Living as a Christian in the 21st Century Part 2 – The Resolution

This is a subject with which I am currently wrestling. Here are my thoughts – perhaps not particularly well articulated, but that is the nature of an ongoing development of thinking.

First and foremost we must affirm the things that the Scripture teaches that all Christians would believe – The Trinity, the Deity and humanity of Christ, His life death and resurrection as God’s way of rescuing sinners, the Scripture as being supremely authoritative in everything. That may seem to be a minimalist statement, and many would want to add to or nuance it. But essentially, I believe that everything is covered there.
The most important thing for us as Christians is that we are people of the Gospel – the GOOD news of Jesus and what he has done. THAT is what should define us, not what our views are on certain moral issues. Our ultimate aim should be to point people to him that they may be brought to personal faith. The unfortunate thing is that the focus is on our attitudes to these issues. In the case of the Pastor who was due to pray at President Obama’s inauguration and did not, attention was drawn to one sermon preached over 20 years ago; all the good work that he has been doing week in week out is seemingly ignored just to push a particular agenda.
Secondly, we must show concern and compassion for all others, regardless of whether we agree or disagree with them. We must make sure that where there is a difference of opinion we always conduct ourselves graciously and lovingly. We must make a distinction between accepting people and endorsing their lifestyle choices.
We need to model ourselves on Jesus himself. He went out of his way to be compassionate to those who were seen as “sinners”. However, he never condoned their sin. We must be loving and compassionate to everyone, yes everyone, regardless of their sin. However, that does not mean that we affirm their every behaviour. It is possible to say that (for example) you accept those who are in a same – sex relationship without agreeing with what they are doing. The Evangelical Alliance in the UK has a statement here that is well worth taking the time to read; a great example of how to put that into action.
We will be misunderstood for this – people who are not Christians cannot separate the person from the behaviour. As far as they are concerned, if you express disapproval of the behaviour, you disapprove of the person. There is not a great deal we can do about that, it is not easy to change the opinion of someone who thinks in that way. We must make sure that there are absolutely no LEGITIMATE grounds for criticising our treatment of others.
However much we may disagree with someone; we must never resort to personal abuse. Even if we consider someone’s view to be abhorrent, we must still be calm and gracious. And we should not be surprised – Jesus himself told us that we will face opposition because of what we believe.
Thirdly we must pray. Our God is gracious and will answer. We need to bring each other before him and ask that we may have his wisdom to deal with life as we face it in whatever sphere he has put us.
This will not give us an easy life – we can’t expect that. Some Christian leaders have sought to re – interpret Scripture in order to give them that, and thus take away any criticism that unbelievers may have. (Of course, in so doing they have opened themselves up to criticism from some fellow believers!). Let us make sure that we are living a life, by the power of his Spirit in accordance with his Word. That’s all any of us can do.

Living as a Christian in the 21st Century: Part 1 – The Analysis

This is a subject with which I am currently wrestling. Here are my thoughts – perhaps not particularly well articulated, but that is the nature of an ongoing development of thinking.

As Christians, we often find that there is a tension between what we believe about how things should be in the world, and how they really are. Our first choice would be that everyone would live by the principles that we see in Scripture, and therefore there would not be a conflict between us and others.
The tension is there quite simply because those who do not follow Jesus do not see that their lives need to be lived according to what is in his word. It is true that there are things on which we agree; that is because those who are not Christians can have a view based on rational argument and may come to the same conclusions as us.

For example, most people would accept the fact that murdering someone is wrong. As Christians, first and foremost we believe this because God has said it is wrong. Those who are not believers will point to the fact that murder is the ultimate violation of another human being, not seeing it as necessary to bring God into the equation. Of course, we would completely agree that murder IS indeed the ultimate human violation, and we could well use that as part of an argument. However, that is not the supreme reason for us. We believe that murdering someone is to go against what God has commanded, therefore is sin; not a popular concept.

It is quite straightforward when it comes to clear cut issues such as that – we can all agree that murder is wrong even if for different reasons! However, the tension comes when we, as Christians take a view that something is right or wrong, based on our understanding of God’s revelation, but the majority of others take a different view. Things become even more complex when some of us think a certain way from a Christian perspective, but fellow believers would side with others.
What then do we do about those who are Christians that disagree with our position on an issue? If we all take the Scripture seriously, then I trust we will accept the integrity of our fellow believers if they argue from there, even if we dispute their interpretation/exegesis. I would be more concerned about those who would prefer to take their view from the prevailing culture rather than what Scripture says. Disagree with me by all means, but show me from the Bible why you don’t agree.

The present cultural norm is that we are to be tolerant of everyone, and we must not criticise the choices that anyone else makes. That seems to be an absolute statement for many, and nobody dare question it. But surely this view in itself must be open to scrutiny. Does this not show that tolerance has its limits? A view that questions someone else’s lifestyle is not to be tolerated, we are told! So can we agree that nobody is completely tolerant of everyone? All I am asking is that I am allowed to have my opinion, however wrong that might be.

It seems to me that for everyone there are some views that are completely unacceptable. Different people draw the line in different places. So how does one decide what is and what is not acceptable?

As Christians, we have the Bible for that. But even there, Christians will argue over what can and cannot be tolerated. And then there are those many people who do not believe it at all.

So how do we resolve this? The second part of this article will be an attempt to point to a way forward.