View all articles
Denise on Trial ... and the Rest of Us Too
Are Christians too pushy? Lindy decides if Denise is guilty forcing her opinions on others.
Do Christians Have the Right To Tell Others What to Do?
Let me start off by saying that this article is a tribute to the Coffee Shop forums on this site. I stop by regularly to see what's up — who's riled up, who's rational, who's got a good point, who's got a good question. I think interacting over the articles gives us an opportunity to consider more deeply how we might apply truth to our lives — whether we agree with what's been written or not.
Speaking of applying truth to our lives, this time around I want to talk about how Christians handle the truth we believe, especially the way that truth applies to other people's lives. My thoughts were sparked by a Coffee Shop discussion about TrueU editor Denise's article "Working Women."
In that article (which was itself inspired by a Coffee Shop discussion ... are you seeing a trend here?) Denise offered thoughts for Christian women to consider when deciding whether to work after starting a family. She came to the conclusion that there probably isn't just one godly answer to that question, and stated it thus: "I don't personally have a hard and fast rule when it comes to moms working outside of the home or the possibility of a woman making more money than her husband."
One of the coffee shop participants picked up on this sentence and voiced the opinion that if Denise did have a "hard and fast rule," it would be wrong for her to apply it to anyone but herself. In fact, this reader suggested that TrueU writers should stop assuming that our personal preferences ought to be adopted as general standards by TrueU readers. I thought this post posed a fair question — or at least set up the beginning of a good debate. Is it fair for Denise (or any Christian) to apply a "hard and fast rule" to anyone other than herself? And is it fair to accuse TrueU writers (and other Christians by extension) of assuming that our personal opinions ought to be embraced by everyone else? It may seem contradictory, but I say "yes" to both questions.
There's a crucial factor here that wasn't acknowledged in the post by the Coffee Shop participant. Before we decide how "hard and fast rules" ought to be handled, we need to know where they come from. Some "rules" are simply personal convictions — lifestyle choices that a person holds to with fervor. Other rules come from a higher authority like the laws of physics, the federal government or God Himself. This difference matters a lot, because the two different kinds of rules need to be handled in two different ways. The problems start when we get them confused. Which we often do.
I Didn't Make This Stuff Up, I Promise
Our first mistake is trying to downgrade God's law into personal opinion. For example, Christians are often accused of forcing our morality on people. And sometimes the accusations are warranted. But sometimes they're not. Let me try a word picture to explain: If you're driving your car and I'm riding in the passenger seat, and I see that you're going 20 mph over the speed limit, is it forcing my morality on you for me to point that out? Clearly not. I might be a goody-two-shoes, but I'm not forcing my morality on you. I'm reminding you of a standard, created by a higher authority, to which both you and I are held accountable.
It's the same with believers who communicate biblical standards to the world. These are not just personal opinions. We didn't make them up. And in communicating them to others, we are (or should be) acknowledging that we are equally accountable to those standards and equally unable to live up to them by our own strength.
But popular opinion isn't kind to Christians who talk about God's law as if it's actually true and binding. In a relativistic world, people don't want to hear that some things are right and others wrong, and there are immediate and eternal consequences to our actions. So they set up a straw man by acting as if God's law is just a human construct — then it's easy to defeat. Or at least easy to ignore. (I haven't met many straw men who were very compelling.)
Even in the face of that kind of opposition, I think there are several reasons why Christians can — and must — keep communicating these heavenly hard and fast rules to the world.
First, if the Christian story is true, then it's true regardless of whether or not others believe it. Furthermore, if biblical morality is true, then its rules don't exist to ruin our lives, but to guide us into a way of living that is good for us. They're laws made by a Creator, because He knows what's best for His creation, believing or not. And finally, hearing God's law — in all its inflexibility — is a benefit even to those who are offended by it. Galatians 3:24, NIV tells us that "the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ." How does that work? Well, Romans 3:20 says that "through the law we become conscious of sin." In other words, recognizing just how impossible God's law is to keep might just help us to understand our need for a Savior.
Legalism, Schmegalism
The other way we confuse the two kinds of rules is to wrongly inflate our personal opinions to the level of God's law1. That's called legalism, and it's really ugly. For example, Denise could have said that the only biblical solution to the questions in her article was for all Christian wives to stay at home and never earn a paycheck. If she had, she probably wouldn't be my friend anymore, and she would have been guilty of raising her opinion to the level of God's.
Just a few years after Jesus' death, the church was dealing with this issue. Acts 15 tells how some Jewish believers decided that non-Jewish converts to Christianity had to be circumcised for their salvation to "count." The problem was God had never said that. The apostles' answer was decisive: It's wrong to unnecessarily burden people with human opinions that aren't actually God's law. The Jews were right to keep honoring God by circumcising their sons. They just weren't allowed to enforce these Jewish standards among Gentiles because God hadn't commanded circumcision for Gentiles.
Unfortunately, the Christian habit of viewing our own convictions as law for everyone didn't stop with this incident. Modesty, card-playing, drinking, dancing, entertainment ... you name it, the Church has taken things the Bible addresses in principle only (or not at all) and has imposed much more specific regulations on people's behavior. And never mind expecting unbelievers to act like unbelievers2 — we want everyone to toe the line, no matter if it's an impossible one to toe.
The problem with this approach is that it makes people miss the point about salvation. The apostle Peter says it well: "…why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of the disciples a yoke that neither we nor our fathers have been able to bear? No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are."3 No matter how good our intentions, we interfere with the gospel when we start treating our own opinion like God's law.
The Verdict
I think it's fair to say that both sides are guilty in this issue: Christians of making mountains out of molehills and vice-versa for non-believers. The solution is a word that no one likes to hear — humility. And I'm going to present this as a challenge for the Church, because we ought to be the ones setting the example.
When you communicate God's law to others, be humble. Remember, it's your job to witness to the truth — not to force people to believe it. Yes, humility is difficult when someone belittles what you hold most dear. Pray for humility anyway.
And when you're tempted to impose your own standards on someone else's behavior, remember that the Savior describes Himself as "gentle and humble in heart."4 He has already done everything that's necessary for the salvation of everyone who believes. How prideful of us to think that we can demand more than He does of people who are sinners just like us.
C O F F E E S H O PAs for Denise, I'd say she's guilty — but only of poor phraseology.5 By saying that she didn't have a hard and fast rule, she implied that she could have had one, and that that would have been OK. But, from the rest of the article, I think it's pretty clear that that's not what she actually thinks about the issue. So, I sentence her to 50 lashes with a wet noodle. Unless someone else can come up with a better punishment.
Lindy Keffer is a contributing author for TrueU.org. She has written for a variety of organizations, including Cook Communications Ministries, Acquire the Fire, and Focus on the Family. Lindy earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Education from Taylor University, and she currently works with college students at the Focus on the Family Institute. Lindy lives in Colorado, and, therefore, climbs lots of mountains. She has even climbed international mountains, like Mount Kenya. We're still trying to figure out exactly which country it's located in.
Artist's thoughts
"The visual for this article was inspired by the phrase "hard and fast rule." I instantly thought of the BIG rules that truly were set in stone, hard and fast — the ol' classic 10! I thought of how insane it would be for folks to just pin on their own rules and expect that the rest of us should take them as steadfast rules for living like Christ." — Luke Flowers
Image created by Luke Flowers. © 2007 Focus on the Family. All rights reserved.
Back to top
