Dancing Through Minefields - An Introduction
“The Bible is full of black and white truths that we have to learn to apply to an increasingly greyscale world.” - Me
While most people nod and agree when I tell them this, it is far more personally offensive than they might realize in the moment.
To those who agree because they are in agreement that the Bible is black and white, it is an offensive statement because mining the depths of Scripture to find the truth is much harder than simply listening to your favorite preachers, reading your favorite publications, or talking with your favorite friends and regurgitating what they say. Most of the time we cultivate circles of influence that affirm what we want to hear, even to the exclusion of what the Bible actually says, and to acknowledge that requires humility, and correcting it requires work.
The Bible is full of stories, poems, and era specific communication between God and humans that it takes great care to peel apart and discover the truth and what is applicable to us now. To do so requires knowledge of how to study the Bible and an understanding of faith traditions throughout history that together reveal eternal truth, not to mention wisdom to apply the truth to your world. Even the clear commands found in Scripture like “Love your neighbor” require work, because: Who is my neighbor? How do I love them? Is it enough to tolerate them, or just mentally agree I should love them? Is it only when I feel like it? And what about when they are unjust, because the Bible certainly cares about justice as well?!
To those who agree because they affirm that the world is greyscale and nuanced, it is an offensive statement because of the assertion that the Bible holds capital T Truth. We live in an age where we are encouraged to “live your truth,” and while the idea of affirming other people is biblical, it does not mean we affirm every decision they make or thought they believe to be truth. Think about it, someone can live their truth as long as their truth doesn’t hinder our lives. As soon as it does, we get agitated and cancel them and call it self-care. This leaves no room for choosing love over all else, where we make the decision to honor and value all people as made in the image of God by having honest conversation and doing the gritty, exhausting, and emotional work of cultivating steadfast and compassionate friendships. It is easier to caricaturize someone as mean, dumb, evil, intolerant, sexist, or anything else that entitles me to disregard them, rather than love them enough to know them, have conversation with them, disagree with them, and choose to love them still, even if they end up proving my initial assessment of them to be true.
I have been working in the church for 8 years now and in Christian ministry for 12 years, and the Lord has shown me one Truth that will always guide me and one aspect of my personality and heart that I care about deeply and want to bring to the church setting.
The Truth the Lord has shown me is this:
Love is always the right answer.
There is no higher calling on God’s people than to love God with our entire being and to love the people around us in the same way we love ourselves. The most beautiful thing is that this calling is not self-motivated, but responsive. God delights in the people he has created, and while he rejoices in the renewed relationships he has with people who put their faith in him, his heart breaks in love over those who have not. His first thought when he thinks about any human is not anger. His first reaction to us when we ignore him, walk away from him, or live life in ways he did not intend is not disappointment. His heart lavishes love on his entire creation.
God is “slow to anger and abounding in love.” That means it takes a long time to get him angry while his reflex towards us is love, which motivates every word and law and command and conversation and relationship that God initiates. No matter who it is with. No matter what it is about. God is motivated by and acts out of love, which should be the ideal of the Church, all of those people who say they have faith in Jesus. However, because the Church is filled with imperfect people, we will get it wrong, probably daily for the rest of our lives. But true followers of Jesus will fight to make love their highest value each day, and will clean up the messes that occur when they get it wrong. Thank God he has made this faith run on grace and forgiveness, otherwise we’d either have to take the ruthless punishment we can inflict on ourselves and each other daily, or we’d have to give up entirely.
The part of my personality that the Lord has taught me to love and offer to the church is this:
I don’t tolerate B.S. very well.
(Even though there isn’t a person alive who does not know what I mean, I’ve chosen to abbreviate this particular phrase to “B.S.” so that rather than writing emails about my word choice, readers can concern themselves with the point of the article instead.)
From a young age I have intensely valued honesty and transparency and have let that influence all areas of my life. For example, from the moment I started dating my wife I was in love and she was perfect. Too perfect. I actually sat her down and told her to be more herself around me because she was too cookie cutter perfect and I knew there was a goofy and real and imperfect human in there that I wanted to know. She did, and I loved what I found.
I have approached nearly every relationship in my life in the same way. I want people to be honest. Real. Vulnerable. Imperfect. Themselves. Human.
The church has done a wonderful job of collectively agreeing that imperfection is intolerable and we must do whatever we can to convince ourselves and everyone around us that we do not have flaws, we never sin, and we have zero doubts about our faith.
But that is a lie, and didn’t the one we are lying in the name of call himself “the Truth”?
I am convinced that Jesus has something to say to the deepest hidden places in our hearts and minds.
I believe he has tenderness towards our doubts and will provide us the answers or comfort that we need when faced with them.
I believe he has love towards us when we sin and forgiveness for the atrocious things we do and think and say to each other.
I believe he has compassion towards our flaws and grace to help us grow and become better versions of ourselves than we currently are.
If not, if these things are not true, then what was the point of Jesus hanging on the cross?
I believe to the core of my being that the world would be a better place if people felt the comfort and love of Jesus in such great measure that no topic or conversation would be off-limits. We would know that we could approach a Christian and ask them a really hard question, and whether they knew the answer that moment or not, we would never be judged or shamed for asking. And even as the conversation progressed and the list of disagreements grew larger and larger, we could be safe knowing that at the end of the discussion the person sitting across from us would love us earnestly and practically.
When we live life together following after Jesus, there has to be a foundation of Truth and Love that guides all of our days together, and this project is an attempt to build some of that foundation. I am imperfect. I will get things wrong and have to go back and correct them. You will disagree with me at some point. You might not like my tone or sometimes silliness. You might not like what the Bible has to say or the way I interpret it through my study of it. And you probably won’t like that I will not give you an answer that you can either affirm and love me for or reject and hate me for. If you want to continue to engage with the topic you will probably find that you'll have to do your own work to learn and study and grow and have conversations with other humans.
But I won’t beat around the bush. I won’t choose the “Right Christian Answers” without reason. And I will never choose anything other than love as my foundation and final answer every single time.
So many of you have already submitted so many anonymous questions to the prompt “What question would you never ask a pastor?”. I thank you for that and say “Keep Submitting!” (the link to do so is below). If you choose to walk with me as we engage the questions of real life, know that at the end of the day these two things will be true:
These questions will be answered because I won’t tolerate B.S. or superficiality, and instead will choose to be honest and address difficult or taboo topics, even to the point of making us both uncomfortable, because Jesus loves you in those messy places within you just as much as in the pretty ones.
These answers, at their core, will always be the same, because I believe that Love is always the right answer.
“God is love.”
1 John 4:8