I have heard a couple of youth speakers lately who come from a really fundamentalist perspective, as I guess a lot of jesus lovers do. And it got me thinking that a lot of young people want to hear this black and whiteness. It is kinda easy to be a speaker that says “Christians must make a stand against Bills that protect homosexuals and prostitutes” because it clicks with youth that there is this strong line between good and bad.
But, is it that strong? I just so don’t believe it is. I heard someone say “the Bible is black and white and we need our kids to see that and act on it” but surely we know the Bible isn’t. If it was we wouldn’t have swung from being totally anti women to now ordaining them whenever we can.
It is messy, but I do believe that we need to be honest with young people and say “there is a whole lot of grey”. When it comes to moral and ethical stuff it is complicated, there is no easy stand, but in everything we need to view it through how best to show Gods love and how best to do justice. And even then it is not always simple.
I think this teaches openness to God and his voice regularly, rather than responding from dogma. What do you reckon?
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3 comments:
I guess the crunch comes when we go from hearing what's being said to actually trying to live what's being said, either by a speaker at a meeting or the Bible.
Not everything is black or white and sadly our young people get taught that, or even more spooky, they think that. So it's no wonder why so many of them decide to give up their faith because it seems too hard a load to carry, and by having so called "well meaning" christians tell them the Bible is black and white, that sin is sin no matter what, without even thinking or knowing the context of the Bible, just makes for disillusioned young people with the wrong idea of God, not a God of mercy, but in some of their minds, a God of Do's and Dont's like the ol' school prinipal (haha) well that's what I reckon Cuz?
Chur churs
Greetings in Jesus' name.
Good points. It is sometimes challenging to operationalize black and white Bible truths.
The challenge comes from both sides: emphasizing text over context on one end, and emphasizing context over text on the other.
And you're right- hearing God is the solution. God help us to see see what He's doing and do what we're seeing (from John 5:19).
Much grace,
Stephen Court
armybarmy.com/blog.html
Yep, I think so...
Yesterday I was reading a bit of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and this was one of his themes ay- of Ethics. He says regarding politics and behaviours-
"The will of God is not a system of rules established from the outset. It is something new and different in each different situation in life. And for this reason a man must forever reexamine what the will of God may be. The will of God may lie deeply concealed beneath a great number of possibilities."
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