Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation. | 1 Peter 2:11–12
On Sunday, we looked at the story of the fiery furnace in Daniel 3. In this, we see 3 young men: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego stand up to the king’s demand and receive a punishment for not bowing to the idol of Nebuchadnezzar. We talked about cultural pressures and the need to take a stand when what we are being asked to do conflicts with God’s order. I had two really good conversations after service that I thought would be worth addressing here.
The first had to do with where the line these men drew actually was. At the end of chapter 2, they are put in charge of the affairs of the province of Babylon. Very simply, they were men in authority. As the decree went out from Nebuchadnezzar to some see this new wonder he had set up, it goes out to the leaders to gather. In the OT, this was always a call to the leaders to bring those they ruled over to the assembly; these men would have brought a number of people with them to Dura. While they refused to bow to the statue, they most likely brought a number of others to foot of the statue to worship. Is that okay?
We really don’t have all of the information to be able to answer that question, but it does remind me that when it comes to drawing lines, it is not always cut and dry. Some people would argue passionately that these men should have refused earlier, others may not believe their actions before the king were necessary at all. I don’t think that the moral to this story is: draw the line exactly where they did. Instead, it is: worship God in the way that He has directed and He will help you draw the lines that He has for you. A friend of mine recently declared Isaiah 30.21 his theme verse for the year and I believe that it fits this:
And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left. Then you will defile your carved idols overlaid with silver and your gold-plated metal images. You will scatter them as unclean things. You will say to them, “Be gone!”
Isaiah 30:21–22
There will be a time to turn to the right and to the left and it is the Spirit who will guide you toward which one is correct in the moment; the Spirit will declare which idols must be scattered. Due to the numerous variables, it will not always be a simple line and not all Christians will land in the same place. In many instances, there will be faithful Christians on both sides of the line.
For some, this sounds like nothing more than subjectivism and situational ethics; I would call it complexity. I believe strongly in absolute truth, but I don’t think that we have unfettered access to it. Believing this requires us to act in faithfulness as God works in us so that we are: transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect (Romans 12.2).
This leads to the second conversation I had, which was a question about why I didn’t draw more lines in a sermon about drawing lines. It is important to know that we are going to need to stand up to cultural pressure, but people want to know what issues they should be standing up to now. Since this Sunday was Sanctity of Life Sunday, an easy application would have been to address the issue of abortion. I have talked about abortion in sermons in the past and blogged about it (here, here, here, and here), so the issue is not ignoring a difficult topic. When preaching, I try to be careful not shine a light on a line we all agree on so that we miss the others that God (through His Spirit) is pointing out to us. The issue of standing against cultural pressure and crushing idols has a multitude of applications, and we need to consider all of them, not just the ones that seem to be the biggest issues.
My fear is that the church has drawn a handful of lines and left many of the other ethical and moral conversations on the sideline as: not a gospel issue. God has given us His wisdom and His Spirit to apply to all things. We must be willing to discuss the many lines we draw, while also making very few of them dividing lines. Not being a gospel issue means: I will not declare you to a heretic based on this line, not: we had better not talk about it for fear of conflict. It is an invitation to discussion, not a way to shut it down.
This way of positive disagreement has been encouraged over the last decade as a solution to our fractured culture, under the names Principled Pluralism or Convicted Civility (one of the better articles on this can be found HERE). They have tried to point out that a war over lines ends in hostility, but there is a better way:
One first step is for all parties involved to avoid the politics and media-driven polarizations that promote a “warfare” metaphor. This approach reinforces the prejudice—often found among both religious conservatives and secular progressives—that there can be only a winner and a loser, and that we therefore cannot share the public square. It’s this zero-sum mentality that we need to overcome. Public life need not be homogeneous. People with very different worldviews can come together when they share common goals. Moreover, this cooperation need not be grudging or suspicious, but can instead be one based in a proper humility about one’s own beliefs and sympathy for those of others.
George Marsden
What is true of the public square is even more true of the church. We don’t have to work hard to find common goals, they are the whole reason we have come together in community. We are unified as: children of God, called from darkness into light, bringing His truth and goodness to His creation. If we can all embrace this, we can learn to appreciate the different ways that people are attempting to accomplish it, even if we think that their way is less than ideal. If we are confident in our identity and goal, then we don’t need to be defensive about our position. We can work together to draw and redraw our lines as the Spirit reveals them.
It is not your pastor’s job to do all of your application. God has given us this multi-tiered system: the Bible, pastors, the Spirit, the church community, to work together to make living as exiles in the world possible. It is your job to use them all: to read your Bible, to engage with your pastor, to listen to the Spirit, and to converse (even argue) with others. It is ALL of these together that will help you to know when to work with and when to stand against. Drawing lines is both a individual and communal endeavor.