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Who are you? |
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Written by Fayette Crapo
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Friday, 13 June 2008 |
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In recent days I have heard people say of friends that act out in an undesirable way, “that is not the person I know,” as if to excuse misconduct or poor judgment. Defining a person only by their good creates a definition of a person that does not exist. Keeping an open mind about our selves the question is who are we?
If someone sets a $20 bill down on a table, when they turn away I could be tempted to take it. I can easily apply a set of black and white ethics to it and know right away what the right and wrong things to do are. But as situations change and seem to be more complex it can be come harder to know how to apply the Godly principles we know to the situation. Sometimes we apply situational ethics instead, and we might not even realize it. Take for instance this scenario: Someone stole something from a store. As that sentence stands almost every one would say that the person here is wrong. (Even fewer of us may say that stealing is wrong understanding the scripture about what we fight against). Ethics dictate that it is always wrong to steel. Situational ethics will ask, what was stolen, who stole it and why? Certainly, a penny candy isn’t so bad. Or a cute little girl doesn’t really understand, so it’s no big deal. Or the father only stole an apple to feed his starving child so you can’t fault him for that can you? So who are we? Do we practice situational ethics or not? As Christians do we see things as right or wrong or does the situation excuse our choices? Abstractly we can all see that this is a clear choice on our part. If we decide not to use the situational ethics model of judgment, we will see that stealing is stealing. Can’t we say that if situational ethics were ok, we wouldn’t need a savior? After all it’s not our fault we were born into sin. If we are careful to only sin when it is justifiable (and we are really good at justifying sin) then situational ethics could be our defense and some of us could be good enough to enter God’s kingdom on our own. So then why did God send Jesus? So if your still reading I’ll assume you agree that we are to be people that aught to see in black and white. My wife Sherry and I will debate certain issues and we find that we sometime are thinking situationally and realize it until we have it pointed out to us. We watched the movie Gone Baby Gone a few weeks ago. (Spoiler follows) A woman who is running drugs for a gangsters and doing all kinds of sinful acts has a little girl. Here uncle finds out that the woman has crossed a line. To him the line was taking the little girl with her to run drugs. He works with some police that agree to stage a kidnapping and fake the little girls death at the hands of the gangster so that she could be given to a couple that are pillars of society. Step by step we can see situational ethics play out. First the mother loses her little girl, but that seems ok in away for a couple reasons. Additionally the gangster being framed for a crime he did not do is only fitting for all the crimes he’d never be caught for and the cops that are breaking the law have only ever done so for the sake of justice. At the end of the movie all the situational stuff is stripped away and we are shown that the little girl every one thought was dead is found alive. She is in the home of a couple that are well off, and love her. They would do anything for her, even leave there home or go to jail. This love has made the little girl really happy and seemingly well adjusted. Then we are faced the question, what to do about what we know? Do nothing and let the girl stay, being able to grow up and be all that she could be or send her home to her mother? This question provoked me emotionally as the main character insisted that he could not live with him self if he just walked away. To me all the things that lead us to this point in the story were history. It was a simple case of what do you do to this little girl? Do you really send her back to a life of abandonment, abuse, poverty, and neglect? How is that right by the little girl? How could any one knowingly send a child into that kind of environment? My wife said to me that I was applying situational ethics to the question. I didn’t see it that way at all. Now after thinking about it I think she is right. I thought I was seeing black and white, and I was as long as I ignored the entire situation leading to this point while assuming the mother was hopeless and the foster family was flawless. (I wasn’t working with definitions of real people) We are supposed to be conforming to the likeness of Jesus, so all this philosophy is pointless unless we connect this to who God want’s us to be. Part of who Jesus is defined by his love and compassion. As Christians, with out love and compassion I think we would be pretenders, hopeless, and dead. If this is all we ever emulate of Jesus I fear we will wind up at the same point from a different path. We need to know who Jesus is to emulate him. To me the best man that ever demonstrated the true likeness of Christ is the one who’s guiding characteristic is integrity. For me love and compassion alone lead me to choices that are well intentioned but less than perfect. Love is like a boat, Compassion is like a propeller, but Integrity is the like the rudder. Jesus tells us that love is the greatest of these and I say that is truth. With out the boat, the ore and the rudder will never function for us and we are left alone to tread water. Compassion is like the ores of a boat because it is compassion that moves us to action. We may love some one, but when we feel compassion for them we act. Our movement with out the ability to control the boat through the currents and eddies may at first be a not so obvious danger. But when the first current turns your direction the need becomes desperate. The need for the rudder can not be underestimated but a rudder will not get you pointed in the right direction with out movement. In the End of the movie, the girl and mother are re-united and the main character has lost his girlfriend for his stand. In the last scene, we see the mother about to go out on a date and the main character comes over to check up on the girl. He finds the girl blankly watching cartoons on TV and that the mother hasn’t made any arrangements for the girl while she goes out for the night. He offers to watch the girl for the mother and the movie end with the two sitting on the couch together. I don’t know how to end this but to say that this movie does not define for us who God is or who we should chose to be. We should never let the arts (movies, music, TV, or plays) be the source of our definition for God or ourselves. Be careful that we don’t quote the arts more than we quote God. Be careful we don’t understand the arts better than God. The arts can be used to provoke thought and ideas, but with out brining the thoughts and ideas under the light of God’s word we are ripe for deception, and in deception we are unable to answer the question: Who are you? |
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