Rules of Engagement #4 - Eating Meat (and the Eternal Consequences Thereof)

So this "Rules of Engagement" thing... I've been trying to focus on things that I at least know that I personally need to put into better practice when it comes to trying to reach out to the lost and bring them closer to God's vision for their lives.

In the first part, I talked about how it's important to actually stick to the discussion at hand. If someone asks me about my belief in God and the first answer I give them is just that God doesn't like them, then I'm probably not going to be the most effective champion for the cause of Christ.

In the second part, I talked about how it's important that we all understand that my sins, your sins, his sins, her sins, their sins... it's all the same. Once we understand that all of us have committed the exact same infractions against God and are definitely all worthy of the exact same punishment, it's a lot easier to think about everybody getting into the exact same grace and the exact same Love.

In the third part, I talked about how it's important that we all really grasp the idea that it's OK if somebody's Christianity is a little different from ours. For starters, it's not my responsibility to make sure someone else's faith is perfect - that decision is ultimately their own, as is mine when it comes to my own faith. Beyond that, Jesus says in Luke 9:50 that "...whoever is not against you is for you," and I think it'd be a good idea to remember that.

So here in this 4th (and final) part, I want to actually lay down what I've been building towards, built on all three of those things before it. So get your head ready, because I'm actually very scared of what I'm about to say, and I realize that it's a fearful topic for a lot of other people, too.

Let's start off with a story.

Just a hair over 9 years ago now, I threw a shindig at a family friend's house with some friends to celebrate the end of the school year. I was grilling hamburgers and we were all going to watch a movie. The movie we wound up watching was Tombstone. If you've never seen Tombstone... oh, you poor soul. It's a fantastic movie. It's a fairly historically accurate account of the events that led up to and came after the infamous shootout at the OK Corral, with Kurt Russel as Wyatt Earp, Val Kilmer as Doc Holliday, Sam Elliott as Virgil Earp, and Sam Elliott's Mustache as Executive Producer.

Oh, and it's rated R. That's important here.

It's not porn or anything - it's a cowboy movie. People shoot each other. The bad guys are REALLY bad. Cuss words a'plenty.

And yeah, it's totally one of my favorite movies.

So we're watching Tombstone for this thing, and I told everybody who was coming well in advance that we were watching Tombstone. I hold the friends from my freshman year in college very dear to my heart, but some of them just were not the kinds of folks who'd dig on a cowboy movie, so I wanted to give them all a chance to bow out gracefully if that was going to be a problem for them.

One friend of mine took me up on that offer, except for the gracefully bowing out part. She informed me that she wouldn't watch any movie that's rated R. I told her that Tombstone is, in fact, rated R, so it looked like she wouldn't be watching the movie, then, didn't it?

The night of the cookout rolled around and we'd all enjoyed my - quite frankly - awesome burger skills and sat down to watch the movie. The girl who'd objected to an R-rated movie was still with us at this point, but another friend was not staying for the movie and offered to give her a ride home. She declined, said she'd stay, and we started watching the movie.

Tombstone does not start off gently. Less than 10 minutes into the movie, there's already been a shootout where something like 10 Mexican police officers are killed at a wedding, a priest is killed, and the bride - kicking and screaming - is dragged off-camera by the bad guys. There's not really any question that these are the bad guys for the movie.

But as soon as the shootout started, Monica (not her real name, I just got tired of vague pronoun usage) let out this loud gasp of shocked protest and said, "Are they killing those people?!?"

Wait, what? Yes! Of course they're killing them. They're the bad guys.

"Well, I just can't believe we're watching this."

At this point, Monica's roommate realized she needed to leave and offered Monica a ride back to campus. Monica refused, decided to stay.

A little later in the movie, when we're introduced to Doc, Monica let out her indignant gasp of moral outrage once again and blurted out "SHE'S NAKED!"

Alright, look... The first time I saw Tombstone, I was maybe 13 or 14 years old. I'd already seen it a thousand times by the time I got to college. Believe me, if there was a naked "she" anywhere in that movie, I'd have picked up on it. But right now, I was looking at Val Kilmer, who is most definitely neither a she nor naked. So I asked what on earth Monica was talking about.

"The painting! Behind him! On the wall! She's naked! I can't believe we're watching this movie!"

Wait... WHAT? The painting? You're upset about the painting? It's not like it's erotic in any way whatsoever... It's just a kind of Renaissance-y painting with a naked lady draped out under a fruit tree and chubby little baby angels floating around... whatever. And for all the times I'd seen the movie, I'd actually never noticed it until Monica pointed it out.

So my buddy Matt offered to leave the movie (which was pretty chivalrous of him, considering he loves Tombstone as much as I do) just to give Monica a ride back to her dorm. We were barely 30 minutes into the movie and it only gets more violent from that point. Monica, once again, refused the ride and chose to stay.

We finished the movie in relative silence. Monica didn't say anything else, but she did gasp indignantly and glare at me every time somebody used profanity or got shot. So there was a lot of gasping and glaring, but she didn't say anything else...

But the next day... Oh, goodness. I still look back on the event with a whole lot of incredulity, but in the middle of it, I was just flat out FLOORED with confusion. See, what happened was after we got through with the movie and went on back to campus, apparently, I was painted up to be the villain of the century because I showed Monica this movie.

Now... I'm not looking for absolution, I'm not looking for anybody to take my side, I'm not looking to be proven right... Largely because I already know that wasn't my fault. At all. I did nothing wrong in that... with the possible exception of even inviting Monica in the first place.

One of the other guys that had come to the cookout actually told me, "I can't believe you showed her that movie. She's the weaker Christian, Aaron, and you caused her to stumble."

What? Seriously?

She knew before we even got there that the movie was rated R. She was given a chance to leave before the movie started and two other chances to leave during the movie, yet she stayed parked right there on that couch, shooting daggers at me from her eyes and voicing her disapproval every time somebody pulled a trigger.

And it's my fault?

"Why should my freedom be judged by another's conscience?" - from I Corinthians 10:29

Lest you think this whole post is just to defend my actions at a cookout 9 years ago, here's where I'm going with all this and why it applies to me and you today.

In issues of conscience where the "weaker" Christian is unsettled, offended, whatever'ed by the actions of the "stronger" Christian, it is the responsibility of the "stronger" Christian to be sure that his or her influence does not cause the "weaker" Christian to stumble.

BUT.

It is also the responsibility of the "weaker" Christian to realize that his or her own personal moral code is not applicable to anyone else, Christian or not.

"Everything is permissible"—but not everything is beneficial. "Everything is permissible"—but not everything is constructive. Nobody should seek his own good, but the good of others.

So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God — even as I try to please everybody in every way. For I am not seeking my own good but the good of many, so that they may be saved.

- I Corinthians 10:23-24, 31-33

Accept him whose faith is weak, without passing judgment on disputable matters. One man's faith allows him to eat everything, but another man, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. The man who eats everything must not look down on him who does not, and the man who does not eat everything must not condemn the man who does, for God has accepted him. Who are you to judge someone else's servant? To his own master he stands or falls. And he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand. One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. He who regards one day as special, does so to the Lord. He who eats meat, eats to the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and he who abstains, does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God. For none of us lives to himself alone and none of us dies to himself alone. If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.

For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living. You, then, why do you judge your brother? Or why do you look down on your brother? For we will all stand before God's judgment seat. It is written:

" 'As surely as I live,' says the Lord,

'every knee will bow before me;

every tongue will confess to God.' " So then, each of us will give an account of himself to God.

Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in your brother's way. As one who is in the Lord Jesus, I am fully convinced that no food [footnote: nothing] is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for him it is unclean. If your brother is distressed because of what you eat, you are no longer acting in love. Do not by your eating destroy your brother for whom Christ died. Do not allow what you consider good to be spoken of as evil. For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, because anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and approved by men.

Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification. Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. All food is clean, but it is wrong for a man to eat anything that causes someone else to stumble. It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything else that will cause your brother to fall.

So whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the man who does not condemn himself by what he approves. But the man who has doubts is condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from faith; and everything that does not come from faith is sin.

- Romans 14, emphases added

There are some things in life that I quite frankly just really enjoy. Man, they're nice. Dig 'em. Some folks, however, are not quite so big on those things. In fact, for some folks, some of the things I enjoy doing might be a sin.

I understand - fully - that it is my responsibility as a Christian who has the maturity and clarity of mind to enjoy those things responsibly (in regards to my responsibility towards God as well as to my brothers and sisters in Christ, strong or weak) to make sure that my influence is not spread in such a way that, through exercising my freedoms to do these things, I cause another to stumble.

But where I think a lot of people kinda glaze over and stop paying attention is the part where it's the responsibility of the "weaker" Christian to realize that he or she is "weak" when it comes to a particular issue and just know to not do it.

Just to get rid of the vague "thing" issue while at the same time keeping the integrity of my example to other Christians intact, let's put an example on this that could not possibly cause anyone to stumble one direction or the other. Let us assume, then, that driving a 1992 red and gray Ford F-150 is a questionable moral issue for some people. (Hey, guess what! That's my truck!)

Now... In knowing that driving my truck causes some people to stumble, I will take precautions to avoid that happening. For instance, if my truck drove people to sin, I wouldn't drive my truck to church. I'd take a different car, I'd hitch a ride, I'd walk... But I wouldn't take my truck.

The thing is, though... It's still my truck. I still really like driving my truck. I know that I can drive my truck and still live my life completely focused on a pursuit of the Kingdom of Heaven. Me driving my truck does not get in the way of my walk with God. (In fact, it lets me go further faster.)

So let's say I'm in my truck, just tearing around the back roads by the house. I'm not out where people are going to see me unless they come looking. (Seriously - it's some pretty country out here, and you can go for miles and miles and miles without ever seeing another car, if you go to the right places. I go to these places regularly.)

That's all between me, God, and the gas pump. As far as God is concerned, yeah, driving my truck is A-OK, so long as I do my part to keep someone from stumbling.

But if you come to my house and see my truck sitting in the driveway, it looks kinda bad if you just immediately start smashing up the windows, busting the headlights, cutting my brake lines, pouring sugar in the gas tank...

It's my truck. I'm the one driving it. I'm the one with the keys.

My truck has nothing to do with your spirituality.

If you think that your driving of my truck is a sin, don't ask me for the keys.

Man, I really hope this is still making sense.

The responsibility of the "stronger" Christian is to remove any possible stumbling block in the path of the "weaker" Christian. But it is the responsibility of the "weaker" Christian to grow stronger and understand that there are some things out there that might not actually be sins for everyone, even if it is a sin for me or you.

Jesus turned water into wine. The host of the feast said, "THIS IS REALLY AWESOME WINE!" Grape juice is not really awesome wine. Really awesome wine has alcohol in it. Really awesome wine has the potential to get you drunk if you misuse it. Therefore I have absolutely no qualms about saying that yes, I believe it is possible for a perfectly strong Christian to drink alcohol and still be close to God. Jesus Himself drank enough that the Pharisees used His party-guy demeanor as an accusation against Him and the Apostles more than once (Luke 5, Luke 7, lots of other spots).

If you don't think it's OK for you to drink, hey, that's cool. Don't.

If you don't think it's OK for you to watch R-rated movies, right on. Don't.

If you don't think it's OK for you to drive a 1992 red and gray Ford F-150, that's your thing. Don't.

But even as much as it is the responsibility of the guy who can drink, watch an R-rated movie, and drive a 1992 red and gray Ford F-150 (not all at the same time, of course...) to not put the stumbling block in the path of the one who cannot do those things in clear conscience, every bit of the same burden is laid on the one who cannot do those things to not judge those who can.

When we are trying to bring people in from The World to The Father, we're encountering them as people with a set code of morality that may not actually have anything to do with Biblical foundations whatsoever. And that's OK. God can use that. God can reach those people. God can get into their hearts and their minds and their souls and show them that He really is the point of everything. He can rewire them to be absolutely charged up with the energy of the Holy Spirit and set them on a path that brings them closer to Him, and pulling other people along as they go.

But when He does that, He might not do it the same way He did it with you.

There are going to be things that other Christians, both young and old in their faith, do that you can't, because it would be a violation of your conscience.

That's OK.

Don't do those things, and don't judge them for doing them.

We don't have to try to get to the point where we're strong enough to do those things. It's OK for me to believe that I should not do certain things that cause me to stumble. But there's nothing at all in Scripture that says it is my responsibility to get other people to stop doing things that they can handle with perfect maturity and clarity of mind... just because I am the one who can't handle it.

So go ahead. Do what you want. If you're living a life focused on God, what you want to do will change anyway.

But remember - and this part is actually really scary for a lot of people... It is ultimately your own choice what you do. If you choose to look to me as the "stronger" example, you just may see me doing some things that you don't like, some things that you can't handle. My influence over you is not totalitarian. You still have your own free will independent of my actions, good or bad. Know your conscience. Know the Spirit. Know the Bible. Don't violate any of those and you're good... no matter what you're doing.

Rules of Engagement #3 - It Doesn't Matter

For the three of you reading this who might not yet have figured this out about me, I'm a comic book nerd. That's just a thing that straight up is about me. I love me some comics. I read some Captain America a few days ago that made me weep. My senior English paper at Harding was over the first 103 issues of the Fantastic Four - the Stan Lee and Jack Kirby run. Frank Miller and David Mazzuchelli's "Born Again" arc from Daredevil vol. 1 #227-233 is seriously on par with Hamlet in my book.

Now, while I may not understand it, there are a lot of people - like, a disturbingly large number of people - out there in the comic book reading world who think that Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' Watchmen is the greatest comic ever written.

Personally, I don't even think Watchmen qualifies for "not bad."

But when I was standing in line at HeroesCon a few years back, waiting to meet Gene "The Dean" Colan, it really didn't matter what my opinion was on Watchmen and it didn't matter what the opinion of the guy behind me was on "Born Again" - we had something bigger to focus on. We were both excited about what we had in common: a tremendous respect for a legendary artist of the classic Marvel Bullpen. When we both realized we were in the presence of a man who, even at 80-something years old, can still draw an Eisner award-winning Captain America story, we stopped caring about the little stuff that divided us, like preferences for certain titles, certain artists, certain authors... and we really came together on the big thing we shared. We were both just nuts about comics. American comics, European comics, Japanese comics, comics from the 30's, comics from last week, superhero comics, cowboy comics, regular-ordinary-guy comics... We liked comics.

Unfortunately, it's not like that very often. If you've never been around a whole bunch of us comic book guys in one place at one time, it can be hectic. There's this deep well of vicious bile stored up for anyone who disagrees with the majority of comic book readers. You don't like The Dark Knight Returns? Get behind me, Satan!

Can't we just not agree on stuff?

If you're reading comics, I'm thrilled. Absolutely thrilled. I don't care what it is, it's awesome that you're reading it. That's how much I love comics. It makes no difference to me if your favorite character is Batman or Jeffy from The Family Circus. It's comics. I love the art form itself enough that I can be OK with you not loving the exact same things the exact same way I do.

I think it's important to be a lot like that with my Christianity.

There are things that we obsess over and fight over and divide over that really... well, they're just not worth getting upset about in the first place.

Especially not when we're all supposed to be focused on something bigger than any and all of us anyway.

My goal is not for you to fall in love with "Born Again" the way that I am. I would love it if that happened, because yeah, it's an awesome book, but it's not so awesome that I think that everybody on the planet will dig it exactly the same way I do. You gotta know some stuff about Daredevil to really get that book. It helps to have read the original Frank Miller run, as well as a lot of things that came before it. It's not for everybody.

But my goal definitely is for you to fall in love with comics. There's something out there for you, I promise. It does not matter who you are, I promise you that there is a comic book out there with your name on it. I believe that with all of my heart. Young or less young, male or female, "Jesus Is Just Alright" by DC Talk kind of Christian or "Jesus Is Just Alright" by The Doobie Brothers kind of Christian, it doesn't matter*, I know there's one out there for you.

So let's corral this back down to reality for a minute.

My goal in reaching the lost is not that they become a Christian the exact same way that I am a Christian. I'm a somewhat-conservative libertarian Southern boy raised in the church of Christ from 1983-onward, absorbing years of niche pop culture with a steady soundtrack of Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, and Jimi Hendrix. There aren't going to be a whole lot of people who fit that mold. So there's no need for me to try to shove them into that mold.

But my goal in reaching the lost definitely is to show them Christ. I want them to see Jesus. I want them to know God. I want them to understand the same things that I understand that have led me to change my life for the far, far, far better. I want them to know that there is a way to escape their past. I want them to know that there is an answer for a better life that really just makes too much sense to be ignored. I want them to know that Christianity works. It is the power of God in the world today, transforming men and women, young and old, rich and poor, across all divides of race and power and prestige and nationality, seeking to bridge the gap between the creation and its Creator.

I want people to see The Big Thing. I want them to know Absolute Truth. I want them to know God.

And God is big enough that I can be OK with them disagreeing with me on a few things.

There are good Christian folks out there who believe that the Leviathan and Behemoth mentioned in Job are dinosaurs. That's cool. I don't believe that, but I don't think it matters, because no matter what Leviathan and Behemoth were, the point is that God is bigger.

There are good Christian folks out there who believe that Ezekiel the prophet may have been an epileptic. That's cool. I don't know whether he was or not, but even if he was, the point is that God still used Ezekiel to accomplish His Will. God's bigger than epilepsy.

There are good Christian folks out there who believe that it's a sin to ever drink any alcohol in any form. That's cool. I completely disagree. God's bigger than alcohol.

Here's the thing... When you are completely zeroed in on nothing but following Christ, you start to notice just how much you've got in common with the Christians around you. You see that we are all going after One Purpose. We are all going after One Truth. We are all going to One Place.

But when you lose that focus on Christ and start to look around at other people, it's easy to notice how different everybody is. And sometimes in those differences, it's easy to think that if somebody's not looking up to Jesus from the same vantage point as me, then he can't possibly be seeing the same Jesus I'm seeing. He can't be worshiping God right. But in reality, he's seeing the exact same Jesus Christ, the exact same Son of God... he's just standing on a different hill, so his point of view isn't the same as mine.

But since it's still the same Jesus...

Isn't that OK?

If we don't go to the same kind of church but we still love the same Jesus, isn't that OK?

If we don't listen to the same music but we still show unending love to those around us because we still love the same Jesus, isn't that OK?

If we don't read the same version of the Bible, but we both still apply what the Bible teaches into our lives and let God transform us into the people we were meant to be because we still came to love and worship the same Jesus, isn't that OK?

These questions are rhetorical, but I really do need to make sure that you all understand that the answer is "yes."

When C.S. Lewis was writing the radio lectures that would eventually become Mere Christianity, he sought out the help of four clergymen: one each Catholic, Anglican, Presbyterian and Methodist. He wanted to make sure that he was speaking to the great truth that united them all - a love for God through Jesus Christ. And you know what happened? He did just that! He talked about Christianity, not Catholicism or Anglicanism or Presbyterianism or Methodism. He talked about what unites us - because there's a whole lot more that unites us than separates us. He talked about what we have in common, because what we have in common should be what identifies us, not what separates us from each other.

And if we can't do that amongst ourselves, then we're never going to be able to really bring people in to Christ the way we were meant to.

When you're talking to someone who doesn't even believe in God, it really doesn't matter what you believe about how and when the Lord's Supper is observed. That's not the important part. That's not what we've got to show people. We've got to show people God.

Jesus, God's One and Only Son, died to forgive the sins of humanity.

After that, it's pretty much all details.

The important part - the part that matters - is how people react to Jesus. That's what matters.

So next week we'll talk about just exactly what falls into that "doesn't matter" category. Some of you might be surprised. I know I was.

* - I'm personally a "Jesus Is Just Alright" by Robert Randolph and the Family Band featuring Eric Clapton kind of Christian, but hey, it still doesn't matter!

Rules of Engagement #2 - We're All Wrong

What is sin?

I'm not asking what some sins are - we all know that. We all know that murder and rape and greed and blasphemy are sins. But what is it that those have in common? What does all sin have in common? What is the one thing that makes a sin - any and all sin - a sin?

Well, personally, I think that anything that we do that violates the will of God (love Him and love others) is sin. That pretty much encompasses everything. Obviously murder is not very loving towards others, specifically the other that one would need to make dead in order to qualify for the act of murder. Blasphemy shows a lack of respect for God, which kinda messes up the whole thing about loving Him.

All sin comes from one thing: us. We can blame our upbringings, we can blame the other people around us, and we can blame Satan, but it all still comes down to one thing, and that's simply us. Whatever the sin was, it happened at the point where I decided that my will and my desires were more important than God's will and His desires. I was gonna do what I wanted to do, no matter what God wanted me to do.

So... That's what I think sin really is: a defiance of God the creator on the part of Man the creation.

And I really think that's the best way to think about it. Not to say that I'm the definitive source for understanding on the nature of our relationship to God or anything like that, but I think it helps to understand sin at its most basic level. By understanding sin at its most basic level, we can understand a whole lot of other stuff, too.

For instance... If all sin is understood to simply be defying God, then all sin takes on the exact same weight. It doesn't matter what the sin is - if it's something sexual, if it's something violent, if it's something dishonest, if it's something arrogant... it really just kinda stops mattering. It's still sin. It's all still trying to put yourself above God, and that just ain't gonna work.

He is, after all, God.

It really doesn't matter how much we sin - it's not gonna mess up God's plans.

It also doesn't matter how righteous we are - we're not doing God some huge favor.

He's God. He's got it under control and we don't.

Our faith doesn't change God's world, it changes ours. God is going to be God whether we act like it or not, whether we even believe in Him or not.

Look up at the heavens and see;

gaze at the clouds so high above you.

If you sin, how does that affect Him?

If your sins are many, what does that do to Him?

If you are righteous, what do you give to Him,

or what does He receive from your hand?

Your wickedness affects only a man like yourself,

and your righteousness only the sons of men.

- Job 35:5-8

God is Perfect. God is Holy. God is Love.

We aren't.

We're aiming for that, sure... But we fall short. So very short. All of us.

And here's the thing about that... It really doesn't matter how close we think we're getting, we're still an impossibly huge distance from that Holy Loving Perfection.

My righteousness is not defined by anything I am or say or do except that I have chosen to allow God to redefine my life and steer me towards His Righteousness. I am a sinful creature, no doubt, but my sins have been forgiven, which is a pretty amazing thing... right up until I start taking that forgiveness for granted and turn that into a sin on its own.

Think of the worst person you know - just the absolutely most depraved creature of sin you've ever encountered. Think of all the horrible things you know that person has done, and all the horrible things you've heard he or she might have done, and all the horrible things you've imagined that person could have done.

And now remember that you're really not any better.

The nearest star to the earth after the sun is Alpha Centauri, some 4.37 light-years, or 25.8 trillion miles, away. The earth itself has a diameter of just under 8,000 miles. So let's say there's a guy standing on the exact opposite side of the earth from me, and I'm looking straight up at Alpha Centauri. Yeah, that other guy (who is standing in the Indian Ocean, about 1,000 miles off of the coast of Western Australia, just FYI) is a whole 8,000 miles further from Alpha Centauri than I am, but considering that even if we were standing in the same place, we'd still be 25,800,000,000,000 miles away from what we're looking at, and on that scale, another 8,000 miles in either direction just really isn't that big of a deal.

And that's how it is with us and God and everyone else around us. I really don't have any special view on righteousness. Even if I am closer to God than another person, I'm still so very far from God that I'm not exactly out on my own. My righteousness is not defined by me, it's defined by God. When I try to get the righteousness thing going on my own, I mess it up, because I am not - by definition - capable of attaining righteousness on my own. I can only become righteous by being made righteous by the love of God through the sacrifice of Jesus.

So I've had that running around in my head for a while now, and it's led me to some interesting places as far as how it can be applied to spreading the Gospel.

I know I'm still pretty bad at it sometimes - maybe even a lot of times - but I've noticed that God has helped me stop judging people quite so very much, and for that, I'm thankful.

There are people in the world who have committed murder and have yet to accept Christ and His teachings as the way to a better life. It doesn't do me or them any good to think of myself as better than them just because I've never actually killed a guy. I've certainly thought about it enough. I've wished just as much harm on people, maybe even more. And who knows, if I'd been in the same circumstances, maybe I'd have stumbled the same way they stumbled. It doesn't matter - I need God's forgiveness just as much as they do.

I may not have ever robbed a bank, but I've definitely taken things that weren't mine.

I may not have ever been a prostitute, but I've definitely taken liberties with my libido that I shouldn't have.

I may not have ever sacrificed children to Molech, but I've definitely taken God out of His proper place in my worldview and replaced Him with something worldly and empty.

Sinning just a little is still sinning a whole lot. Even 99.99% pure is still impure.

When we realize that our sin is just as heinous and wretched and damnable as the sin of everyone else on the planet, we can relate to them a little better.

When we realize that it's our sin as well as their sin that put Jesus on the cross, we understand a bit more of the commonality between us all, and that's when we can show them how we've escaped the unending doom of our own lives of constant failure.

You know that you're not supposed to judge people, I know that I'm not supposed to judge people. I'm not saying anything new here, and I'm not saying anything extra-Biblical. I'm just saying that we've got to make it real to us, because the one thing that I hear more than anything else about Christians is that we've apparently got a bit of a reputation for judging people. That ain't cool. That's not how Jesus operated, and I think it's a pretty safe bet to say that He's a good example to follow.

Of course, that's just what I personally believe... And that's what we'll be talking about next week.

Rules of Engagement #1 - Stick To It

If you ask me who my favorite band in the world is... Well, I think most of you can finish this sentence by now. It will do you no good - avail you absolutely nothing in the slightest - if, during our discussion, you insist that Screeching Weasel (this is a real band) is better than Led Zeppelin, especially if your evidence is the Screeching Weasel song "I Hate Led Zeppelin" (which is also real, not that any of you should go listen to it, because it's also real bad).

When discussing whether Rick Deckard is a replicant or not (spoiler: he is), it serves absolutely no purpose whatsoever to ask whether Han or Greedo shot first. (Han, and I don't care what your fancy-pants special edition DVD says.)

I wish I could come up with examples for this that aren't completely nerdy, but hey, I'm a nerd. It's what I know.

But the point - nerdy or not - is entirely the same across all of everything: if you're talking about oranges, apples do not bear much relevance to the topic at hand.

Guess what?

Strangely enough, that is still true for discussions about God.

Storytime!

When I was up in Kansas a few weeks ago for my friend Sarah's wedding, she was THE only person I knew there. Like, in the entire state. I knew ONE person, and that was the bride. I didn't have a car, and I'd missed my opportunity to be out for the night, so I was definitely in... watching Sarah and her bridesmaids sew dresses and enjoying the BBC Pride and Prejudice. The one with Colin Firth.

Let me clarify this: Sarah and her bridesmaids were enjoying it. I was not. I do not like Mr. Darcy, I do not like Elizabeth Bennett, and I do not like being the only guy in a room full of women swooning for a guy who isn't me. That he is fictional only adds insult to the injury.

It so happened that one of Sarah's bridesmaids, Kimi, brought along her fiancé, Kevin, who was also one of the groomsmen. This guy SAVED MY LIFE. Finally, in the midst of this rampant chick-flickery, I get to hang out with a dude. And what a dude he was.

There was little time lost between our introduction and a deep conversation being struck between myself and Kevin. We talked about a great deal many of the things that two men talk about when the women are off being "the women," but our conversation eventually wound up circling around a discussion of morality, religion, and the social progression of humanity.

My goodness, it was a fascinating conversation.

We talked for what seemed like hours! We covered so many different ideas and understandings and points of view, and the entire time, we just built off of each other and leapt to new ideas and new ways of seeing exactly what the other was talking about... It was wonderful!

And the fun part of it was that Kevin is an atheist.

I've got atheist friends. Having a discussion on these topics with someone who does not believe the same things I believe is not a foreign idea. And it's not even that this conversation went so well that is particularly what matters, because I've had that happen before, too.

What really tickles me about it is actually what happened the day after the wedding. I was talking to Jimbo, Sarah's ridiculously cool husband, for what was really the first good chat the two of us had been able to share. I'd met him for about ten seconds on Thursday, the wedding was on Friday, and Saturday's the first time he's actually had a minute to breathe, let alone talk to some dude his wife went to college with.

As Jimbo and I were talking, I was surprised when the conversation Kevin and I had shared came up. Specifically, it came up when Jimbo said, with a strong note of astonishment in his voice, "So I heard you talked religion with Kevin the other night! I am impressed."

"Wait, what? Why impressed?"

"Dude. NOBODY talks religion with Kevin. It is just IMPOSSIBLE to do."

"What, are you serious? That guy was so chill! He wasn't a jerk about it, he didn't try to shove his beliefs down my throat, and he respected that we can talk about what we agree on and what we disagree on without having to demonize the other guy."

"Hey, he said the same thing about you, man."

"Really?"

"Well, kinda. When we were getting ready for the ceremony, I asked him, 'So, what about that Aaron guy?', and the first thing he said was, 'Man, that Aaron guy is one Christian I can talk to.'"

True story!

How about that? I managed to talk to a guy I'd never met, never even seen before in my life, for a solid three hours about a topic that we completely disagreed on. And all the while, both of us have a reputation in some circles for being difficult people to discuss that topic with! I know for sure that not all of my conversations with atheists have gone as well as that one did, and I know Kevin's had some difficult conversations with Christians, as well.

It's hard sometimes to talk to someone whose fundamental definition of reality is different from yours. But I think that if you have a certain attitude in mind, it just gets a lot easier.

I think Kevin and I were both really rockin' on that attitude that night. I hope this doesn't sound like I'm bragging about my insane skills at talking to atheists or anything... #1, it's not like that field is gonna be getting its own merit badge or anything anytime soon, and #2, "bragging" implies that I did this on purpose, like I had some kind of clue what was going on. No, no... That was not me. I did not have my hands on the wheel at that point. The Spirit was definitely working in me.

And who knows? Maybe it was working in Kevin, too. I have a feeling he'd doubt that, though...

(For the six of you who will get the joke, I'm gonna pull a Jonathan Storment here.)

I tell you that... to tell you this...

I think the reason Kevin and I were able to have such a great discussion (through the working of the Spirit or through whatever else might have happened) was that we both managed to actually stick to the discussion we were having.

When Kevin asked me a specific question about my beliefs, I was able to give him an answer that didn't include a sermon, and I didn't go outside of the question by trying to bring up other beliefs he didn't ask about. He asked me about oranges, I talked about oranges. And I wasn't a jerk. (Woo! Go me!)

When I asked Kevin a specific question about his view of the God he doesn't believe in but I do, he was able to give me an answer that wasn't disparaging of my belief, and he didn't bring out his (dis)beliefs with an aim towards heating up the conversation. I asked him about apples, he talked about apples. And he wasn't a jerk. (Woo! Go Kevin!)

Man... I really ought to try to be like that every single time I talk to people. That would probably be pretty cool.

I think that's the first rule about talking religion with somebody. Whatever the question was, your answer has to stick to it. Be specific, be honest, and don't bring up the things that don't matter for that question.

If you ask me who my favorite band is, I will talk your ear off about Led Zeppelin, not The Firm. Yes, there's a fairly decent connection between the two, but it's not at all the answer to the question you asked.

This may seem like a pretty obvious thing to say, but I really think we (I) could use somebody writing some of this stuff down, because we're kinda bad at this. And not just on the Christian to atheist front. We're bad at this with fellow Christians.

If someone asks you about your beliefs on the nature of God, an answer about the evils of adultery is not going to be a whole lot of help. We get lost in the distractions instead of sticking to the point.

And the worst part about that is that the point is really simple.

BE GOOD.

That's the point.

The point is not that we all agree 100% on the interpretation of every single passage of scripture. The point is not that we all go to the same building every Sunday morning. The point is not that we all clap-or-don't-clap during the singing.

The point is that you behave yourself. That's the point. God set up everything in the world to show us who He is, and once you know who He is, you behave yourself.

So stick to that.

Don't worry about what other people are wearing, or saying, or doing, or thinking, or believing if it doesn't take away from the glory of God.

If they're not Christians, you're not going to convince them that we're the team to join if you're frothing at the mouth because they don't believe the same things you believe. And if they are Christians, you're not going to score any points with anybody by insisting that we all read the same version of the Bible as you and burn the rest.

Again, this may sound basic, and even pedantic, but I think it's worth laying out, because it lays the foundations for a couple of other things I really want to talk about.

But uhh... I guess I'm done for now. Next week, we'll talk about the nature of sin. That's gonna be fun.