head permanently to a rock and shovel food from the ocean into my mouth, as I recall being told they live their life. (How anyone knew that the glued-on part was the head or that the feathery part that came out was the foot, I remember wondering at the time that someone told me that at an oceanography camp I attended as a kid. I think someone must have assumed something along the way about these strange animals.) The important thing is, the barnacle knows what it's doing and can survive the toughest storms because it does just exactly what God intended it to do--no more and no less.
In my last entry I blogged about joy and how my emotions seem to outpace my knowledge or wisdom; just lately I have been reading A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, by Eugene Peterson. It's a book covering the Song of Ascents, the Psalms that the Hebrews sang as they would go up to Jerusalem for the feasts. I find many of these psalms amazingly comforting, something in which the soul can rest--and the further explanations given expand on this, such that I often have to pause to ponder and pray, because they address an issue of one kind or another in my life. In fact I'm wondering whether that has been the catalyst that has brought the joy that I've been experiencing lately; probably so, because even in the reading I feel it.
The latest psalm it has covered is Psalm 131; in NASB it says, "O LORD, my heart is not proud, nor my eyes haughty; Nor do I involve myself in great matters, Or in things too difficult for me. Surely I have composed and quieted my soul; Like a weaned child rests against his mother, My soul is like a weaned child within me. O Israel, hope in the LORD From this time forth and forever."
The writer is, forgive me for the simplicity and perhaps seeming insult, like the barnacle I described above. I don't mean it as an insult, but as an illustration of a proper response to God's design. The writer is submitting himself to just what God designed for his life. He's not seeking out knowledge or wisdom that is beyond God's design for his life, beyond his functioning point. He finds contentment in knowing enough, in being what he is supposed to be, and he rests.
I realize that in my blog entries, sometimes I grapple with things that are on the edge of (or maybe beyond) my understanding. I am inclined to ponder them to a point and realize that there's much beyond what I can fathom, but what God gives me is useful for my life. It's important to ponder God, to wrestle with the truths that are in His word such that a person can properly apply the Word to his life and live it out in obedience. But I don't know that we are all called to be much beyond that, theorizing and concluding things that aren't necessarily specified clearly in the Scriptures.
In John 17:33, in Jesus' High Priestly prayer, one of the priorities that is uppermost in His mind is that we as believers are unified. It is one of the things He most cares about when He prays to the Father, or else in that prayer He no doubt would have said something that mattered more. He wants us to know it, too, or it wouldn't have been included in the Scriptures. Unity is of uppermost importance to God. In Ephesians 4, the unity of believers is described as imperative for the building of the Church, which I believe is central to the will of God. When we wrestle beliefs out of the Scriptures that aren't clearly there, and those beliefs separate us from other believers, that tears down the unity and is destructive to the building process. Not only is the building of the Church described in Ephesians, one of the great things that Jesus has accomplished that is described there is the tearing down of the dividing wall between the Jews and the Gentiles, before the start of the building with Himself as the cornerstone is even mentioned. What we need is to function the way God wants us to, basing all that we believe on what the Scriptures clearly say and allowing for the different interpretations that don't conflict with these. To separate with other believers based on our own unsubstantiated theories is to build up a new dividing wall; it appears to me that it smacks directly against the will of God. "Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up"--and it's vital that we love and build up others, and work toward building up the Church as a whole, rather than let ourselves be puffed up to our own glory.
Tim will often ask me, pondering the thought processes of some animal that has caught his attention, how smart that animal is. "Mom, how smart is a barnacle?" And not knowing of any way to assess the intelligence of such an animal, even though I suspect its intelligence to be quite limited, I don't know how to answer him. So I say something to the effect that, "It is just as smart as God intended it to be--it has all that it needs to live its life in its particular surroundings." It's true. It's smarter than I am about how it needs to go about living its life--I would never know how I could fasten my head permanently to a rock and shovel food from the ocean into my mouth, as I recall being told they live their life. (How anyone knew that the glued-on part was the head or that the feathery part that came out was the foot, I remember wondering at the time that someone told me that at an oceanography camp I attended as a kid. I think someone must have assumed something along the way about these strange animals.) The important thing is, the barnacle knows what it's doing and can survive the toughest storms because it does just exactly what God intended it to do--no more and no less.
In my last entry I blogged about joy and how my emotions seem to outpace my knowledge or wisdom; just lately I have been reading A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, by Eugene Peterson. It's a book covering the Song of Ascents, the Psalms that the Hebrews sang as they would go up to Jerusalem for the feasts. I find many of these psalms amazingly comforting, something in which the soul can rest--and the further explanations given expand on this, such that I often have to pause to ponder and pray, because they address an issue of one kind or another in my life. In fact I'm wondering whether that has been the catalyst that has brought the joy that I've been experiencing lately; probably so, because even in the reading I feel it.
The latest psalm it has covered is Psalm 131; in NASB it says, "O LORD, my heart is not proud, nor my eyes haughty; Nor do I involve myself in great matters, Or in things too difficult for me. Surely I have composed and quieted my soul; Like a weaned child rests against his mother, My soul is like a weaned child within me. O Israel, hope in the LORD From this time forth and forever."
The writer is, forgive me for the simplicity and perhaps seeming insult, like the barnacle I described above. I don't mean it as an insult, but as an illustration of a proper response to God's design. The writer is submitting himself to just what God designed for his life. He's not seeking out knowledge or wisdom that is beyond God's design for his life, beyond his functioning point. He finds contentment in knowing enough, in being what he is supposed to be, and he rests.
I realize that in my blog entries, sometimes I grapple with things that are on the edge of (or maybe beyond) my understanding. I am inclined to ponder them to a point and realize that there's much beyond what I can fathom, but what God gives me is useful for my life. It's important to ponder God, to wrestle with the truths that are in His word such that a person can properly apply the Word to his life and live it out in obedience. But I don't know that we are all called to be much beyond that, theorizing and concluding things that aren't necessarily specified clearly in the Scriptures.
In John 17:33, in Jesus' High Priestly prayer, one of the priorities that is uppermost in His mind is that we as believers are unified. It is one of the things He most cares about when He prays to the Father, or else in that prayer He no doubt would have said something that mattered more. He wants us to know it, too, or it wouldn't have been included in the Scriptures. Unity is of uppermost importance to God. In Ephesians 4, the unity of believers is described as imperative for the building of the Church, which I believe is central to the will of God. When we wrestle beliefs out of the Scriptures that aren't clearly there, and those beliefs separate us from other believers, that tears down the unity and is destructive to the building process. Not only is the building of the Church described in Ephesians, one of the great things that Jesus has accomplished that is described there is the tearing down of the dividing wall between the Jews and the Gentiles, before the start of the building with Himself as the cornerstone is even mentioned. What we need is to function the way God wants us to, basing all that we believe on what the Scriptures clearly say and allowing for the different interpretations that don't conflict with these. To separate with other believers based on our own unsubstantiated theories is to build up a new dividing wall; it appears to me that it smacks directly against the will of God. "Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up"--and it's vital that we love and build up others, and work toward building up the Church as a whole, rather than let ourselves be puffed up to our own glory.
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Labels and Biases, Begone!
Quite recently I tried to express in a blog entry (that I thankfully didn’t post) that as a new believer, the Scriptures influenced me thoroughly enough that I was supposedly not vulnerable to the merely human biases and labels and presuppositions that surrounded me. As a new believer, I had carefully examined and discarded many of the opinions and ideals that I had mistakenly adopted up to that time, and then unthinkingly assumed that the changes that would then occur must therefore be biblical. Strangely enough, during the same time that I was pondering how to express this supposed freedom from biases, I was also pondering how to express the exact opposite idea, just how much my attitudes toward others had in fact been influenced by others in non-scriptural ways. I didn’t realize until this writing just how obviously juxtaposed and contradictory these two concepts were—and thanks to various scenarios that have opened my eyes in recent months, I know that the second view is in fact the truer one.
Somehow (and I am not sure exactly how), very early in my walk of faith, I concluded that the only true Christian was a conservative one, assuming that that the more extremely and thoroughly conservative one’s political leanings, the more they somehow helped to underscore and verify a person’s godliness. I also remember being very carefully taught to suspect, if not in fact reject, the profession of faith of Charismatic Christians; also the validity of certain authors, books, and churches. After some observation of the lives of those who promoted these ideas to me, the lack of regard for truth in their own walk made me more likely to question their views--but it took some doing, because as a result I also had to question my own.
I found that I had walled myself into a fortress of adopted beliefs that I had built brick by brick. I was now enclosed in a small spot where there were few who possessed this faith that was now humanly defined by something more than the biblical concept of salvation; every political stance had a sometimes inexplicable spiritual significance; the walls I had built were high and strong, and the love that Jesus would have me display was more and more difficult to live out. The air in that fortress was heavy and I was suffocating in it.
When I visited the church that had been most vocally criticized, I found that its teachings were stunning and the ministry it was performing appeared to be powerful and effective in reaching the lost for Christ. I got to know a 16-year-old Charismatic Christian whose passion for Christ seemed to far exceed that of most other believers I had met around her age. I also greatly enjoyed two books by Eugene Peterson, an author that I later discovered had written The Message, a book that I had heard strongly ridiculed numerous times.
These experiences help me realize the vital importance of adhering only to Scripture for the purpose of evaluating the teachings, the faith, and the ministry of those who profess faith in Christ. Adopting the biases, the prejudices, the opinions of others without discerning for oneself can only build walls of suspicion, if not hatred, and will prohibit us from living out our faith to the utmost. Though I will continue to hold to my pro-life views as primary indicators of my political choices, I can no longer state unequivocally that I am in all ways conservative. That, along with all other ideas, needs to come under the scrutiny of Scripture, and I hope to open my heart and mind to believing, living, and loving others in such a way that pleases God, and discard the labels and biases that had formed my views for so long. I no longer care to build the walls that confine, reject, judge and condemn, but with God’s help, to tear them down and leap over them.
Somehow (and I am not sure exactly how), very early in my walk of faith, I concluded that the only true Christian was a conservative one, assuming that that the more extremely and thoroughly conservative one’s political leanings, the more they somehow helped to underscore and verify a person’s godliness. I also remember being very carefully taught to suspect, if not in fact reject, the profession of faith of Charismatic Christians; also the validity of certain authors, books, and churches. After some observation of the lives of those who promoted these ideas to me, the lack of regard for truth in their own walk made me more likely to question their views--but it took some doing, because as a result I also had to question my own.
I found that I had walled myself into a fortress of adopted beliefs that I had built brick by brick. I was now enclosed in a small spot where there were few who possessed this faith that was now humanly defined by something more than the biblical concept of salvation; every political stance had a sometimes inexplicable spiritual significance; the walls I had built were high and strong, and the love that Jesus would have me display was more and more difficult to live out. The air in that fortress was heavy and I was suffocating in it.
When I visited the church that had been most vocally criticized, I found that its teachings were stunning and the ministry it was performing appeared to be powerful and effective in reaching the lost for Christ. I got to know a 16-year-old Charismatic Christian whose passion for Christ seemed to far exceed that of most other believers I had met around her age. I also greatly enjoyed two books by Eugene Peterson, an author that I later discovered had written The Message, a book that I had heard strongly ridiculed numerous times.
These experiences help me realize the vital importance of adhering only to Scripture for the purpose of evaluating the teachings, the faith, and the ministry of those who profess faith in Christ. Adopting the biases, the prejudices, the opinions of others without discerning for oneself can only build walls of suspicion, if not hatred, and will prohibit us from living out our faith to the utmost. Though I will continue to hold to my pro-life views as primary indicators of my political choices, I can no longer state unequivocally that I am in all ways conservative. That, along with all other ideas, needs to come under the scrutiny of Scripture, and I hope to open my heart and mind to believing, living, and loving others in such a way that pleases God, and discard the labels and biases that had formed my views for so long. I no longer care to build the walls that confine, reject, judge and condemn, but with God’s help, to tear them down and leap over them.
Sunday, November 04, 2007
Shouldn't Every Christian be Opinionated?
Today our church had a potluck, and in discussion at our table, it became clear that I had opinions on at least four prominent people who we discussed. One of the people at the table asked me, "You're opinionated, aren't you?" I have to admit I've had that said of me before. Can't deny it, wouldn't want to. In response I exaggerated my emphasis, saying something such as, "Every Christian should be opinionated." I think my answer further exemplifies what he was talking about. Still, the issue just may be how the opinions are expressed, because at this point I lost him. He turned to talk to someone presumably less vocal in their opinions even though I was trying to be funny.
Should every Christian be opinionated? Should every Christian be vocal? A Christian without opinions...I don't even know what that is. We can't empirically prove that God exists, that Jesus is God, that we are saved and atheists are not, that the Bible is truly God's Word. There are many things that a person could properly assume a Christian believes, but that not even the most godly Christian can prove is true. Then I would say all these things rightly fall into the realm of opinion. I think it's true, you don't, but (to my chagrin) I can't make you believe it because of any set of earthbound undeniable facts. The Holy Spirit testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, and we believe it, but if you don't believe in the Holy Spirit, (sigh) then I just have to throw my hands up and leave it at that.
How can a Christian stand firm for Christ without any opinion? Without opinion I can't say that sin is wrong, that living for God is right, that we should evangelize the lost, that Christ died for our sins, that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life and that no one comes to the Father except through Him. I can't say that my children should follow Him, or that government shouldn't take the place of parents. I won't know how to vote on any issue.
For that matter, everyone is opinionated, even if they don't speak up. Unbelievers have opinions and no other unbeliever generally even questions them, that loving people are tolerant of all lifestyles, that abortion should be legal, that global warming is a real and urgent concern, that we should save the whales, that the spotted owl needs protection, that war is wrong, that everyone must work together to save the planet, that we should buy pink products for breast cancer funding, that we shouldn't litter. Some of these I oppose, and some I can go along with in a more casual way. I don't know what the standard of the unbeliever is except what the media promotes as the good, common-sense thing of the hour. It changes with the times.
I can only dare to take my stand on any item because I have a specific, unchanging, unapologetic, and right Standard in Christ. His Word determines my decision-making and my values and my opinions; He does not change like shifting shadows. Living by His Word has changed my life and given me peace and purpose; how can I not stand on it and against all that opposes it?
Not speaking up can be convenient for the moment, but historically, at times, the results have at times been disastrous. Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Socialists and the Trade Unionists, but I was neither, so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew so I did not speak out. And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me.” If only more people had dared to speak up in those days!
In Ephesians 4:14-16 Paul exhorts us to know our doctrine, to be able to discern against deceivers, and to speak out against them; again in 6:10-18 He tells us to be strong and stand firm. How can we do this without being opinionated? That escapes me. And so I hold to my opinions and am glad for them, because many of them (not all) come from His love-letter to me (the Bible) and they help me serve my Savior who died for me. He was of the opinion (which escapes me) that I was someone somehow worth saving.
Should every Christian be opinionated? Should every Christian be vocal? A Christian without opinions...I don't even know what that is. We can't empirically prove that God exists, that Jesus is God, that we are saved and atheists are not, that the Bible is truly God's Word. There are many things that a person could properly assume a Christian believes, but that not even the most godly Christian can prove is true. Then I would say all these things rightly fall into the realm of opinion. I think it's true, you don't, but (to my chagrin) I can't make you believe it because of any set of earthbound undeniable facts. The Holy Spirit testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, and we believe it, but if you don't believe in the Holy Spirit, (sigh) then I just have to throw my hands up and leave it at that.
How can a Christian stand firm for Christ without any opinion? Without opinion I can't say that sin is wrong, that living for God is right, that we should evangelize the lost, that Christ died for our sins, that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life and that no one comes to the Father except through Him. I can't say that my children should follow Him, or that government shouldn't take the place of parents. I won't know how to vote on any issue.
For that matter, everyone is opinionated, even if they don't speak up. Unbelievers have opinions and no other unbeliever generally even questions them, that loving people are tolerant of all lifestyles, that abortion should be legal, that global warming is a real and urgent concern, that we should save the whales, that the spotted owl needs protection, that war is wrong, that everyone must work together to save the planet, that we should buy pink products for breast cancer funding, that we shouldn't litter. Some of these I oppose, and some I can go along with in a more casual way. I don't know what the standard of the unbeliever is except what the media promotes as the good, common-sense thing of the hour. It changes with the times.
I can only dare to take my stand on any item because I have a specific, unchanging, unapologetic, and right Standard in Christ. His Word determines my decision-making and my values and my opinions; He does not change like shifting shadows. Living by His Word has changed my life and given me peace and purpose; how can I not stand on it and against all that opposes it?
Not speaking up can be convenient for the moment, but historically, at times, the results have at times been disastrous. Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Socialists and the Trade Unionists, but I was neither, so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew so I did not speak out. And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me.” If only more people had dared to speak up in those days!
In Ephesians 4:14-16 Paul exhorts us to know our doctrine, to be able to discern against deceivers, and to speak out against them; again in 6:10-18 He tells us to be strong and stand firm. How can we do this without being opinionated? That escapes me. And so I hold to my opinions and am glad for them, because many of them (not all) come from His love-letter to me (the Bible) and they help me serve my Savior who died for me. He was of the opinion (which escapes me) that I was someone somehow worth saving.
Friday, July 13, 2007
Majority Rule
When I worked among a group of about 20 women at Boeing, we were in the process of making a procedure manual for the jobs performed in our department. My lead (the supervisor over our immediate group) had not graduated from high school, and her written language skills left a lot to be desired. She wrote the procedure manual to begin with, and we all were to look at it on overhead and critique it for changes. This type of work is right up my alley. I love the use of words; grammar and spelling come easily to me, perhaps thanks to my Canadian mother. She used to continually correct my grammar, telling me tests by which I could determine how to construct a sentence.
The procedure manual would be published with all of our names on it, so we were encouraged to take ownership in making it the best it could be. The initial form of the manual had a great need for editing in all the basics of grammar, spelling, and punctuation. I quickly became noticeable in the quantity of input I provided. They nicknamed me "Comma Connie," and I'm pretty sure it wasn't all in friendliness. Still, I didn't want my name on it in its original form.
Each time we met, it was clear that my lead didn't want my input. The changes I proposed were ignored and the passages in question were left in their original form. I spoke up about this and the supervisor over my lead provided a facilitator to make sure the meetings proceeded as they should and that the proper changes would be made. At one point, there was a question about a particular comma, and someone suggested that we vote on it. The facilitator was shocked. "Vote on whether a comma belongs in a sentence? Either it does or it doesn't. It isn't a matter of opinion."
The same is true in so many things in life--especially those of faith and conduct. A questionable behavior should always be held up to the Scriptures for evaluation. It isn't a matter of opinion or majority rule, but a matter of God's word. But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good; abstain from every form of evil. 1 Thessalonians 5:21-22.
The procedure manual would be published with all of our names on it, so we were encouraged to take ownership in making it the best it could be. The initial form of the manual had a great need for editing in all the basics of grammar, spelling, and punctuation. I quickly became noticeable in the quantity of input I provided. They nicknamed me "Comma Connie," and I'm pretty sure it wasn't all in friendliness. Still, I didn't want my name on it in its original form.
Each time we met, it was clear that my lead didn't want my input. The changes I proposed were ignored and the passages in question were left in their original form. I spoke up about this and the supervisor over my lead provided a facilitator to make sure the meetings proceeded as they should and that the proper changes would be made. At one point, there was a question about a particular comma, and someone suggested that we vote on it. The facilitator was shocked. "Vote on whether a comma belongs in a sentence? Either it does or it doesn't. It isn't a matter of opinion."
The same is true in so many things in life--especially those of faith and conduct. A questionable behavior should always be held up to the Scriptures for evaluation. It isn't a matter of opinion or majority rule, but a matter of God's word. But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good; abstain from every form of evil. 1 Thessalonians 5:21-22.
Saturday, June 17, 2006
A Conversation and some Justification
If you know me, you know that I parent on the more protective side of most parents I know. I don't apologize for this. I am convinced that it's the better extreme, over letting children go with less protection while they are young and lack discernment, strength, wisdom, and/or trustworthiness. As they acquire these things so they have a good balance of them, they should gain appropriate freedoms. That is the introduction I make for this blog, acknowledging that this tendency of mine is intentional.
We went to a friend's son's graduation party today. There were a few families we knew from a previous church we all attended. I got into a conversation with the parents of the largest family there...after a while we started discussing the MySpace trend, which seems to polarize people pretty quickly from what I've found; it also is a huge draw for teenagers, and no amount of speaking out against MySpace from two of our pastors has seemed to lessen its appeal; maybe it has only increased awareness of its existence. It reminds me of a verse (which now that I think of it shows that Jesus also had a tendency to be on the protective side as well): O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, just as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not have it! Luke 13:34.
I was clearly against My Space, and it was soon apparent that most of their children old enough to be on it had a MySpace. Thankfully there was another family, the husband of which was in the conversation, and who took my side. He and his wife had checked it out and were appalled at the things the Christian kids he knows would show, or tell, or the thoughts they would entertain on that site.
My reasoning was that its biggest appeal is to an age group who for the most part lacks wisdom and discernment and is very vulnerable. They also don't recognize fully the consequences of some of their actions. In addition, it can be a bad witness for a Christian to be on a site that is so troubling that it has been in the newspaper a number of times--even those far from Christ have trouble with the ramifications of it, for reasons that the Christians should take into account. There's the matter of stalking, the matter of quick and visible access to pornography, and just the matter of bad content as a whole. A person who has even a clean and Christian MySpace would by doing so affirm the supposed validity of this problematic website.
The thing that disturbed me in our conversation was not so much their affirming MySpace, as much as the reasoning that the parents of the MySpace family used. Now this is a family of about 8 children, obviously of various ages. The parents said, "You've got to let them grow up sometime" or "Eventually they've got to make their own decisions" or "Well, once they move out we can't watch their every move." Well, all those things are true, but the children they were talking about I'm pretty sure aren't ready to be considered grown up, or to make their own decisions; I think that two of them are 11 and 13. Most people's children in this age group who access MySpace, well, maybe the parents ought to watch their every move for accountability, especially knowing that their child is on it. Not for always. But while they are under parents' care and authority, the parents are accountable to God for what the children are learning and how they turn out.
The following verse comes to mind; it's used so frequently that it seems to lose its punch. Still I think it applies very well to this situation: Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it. Proverbs 22:6
We went to a friend's son's graduation party today. There were a few families we knew from a previous church we all attended. I got into a conversation with the parents of the largest family there...after a while we started discussing the MySpace trend, which seems to polarize people pretty quickly from what I've found; it also is a huge draw for teenagers, and no amount of speaking out against MySpace from two of our pastors has seemed to lessen its appeal; maybe it has only increased awareness of its existence. It reminds me of a verse (which now that I think of it shows that Jesus also had a tendency to be on the protective side as well): O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, just as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not have it! Luke 13:34.
I was clearly against My Space, and it was soon apparent that most of their children old enough to be on it had a MySpace. Thankfully there was another family, the husband of which was in the conversation, and who took my side. He and his wife had checked it out and were appalled at the things the Christian kids he knows would show, or tell, or the thoughts they would entertain on that site.
My reasoning was that its biggest appeal is to an age group who for the most part lacks wisdom and discernment and is very vulnerable. They also don't recognize fully the consequences of some of their actions. In addition, it can be a bad witness for a Christian to be on a site that is so troubling that it has been in the newspaper a number of times--even those far from Christ have trouble with the ramifications of it, for reasons that the Christians should take into account. There's the matter of stalking, the matter of quick and visible access to pornography, and just the matter of bad content as a whole. A person who has even a clean and Christian MySpace would by doing so affirm the supposed validity of this problematic website.
The thing that disturbed me in our conversation was not so much their affirming MySpace, as much as the reasoning that the parents of the MySpace family used. Now this is a family of about 8 children, obviously of various ages. The parents said, "You've got to let them grow up sometime" or "Eventually they've got to make their own decisions" or "Well, once they move out we can't watch their every move." Well, all those things are true, but the children they were talking about I'm pretty sure aren't ready to be considered grown up, or to make their own decisions; I think that two of them are 11 and 13. Most people's children in this age group who access MySpace, well, maybe the parents ought to watch their every move for accountability, especially knowing that their child is on it. Not for always. But while they are under parents' care and authority, the parents are accountable to God for what the children are learning and how they turn out.
The following verse comes to mind; it's used so frequently that it seems to lose its punch. Still I think it applies very well to this situation: Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it. Proverbs 22:6
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