In my previous post I dealt with what, I suppose, is a peripheral issue. The real issue in Anyabwile's article is probably the sense of hurt at the way white Christians have participated, and may continue to participate, in oppression of other Christians, and that those Christians who could do something about the problem have often stood on the sidelines and let things be. I can understand why this is hurtful. The problem is that this sense of hurt is becoming something more than just a sense of hurt. It is becoming a standard of conduct. Christian inaction in the face of social wrongdoing is considered sin. Should it be? Or, more properly, when should it be? I don't think this sense of hurt can, by itself, be the proper guide for setting moral standards of Christian obligations. We may need to deal separately with the situation in the United States before we can make general rules about Christian obligations.
Christians cannot be responsible for denouncing every evil in society. As I said in my last previous post, we will always live in a society that is not fully Christian, and people will always be sinning. There must, therefore, be standards by which we determine whether or not a particular form of evil is our business. The bare fact that it is evil isn't enough. What troubles me is that many people appear to be trying to silence any Christian voice in society, and these people appear to have often been on the Left. Those same people then complain about Christian silence on issues that, frankly, seem a bit nebulous, like economic inequality. Since when does the Church teach that everybody has to be paid the same? By what standard do we decide how much each person should make? While a Christian ethic in this matter gives us good principles, such as the idea that people who work hard and well should be rewarded with good pay, it does not give us the exact number of dollars and cents. Christians can disagree on this issue without disrespecting the Bible. Why such sins as abortion, sex sins, etc? These sins are objective, many of them clearly condemned, and individual.
I have long lived in a society in which bribery is rampant, a way of life. It is not so much an issue of corrupt people bribing officials to do wrong or look the other way. All too often, it is an issue of officials deciding their course based on whether or not they will get a bribe, even refusing to do their jobs unless paid off. Fortunately, things are getting better. In the older days, people going in for driver's tests would pray they wouldn't have to pay a bribe to pass. That's right; some test administrators wouldn't pass or fail you based on how well you had done. They would pass you without your deserving it if you paid the bribe. They would fail you without your deserving it if you didn't. Now, I don't think a person in that society was complicit for failing to protest about it or denounce it on social media. Everybody knew about this, and lots of people hated it. I think even people who paid the bribes hated it. Refusing to give bribes or take them, particularly when it meant being treated unjustly, was an act of obedience that should not be passed over. I know people who refused to give bribes. Refusing to give a bribe may not have taken as much courage as some forms of obedience, but it did take faith, faith that God saw and honored a small, seemingly impotent act of loyalty to Him in the midst of a system that, at times, seemed corrupt beyond repair.
I think we need to be careful about setting up hard and fast rules about complicity for all time and all situations. While I think we can say white Christians should have done more to oppose segregation, I don't know that the same thing is happening today.
Christians cannot be responsible for denouncing every evil in society. As I said in my last previous post, we will always live in a society that is not fully Christian, and people will always be sinning. There must, therefore, be standards by which we determine whether or not a particular form of evil is our business. The bare fact that it is evil isn't enough. What troubles me is that many people appear to be trying to silence any Christian voice in society, and these people appear to have often been on the Left. Those same people then complain about Christian silence on issues that, frankly, seem a bit nebulous, like economic inequality. Since when does the Church teach that everybody has to be paid the same? By what standard do we decide how much each person should make? While a Christian ethic in this matter gives us good principles, such as the idea that people who work hard and well should be rewarded with good pay, it does not give us the exact number of dollars and cents. Christians can disagree on this issue without disrespecting the Bible. Why such sins as abortion, sex sins, etc? These sins are objective, many of them clearly condemned, and individual.
I have long lived in a society in which bribery is rampant, a way of life. It is not so much an issue of corrupt people bribing officials to do wrong or look the other way. All too often, it is an issue of officials deciding their course based on whether or not they will get a bribe, even refusing to do their jobs unless paid off. Fortunately, things are getting better. In the older days, people going in for driver's tests would pray they wouldn't have to pay a bribe to pass. That's right; some test administrators wouldn't pass or fail you based on how well you had done. They would pass you without your deserving it if you paid the bribe. They would fail you without your deserving it if you didn't. Now, I don't think a person in that society was complicit for failing to protest about it or denounce it on social media. Everybody knew about this, and lots of people hated it. I think even people who paid the bribes hated it. Refusing to give bribes or take them, particularly when it meant being treated unjustly, was an act of obedience that should not be passed over. I know people who refused to give bribes. Refusing to give a bribe may not have taken as much courage as some forms of obedience, but it did take faith, faith that God saw and honored a small, seemingly impotent act of loyalty to Him in the midst of a system that, at times, seemed corrupt beyond repair.
I think we need to be careful about setting up hard and fast rules about complicity for all time and all situations. While I think we can say white Christians should have done more to oppose segregation, I don't know that the same thing is happening today.
No comments:
Post a Comment