It got me to thinking(a risky thing to do immediately following finals week), when is division worth it? The American world appears to value unity more than any time I can remember, with the tolerance, diversity, and pluralistic religious movements. How long do Christians go along with the peace train?
Should the church budge on "little things" like the ordination of female ministers and gay marriage if doing so would lead to more converts? There are a million more questions that can arise from this type of thinking, but one answer for the moment has satisfied me.
It seems that these issues of tolerance, peace, unity, and rainbows generally arises when we live as pleasers of men. But I would wager my soul that our focus will clear up if we would live for an audience of one. We have little to lose by trying.
If you are like me and tire of thinking hard , relax by listening to Alexi Murdoch's Orange Sky
Well, on one hand, being able to get on the "peace train" assumes that one sees ordaining women and allowing gay marriage as "little things" in the first place.
ReplyDeleteOn another hand, in reading Charania's post, his argument is flawed in at least one area, that being that if we worked together to educate and provide contraception, we'd be better off. Somewhat true, but that requires us to all agree that unmarried people should be having sex ... which we likely don't.
But, in the end, I agree wholeheartedly with you that our desires to do many of these things arise from our need to please people and to be accepted by them. And that is one of the most dangerous motivations around.