My previous post reminds me of a subject I've been mulling over after reading The Shack (read post here). The subject is good and evil. Actually, the subject is the human heart and judgment.
When I decide what is good and what is evil, I am making a very subjective but very real judgment. I determine whether an event, an opinion, a circumstance, even another person is good or bad based solely on an imperfect set of personal standards. My good is never exactly the same as someone else's. My "good" and my "bad" judgment calls are made based on how something or someone affects me.
Subjective? You bet. Broken? Absolutely.
Now take me and my judgments and place us in a crowd of thousands. Millions. Billions.
On October 12, 1999, the United Nations Population Division estimated that the human population exceeded six billion. That's 6,000,000,000,000 sets of beliefs, values, and principles. Six billion individuals, all with their own subjective list of standards by which they are determining what is good and what is evil. Absolutes are pretty much lost in all that subjectivity. Things like good and evil are no longer penultimate measures, they are opinions. But they are opinions that cause conflicts, wars, and desolation. Opinions that, since they have overwhelmed absolute standards, are baseless and empty. Baseless, empty opinions become death sentences for far too many.
When we decide what is good and what is evil based on our own standards, we make ourselves Judge. Yep, Capital J: We allow ourselves to play God. I'd love to play many roles, but deep in my heart of hearts, I don't want to play God. Only problem is, it's much harder to relinquish my "right" to judge things that affect me according to my standard and let the Holy Spirit guide me.
Israel thinks they are right. Many fundamental Christians think they are right. We Gentile believers are instructed in the Bible to "pray for the peace of Jerusalem." And I do.
But Palestine thinks they are right also. So do the majority of Middle Eastern countries. If one honestly listens to both sides of the argument -- remaining honestly neutral, taking into account culture and background -- one finds there is no right. There is no wrong.
Only opinions. That's a problem.
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Umm, I'm pretty sure the folks strapping bombs to women and kids are sending them do their deaths to kill innocent civilians in crowded places are the ones who are wrong. Not a lot of room for understanding or gray area there. In my opinion.
ReplyDeleteYep, those people are the ones that Jesus DIDN'T die for and DOESN'T want to redeem, right Eric?
ReplyDeleteNot saying that the act of war isn't wrong -- it is. Not saying what they did isn't worthy of revenge -- it is. What I am saying is that, according to their beliefs, the Western world is evil because emperialist Great Britain gave Israel the right to resettle in the "Holy Land", forgetting that during the thousand or so years since they left other people (whom God also created, loves, an died to redeem) settled there, put down roots, and have lived there for generations.
And we think they're evil because they're fighting to get their land back.
Besides, whose job is revenge anyway, bro?
And in the meantime, too few people have stopped to ask God what He thinks about it all...