9.1.14
I was driving out of Chicago the other day. We had been in town for a White Sox game (in
my case, for a Tigers game just in case anyone thinks I am a Sox fan!). Now driving in Chicago can involve a bit of
traffic and sometimes a person needs something to do. A nice Prius went by me with a back end that
was fairly covered with bumper stickers.
A lot of them had fairly small print so I wasn’t able to read them
all. I decided to get behind the car
when I had the opportunity so that I could occupy a few minutes with some novel
reading material.
You can usually judge a person’s politics and world view based on
bumper stickers and the more there are, the better guess you can take. In this case, it was evident that person was likely
from a liberal mindset politically for sure and probably spiritually as well. There were the usual COEXIST and can’t we all
just be nice get along kinds of stickers.
But there was one that I had never seen before which got me
thinking. No design, just two lines of
script:
Blaming
human nature and sin is not
helpful
– We are all responsible.
This is one of those surface level philosophies that sounds good on
first read, but any reflection results in serious questions about the
foundation on which it is based. First,
I am operating from as assumption that the statement is intended as a comment
against religion/faith in general.
Partly, the other stickers on the car seemed to bend in that
direction. But also, the statement has
that “We have evolved so far beyond this sort of thing” that seems common in a
lot of post religious thought.
However, religious people and non-religious alike will probably agree
that using human weakness as an excuse for bad behavior is hardly a good place
to begin genuine problem solving at any level from the individual to the family
to the community. The result can be a
somewhat fatalistic attitude along the lines of “Not much we can do about it;
that’s just the way people are” and “What do you expect from someone like that?”
But it’s not the first part that was interesting to me. It was the second half of the sticker, “We
are all responsible.” Again, most people
religious or otherwise would agree that responsibility is a good thing. But it is responsibility itself that is the
issue. Because while we can agree on the
surface that responsibility is a good thing, it is a very surface level
discussion until we can talk about the deeper issue of “responsible to what?”
If we all live in a similar culture, say Midwestern middle class (like
me), we may have some general agreement about responsible-to-what without
really talking about it. But even if it
is not discussed aloud, the concept of responsibility invokes the reality of a
standard to which all people are held accountable. Without such a standard each person can
pretty much be responsible to whatever he or she wants and no one really has
the right to tell them that they are wrong.
An obvious example of this to many in the US right now are the Islamic
militants who kill anyone who does not submit to their version of religious
truth. Because that belief system is so
foreign to many Americans, it is easy for people to view militants of this
nature as (to put it kindly) irresponsible without ever thinking about the
underlying assumption that there is a standard of responsibility to which all
are accountable. But we can be as sure
of this as of anything: Islamic militants are VERY responsible to what they
believe they should be responsible to. In fact, they may be some of the most responsible
people on earth! Responsibility isn’t the
problem – the standard is.
This takes us back to the first part of the bumper sticker. While we can agree that using human nature
and sin as an excuse is not helpful, it really is the only starting point for
understanding the mess we have made of the world. Of course, sin itself requires the presence
of a standard. There really is nothing
like sin if everyone is truly free to make up his or her own mind about right
and wrong. It’s the same for human
nature which is usually just code for “sin” in the post religious world. Identified faults (sins) such as selfishness,
exploitation, racism, violence as a means of control, judgment and so on are
really only faults if there is some standard by which to measure them. Otherwise, they are nothing more than
opinions and lifestyle choices. Sadly,
too many people in the post religious world are having meaningless discussions
about responsibility because they never get to this level . And they often converse from a perspective
that faith is either beneath them, irrelevant, or in some cases the cause of
the whole problem. They reject the very
concept that is necessary for responsibility to mean anything in the first
place.
The Christian world view agrees: we ARE all responsible. We are all responsible to a standard that
none of us is able to meet. Sin (human
nature) is real precisely because there is a standard to which we are all
accountable. I have yet to meet a person
who does not know somewhere deep inside that there is something wrong with him
(or her); that he doesn’t quite measure up. Platitudes like “everyone makes mistakes” are
not sufficient to take away the nagging sense that something is just not
right. Freedom is found both in
accepting the reality and responsibility for our human nature and accepting
that in Jesus Christ, the requirements of the standard have been met once for
all. This does not give people freedom
to blame human nature and sin. It does
give people the power, knowledge and confidence to make a positive difference
in the world in spite of the consistent irresponsibility we find in ourselves
and others. It’s a great adventure! Feel free to join in.
Jim
PS - If you are within driving distance, consider joining us for Shall We Gather at the River - 2014. This is a Christian Leadership Conference we are hosting in Dubuque October 23&24 and which will focus on racial realities and reconciliation in the church. One of the featured speakers is my friend Seth Naicker from South Africa and of Team iThemba fame! Here's the link:
