Losing Sight of Our Purpose (Part IV): The Subtle Implications of Legal and Moral Code

A recent, previous post discussed CBMW and the “Rationales” of the Danvers Statement, a document that seeks to elucidate what the Bible teaches concerning gender. Just as the laws of a society codify the beliefs of that society and thus reflect its morality, so I believe that CBMW hopes to set a standard for the church concerning the issues of gender. Though this body does not establish formal laws, it presumes to seek to clarify Biblical standards. They define specific moral standards through their teachings as a guide for conduct, much like civil laws do within society.

Individuals within a society indirectly understand the relationship between law and morals and often confuse it, believing that the law, at least to some degree, defines what is moral. Civil laws, though they are based upon a moral code, cannot be assumed to be moral within a pluralistic society. The abortion laws present an excellent example of how the law has a subtly misleading and detrimental effect on beliefs over time. People infer that because the act is declared legal (not punishable under civil law), the act gains a level of legitimacy as a result, making previously clear moral distinctions ambiguous.

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Losing Sight of Our Purpose (Part III): Domestic Discipline as Love for One's Wife?

A few months ago, I was contacted via email by a man who was not a professing Christian but was interested in the topic of spiritual abuse and church discipline. (I'd interacted with him on a public blog for many months, so I did have some sense of who he was and what he believed.) He was also interested in what I believe to be a perverse practice named "Domestic Discipline" that essentially amounts to spanking one's wife as one would spank a child. This individual explained to me that he wanted to help those who were engaging in this activity (presumably as a part of their practice of patriocentricity) -- as a part of their "Christian marriage," and he invited me to participate in a discussion on his own blog. (I believed him to be in earnest and did not have cause to suspect otherwise.) I posted a notice here regarding this practice, referring others to his site for this discussion, but I soon realized that our purposes were quite different.

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Losing Sight of Our Purpose (Part II): Subtly Veering Off Course

In the previous post, I discussed how we can have a worthy goal in mind, yet loose sight of that goal when we loose sight of charity and God’s Spirit of Love. We teach our children and aspect of this in the Apostle John’s simple yet profoundly true statement that “God is love.” Paul teaches that without it, our most profound wisdom becomes nothing but noise, and our valiant works of self-sacrifice lack meaning. Yet we can have knowledge and wisdom apart from God’s Spirit, something that quickly becomes a discipline all of its own, a tradition of men. How ironic it is that one can proclaim truth, even the Truth of the Word of God, yet be divorced from the indwelling power of it when tradition weighs more heavily than the Spirit of God Who is love. We must have both components, both sound doctrine and God’s love, working in concert in order to realize the presence and power of God in our efforts.

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Loosing Sight of Our Purpose (Part I): Choosing Tools and Methods

Over the course of the past two weeks or so, I’ve had two Dispensationalists (likely partial Arminians) tell me that I’m not anything like the Reformed Christians they know, so I must be a Dispensationalist. I’m told that I’m not legalistic, angry and judgemental “like the Calvinists are.” I also had a respected leader in the Reformed movement call my husband and I yeoman for the cause of liberty. What does that make me, as I stand here in fear and trembling, careful that I do not fall? I’m going to take these comments as compliments – evidence that I am a balanced Christian and not one who merely tells one group or another what they want to hear. I hope that this means that I have charity, committed to the Word of God before any commitments to one theology or another.

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