Monday, July 6, 2020
712 - Human Nature, Part 1
Spirituality Column #712
July 7, 2020
Common Christianity / Uncommon Christianity
Human Nature, Part 1
By Bob Walters
“There is none righteous; no, not one.” – Romans 3:10
I was getting a haircut (mask on) last week when my
long-time barber (he prefers “hair stylist”) and friend Eric held forth vehemently
about public mask-wearing.
In the language of moral certitude Eric, who tells me all
the time he does not believe in God and that anything I may happen to say about
Jesus or faith is “just my opinion,” spoke without reservation or
circumspection (or for that matter, invitation) that anyone who doesn’t wear a
protective mask in a store is arrogant and inconsiderate and doesn’t care about
others. He just blurted it out, with
fire and anger. Masks matter.
OK, fair point. But
let’s not talk about masks. Let’s talk
about folks, like Eric, who do not believe, accept, recognize, or even allow
for the existence of the moral certitude of God, and dismiss as “your opinion” any
suggestion that objective truth exists only in God and not within the fallen
human self (“Don’t judge me!”). Yet … they are nonetheless morally certain about
judging the moral intentions of others in public.
Morals exist, they righteously assert, but only “when I say
so.”
Alas. Such is life in America in this season of perpetual
offense.
There exists in life a highly available and more profitable,
comforting, and helpful body of intellectual pursuit and human character
assessment than this. Such as? One could study Jesus Christ, the Bible, and
salvation with special emphasis on sin.
As we witness the persistent, vigorous public display of outraged
opinion on masks and COVID-19 and the riot-fueled lunacy of Antifa, BLM, white
privilege, systemic racism, social justice, political correctness, cancel
culture, every gender fluidity combination and pronoun one could conjure, destroying
public monuments, burning American history, and whether we should continue to
have police … all of that pales in comparison to the conversation and
introspection each one of us should be having about our sin and our human sin
nature.
When we assess what’s really going on big-picture in this
upside-down and backwards season of American culture, politics, media, science,
academia, economics, and spirituality, I believe it comes down to this: a
person or group denying the existence of moral certitude founded only in God will
assert their own opinions as moral certitude in the name of social justice –
not a Bible term, incidentally – with sufficient self-assigned and
self-righteous authority to impede anyone else’s freedom of dissenting thought,
resolute faith, pursuit of truth, and all-important mutually binding
responsibility.
Even in the greatest opportunities this life offers thanks
to Christ – to know God is real, to live gloriously with Him eternally freed from
sin, to rest now in the love, faith, and joy of the Holy Spirit, to serve God
and others – our broken human nature, our moral default setting, often points
first to the behavior of others, not my own sin nature.
Only Satan, the father of lies, has the cleverness to make
all this happen. But if you are a
believing Christian curious as to what the Bible says about it, I point you to
this marvelous audio sermon link Christians
& Rioting Part 2 from my old friend, blogger and Oklahoma preacher
Brent Riggs. Listen to it, and we’ll
talk more next week.
Walters (rlwcom@aol.com)
listens to Eric’s (and others’) opinions about many things, but doesn’t
antagonize anyone when they have sharp objects next to his head.