The details of what happened are significant but too difficult to fully explain here. And trying to isn't important for many reasons, one being that they were pretty typical of any other situation when someone thinks it's their job to be moral guardian of someone else.
It just seems to me that when the visible expression of the community that professes to represent God in the culture takes on the mantle of Moral Policeman it's just another adventure in missing the point.
This is from the book The Ethics of Freedom by Jacques Ellul.
"We have to take seriously the morals of our century. In so doing, of course, we alienate freedom. To take current morals seriously may well be the price we have to pay if the society in which we find ourselves is to continue. All the same, we have to see clearly at this point, for the alienation entailed may well be the most serious act to which we can assist, and there is no place for frivolity here. If it is not absolutely necessary to obey these morals for the sake of love, or witness, or the support of the weak, then we should stand aloof and not only dispute them but actually act outside the body of this established morality."
Today so much energy is spent in attempting to even get people who don't believe in the good news to obey these moral and ethical codes. It's just sad that the good news has been reduced to moral and ethical codes and the enforcement of such. That's not New Covenant...it's the old inferior one. The one that had no power to free anyone. It is a lost cause and an adventure in seriously missing the point. But religion is like that. People are powerless to do it. Except for the reality of the life of God in us, nothing else can set us free and nothing else is of importance.
How did we ever come to a place of thinking that enforcing a 'way of living' on people who don't know the Way would be effective and helpful to anyone? Or is this approach helpful for something? We seem to think that it helps keep society from being really 'out of control' messy. But then again...look around and tell me how it is working.
The mess caused by immorality and lawlessness exposes the condition of alienation. For those that are being set free from the bondage of this alienation and in turn finding freedom through life in the Spirit, they become the alternative reality of the only thing that is real and free. People living in this freedom, being embraced by the love of God, will find themselves being disentangled from the effects caused by the years spent in the bondage of sin/alienation.
They will be people of overwhelming compassion and understanding towards those still trapped. They won't be able to live any other way because they will remember clearly that it wasn't long ago that they were trapped in the same destructive behavior. But for the grace and love of God....no one has the courage or the understanding of how to walk out of that prison.
This is from Greg Boyd's book Myth Of A Christian Nation. This is from the chapter When Chief Sinners become Moral Guardians
"When people assume the position of moral guardians of the culture, they invite---they earn!---the charge of hypocrisy. For all judgement, save the judgement of the omniscient and holy God, involves hypocrisy. Whenever we "eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil"---this is, whenever we find some element of worth, significance, and purpose in contrasting ourselves as "good" with the others we deem "evil"--we do so in a self-serving and selective manner. We always bend the tree, as it were, to our own advantage and, as a result, we do the exact opposite of what Jesus taught us to do. Instead of seeing our own sins as worse than others, we invariably set up a list of sins in which our sins are deemed minor while the other people's sins are deemed major. We may have dust particles in our eyes, we reason, but at least we don't have tree trunks like "those people." Unlike the tax collector who made no moral claims for himself, we thank the Lord we are not like other people just as the Pharisee did (Luke 18:9-14)."
It just seems to me that when the visible expression of the community that professes to represent God in the culture takes on the mantle of Moral Policeman it's just another adventure in missing the point.
This is from the book The Ethics of Freedom by Jacques Ellul.
"We have to take seriously the morals of our century. In so doing, of course, we alienate freedom. To take current morals seriously may well be the price we have to pay if the society in which we find ourselves is to continue. All the same, we have to see clearly at this point, for the alienation entailed may well be the most serious act to which we can assist, and there is no place for frivolity here. If it is not absolutely necessary to obey these morals for the sake of love, or witness, or the support of the weak, then we should stand aloof and not only dispute them but actually act outside the body of this established morality."
Today so much energy is spent in attempting to even get people who don't believe in the good news to obey these moral and ethical codes. It's just sad that the good news has been reduced to moral and ethical codes and the enforcement of such. That's not New Covenant...it's the old inferior one. The one that had no power to free anyone. It is a lost cause and an adventure in seriously missing the point. But religion is like that. People are powerless to do it. Except for the reality of the life of God in us, nothing else can set us free and nothing else is of importance.
How did we ever come to a place of thinking that enforcing a 'way of living' on people who don't know the Way would be effective and helpful to anyone? Or is this approach helpful for something? We seem to think that it helps keep society from being really 'out of control' messy. But then again...look around and tell me how it is working.
The mess caused by immorality and lawlessness exposes the condition of alienation. For those that are being set free from the bondage of this alienation and in turn finding freedom through life in the Spirit, they become the alternative reality of the only thing that is real and free. People living in this freedom, being embraced by the love of God, will find themselves being disentangled from the effects caused by the years spent in the bondage of sin/alienation.
They will be people of overwhelming compassion and understanding towards those still trapped. They won't be able to live any other way because they will remember clearly that it wasn't long ago that they were trapped in the same destructive behavior. But for the grace and love of God....no one has the courage or the understanding of how to walk out of that prison.
This is from Greg Boyd's book Myth Of A Christian Nation. This is from the chapter When Chief Sinners become Moral Guardians
"When people assume the position of moral guardians of the culture, they invite---they earn!---the charge of hypocrisy. For all judgement, save the judgement of the omniscient and holy God, involves hypocrisy. Whenever we "eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil"---this is, whenever we find some element of worth, significance, and purpose in contrasting ourselves as "good" with the others we deem "evil"--we do so in a self-serving and selective manner. We always bend the tree, as it were, to our own advantage and, as a result, we do the exact opposite of what Jesus taught us to do. Instead of seeing our own sins as worse than others, we invariably set up a list of sins in which our sins are deemed minor while the other people's sins are deemed major. We may have dust particles in our eyes, we reason, but at least we don't have tree trunks like "those people." Unlike the tax collector who made no moral claims for himself, we thank the Lord we are not like other people just as the Pharisee did (Luke 18:9-14)."
4 comments:
Yes. Yes. YESSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!
:)
I'm sorry you got slapped by a moral policeman. It is a tiresome exercise but you're right - there's really only one way they're going to see their way out of that confining prison.
That prison stinks so much. I hate it with a passion.
I might have to invest myself in that Greg Boyd book. I have resisted up until now because I wondered how much of it was really going to be pertinent to me. I don't think Australia is under that particular illusion that we are a Christian nation. (Thank God. Heh! :)
Yeah, Kent, you're touching on the one thing I still really struggle with. Yet I am sensing a freedom coming over me, even in this area. I KNOW that I have some major moral police in my own extended family, who I feel sure will only invite "debate" about my newfound beliefs once discovered (yeah, I'm still in hiding with a lot of them). Papa's still freeing me from some big time People Pleasing Syndrome, but I know I'll get there - I feel it, as my spirit is strengthening, and Papa's love is growing in me.
Thanks for this very true post - again!
Sue, you would enjoy the book.
The slapping was so beyond ridiculous it made considering the content nothing but a waste of time. So I just politely told them to never again talk to any of my daughters like they did. It was directed at my 13 from a 40 year old. It really was unbelievable on all accounts.
Free Spirit...sensing an new unfolding freedom is a good thing indeed.
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