We got into this on the show this week, and I (at least for the moment) believe that's the deal. It adequately frames the entire great contemporary debate. Red v Blue. Conservative v Liberal. AM Talk Radio v Main Stream Press. Dog v Cat.
I believe that everyone longs for purpose borne of a core recognition of right and wrong. There is no such thing as anarchy....it is a self-defeated world view. A state can not exist without organization. Similarly, Atheism is a rationalized method of avoiding reality. The human eye can no more be a product of chaotic universal chance than me throwing the letters of the alphabet in the air enough times to have the letters (at some point) come down in perfect encyclopedic order.
So please allow for the conversation to progress into the realm of mature world view...OK, pretty please?
With that said, you come to one of two conclusions about why it is we exist. Either we are to do enough to ensure our time has not been a waste, or it has already been done for us.
I subscribe to the latter notion....which I realize is a controversial stance even among fellow Christians.
As an aside...my desire for doing good works is not diminished because of this. In fact, it is augmented because it is not about me doing the work....it is about for whom the work benefits and why.
And, to me at least, that is the crux of our current state of domestic affairs. There are those who believe that grace is best conveyed to the masses through consideration of what God does not allow, rather than leading with what He did in order to prove to the wayward that His pursuit is, indeed, eternal.
So are grace and righteous indignation mutually exclusive elements of individual and corporate spiritual ebb and flow? Or, are we to experience and exude both?
Of this I am not certain, however I am quite sure that (once able to swim in omnipotence) we will rest in the knowledge that Love always wins.
Just a thought.
1 comment:
To me this seems to be the main and essential battle front for Americans. We are indoctrinated from birth to pursue the American Dream...which in its current state seems to be slipping and sliding into ambiguity. "Believe in yourself!" "Pull your self up by your bootstraps." "You can do anything you set your mind to." "You make your own truth." These are the marks of American philosophy...sometimes spoken more eloquently but nevertheless this is it.
Righteous indignation may need further defining in the way you are using it but I would whole heartedly agree that love always wins. I would even +1 for the comment you made about it "being done" already. So in essence love already won...everything. It is done. It is finished. What's finished? Our need to work to be righteous. When Jesus finalized his work and said "it is finished" there was nor will there ever be anything we can do to add to the earning of righteousness. This is what smacks in the face of the American mind which says "I can do it" as opposed to another doing it on your behalf. Any proud American wants to pay back anything someone else does for them. But when it comes to the reality of our right standing before God, or righteousness, its a debt that cannot be paid or paid back. The only break in a system of law is still a break regardless of its size. Any any leniency that a judge gives is still leniency regardless of its size. So what to do about our righteousness issue before God? Nothing. Once we break it its done. The penalty has to be paid. Because God is not a slack judge. But here is beautiful thing..."the cross is where grace shakes hands with justice." That was said by a dear friend, Henry Beaulieu. Jesus did it. Its done. So all our deeds, our works, our labor, our striving is not a jockeying FOR a position of righteousness...thats something we blew...we can't do that. Rather any work for the Christian is FROM a position of righteousness. Not something we can earn but something already earned on our behalf.
Post a Comment