Dear brethren,
I have come across a difficult situation in school which I hope to seek your advices upon.
I have this project for a course that involves us role playing as business consultants from a fictitious company giving oral presentations, report/letter writing to a fictitious client. Our teacher adviced us that in order to score well, one of the aspects of our project is that we must establish credibility. This will mean that we will have to convince the audience/client that we are very experienced consultants from prestigious "company". Here is where I got the conviction in my heart that doing this project would cause all of us to become dishonest.
Firstly, acting out the role of consultants (in Mini-lectures, Report/letter writing and Formal Oral Presentation) from a fictitious company would involve us pretending to be people we are not, and also where we are not from. This in itself is a dishonest act, though everyone knows we are just "role-playing". In essence, we are not deceiving anyone on purpose, but we are still engaging in a dishonest act because we need to convince the audience of who and what we are not.
Secondly, in order to be credible during FOPs and Mini-lectures, we would need to give out "false" information about our "company", this would no doubt cause us to speak outright lies like "our company has 10 years of experience in business consultancy" when the truth is otherwise.
Thirdly, as we would need to do self introductions during oral presentations, we would in reality be asked to falsely represent ourselves as consultants with experiences we don't have, causing us to engage in dishonesty yet again. Therefore, the ultimate result of doing the entire project is to directly engage in active false misrepresentations and lying.
The Lord has said clearly that we as children of God ought to say "Yea, Yea, and Nay, Nay", and ANYTHING more than this is from the evil one. Thus, by role-playing in this project, we are indeed going beyond "Yea, yea and nay, nay" in a big way.
I tried to talk to my parents about this, but they do not agree with me and we got into a quarrel (which I shouldn't have engaged in or started). They tried to convince me with fine-sounding arguments like how different contexts are different, and that I am not lying by misrepresenting myself because everyone knows we are only role-playing, but I cannot agree with them in the least bit. In my heart, I know that living godly lives is so much more than just speaking the truth in "certain" contexts, because any dishonesty/misrepresentations (no matter in what contexts) would still be considered lying. Role-playing in any situation would involve pretending to be someone whom you are not, and you are then forced to misrepresent yourself in many different ways (be it experiences, qualifications and so on). Isn't this a stark example of going beyond "yea yea and nay nay"? Then isn't it obvious that this is lying and must be forbidden?
Moreover, we are exhorted that "whatsoever is not of faith is sin". After considering even the possibility that such a project would cause me to engage in dishonesty, I simply cannot have faith to do it unless the "role-playing" part of it is removed. I have emailed the teacher about my concern and unless we come to a consensus not to engage in any role-playing in the project, I would have to drop the course completely.
What do you all think in the Lord? Please advice me if my decision is right with the wisdom of God.
May our God bless you all in Christ our Lord, Amen!
I have come across a difficult situation in school which I hope to seek your advices upon.
I have this project for a course that involves us role playing as business consultants from a fictitious company giving oral presentations, report/letter writing to a fictitious client. Our teacher adviced us that in order to score well, one of the aspects of our project is that we must establish credibility. This will mean that we will have to convince the audience/client that we are very experienced consultants from prestigious "company". Here is where I got the conviction in my heart that doing this project would cause all of us to become dishonest.
Firstly, acting out the role of consultants (in Mini-lectures, Report/letter writing and Formal Oral Presentation) from a fictitious company would involve us pretending to be people we are not, and also where we are not from. This in itself is a dishonest act, though everyone knows we are just "role-playing". In essence, we are not deceiving anyone on purpose, but we are still engaging in a dishonest act because we need to convince the audience of who and what we are not.
Secondly, in order to be credible during FOPs and Mini-lectures, we would need to give out "false" information about our "company", this would no doubt cause us to speak outright lies like "our company has 10 years of experience in business consultancy" when the truth is otherwise.
Thirdly, as we would need to do self introductions during oral presentations, we would in reality be asked to falsely represent ourselves as consultants with experiences we don't have, causing us to engage in dishonesty yet again. Therefore, the ultimate result of doing the entire project is to directly engage in active false misrepresentations and lying.
The Lord has said clearly that we as children of God ought to say "Yea, Yea, and Nay, Nay", and ANYTHING more than this is from the evil one. Thus, by role-playing in this project, we are indeed going beyond "Yea, yea and nay, nay" in a big way.
I tried to talk to my parents about this, but they do not agree with me and we got into a quarrel (which I shouldn't have engaged in or started). They tried to convince me with fine-sounding arguments like how different contexts are different, and that I am not lying by misrepresenting myself because everyone knows we are only role-playing, but I cannot agree with them in the least bit. In my heart, I know that living godly lives is so much more than just speaking the truth in "certain" contexts, because any dishonesty/misrepresentations (no matter in what contexts) would still be considered lying. Role-playing in any situation would involve pretending to be someone whom you are not, and you are then forced to misrepresent yourself in many different ways (be it experiences, qualifications and so on). Isn't this a stark example of going beyond "yea yea and nay nay"? Then isn't it obvious that this is lying and must be forbidden?
Moreover, we are exhorted that "whatsoever is not of faith is sin". After considering even the possibility that such a project would cause me to engage in dishonesty, I simply cannot have faith to do it unless the "role-playing" part of it is removed. I have emailed the teacher about my concern and unless we come to a consensus not to engage in any role-playing in the project, I would have to drop the course completely.
What do you all think in the Lord? Please advice me if my decision is right with the wisdom of God.
May our God bless you all in Christ our Lord, Amen!