I write largely from a Christian worldview using the Bible as my guide and primary source material. That shouldn't be surprising; I'm a Christian. So I cheerfully lay down biblical principles as "right" and warn against those principles and perspectives that disagree; I'm a Christian. I urge others to do the same -- to pursue God and His Word, to be conformed to His image.
Here's the shocker ... not everyone agrees.
Now, of course, that's no actual shock. I'm in a minority -- an extreme minority. I do believe that God's way is the best. By "best" I mean the best for me and the best for you, the way to the happiest, most fulfilling, most purposeful life. It's good for you. All that notwithstanding, people are not going to go along with me.
People will sin. People will disregard Scripture or, worse, twist it to their own purposes. They will indulge with glee in what God's Word classifies as evil, even abominable. I get that. In fact, they can't avoid it. The Bible says they have deceitful hearts (Jer 17:9), blinded eyes (2 Cor 4:4), inclined only to evil (Gen 6:5) and hostile to God (Rom 8:7). So when we cry, "Look, look, those people are sinning!" I feel like answering, "Duh!" I don't exactly know how to tell you this, but sinning is what sinners do.
We often approach our world with unrealistic expectations. We think for reasons unknown that they should have Christian values with Christian morals and a Christian worldview. They don't. Why would we think they should? So we alternately suffer from righteous indignation or foolish hopelessness that sinners are sinning. It's what they do.
We are Christians. We are followers of Christ. We ought to be imitating Him. We should be in the process of being conformed to His image. We should have faith and virtue and knowledge and self-control and steadfastness and godliness and brotherly affection and love in ever-increasing amounts (2 Peter 1:5-8). We should be displaying less and less of the fruits of the flesh and more and more of the fruits of the Spirit (Gal 5:16-23). That what Christians ought to be doing. But expecting that of the spiritually dead (Eph 2:1) is just foolishness. We should look to our own transformation (Rom 12:2) and that of our brothers and sisters in Christ (Gal 6:1-2). Don't hurt yourself with unrealistic expectations that sinners shouldn't be sinning. It's what they do.
4 comments:
I said something similar back when folks were boycotting Disney. Disney is not and didn’t claim to be a Christian company, so why expect them to act like something they weren’t.
Where the problem comes is when people claim to be following Christ with their mouths, or blogs, yet their behavior doesn’t match their words.
Exactly. I have higher standards for people who claim to be following Christ.
Now, I can see a Christian choosing to not support an organization that doesn't meet their expectations or that supports something in opposition to what they support -- that sort of thing -- but a boycott is designed to be a group protest, and protesting sin in a sinful world doesn't seem like a winning strategy.
I completely agree that as individuals we make decisions to support certain businesses or people based on our Christian values and how they align. But to expect a non Christian to adhere to the standards that. Christian should, is simply being unrealistic.
Absolutely.
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