- May 27, 2012
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In my life, there have been certain epiphanies and transformations that have had a night and day difference in how I love others. One of these things was purposing in my heart not to use litmus tests to determine someone's spiritual standing before God. Each person is a complicated creation of God that cannot be known in any meaningful manner without taking time to get to know them. There is no way to bypass this process by asking a few standard questions on particular issues.
What is a litmus test? It is any question or issue which I might use to determine if someone is "for" me or "against" me or my "groups" or if they are spiritually "safe" to be around. Things such as, do you speak in tongues?, do you believe in eternal security?, what denomination are you?, are you liberal or conservative?, did you vote for Trump?,would you attend a gay wedding?, what is your stand on biblical inerrancy?, what color is your skin? and the like.
It was a thread on Facebook yesterday about Eugene Peterson that reminded me of the bondage that litmus tests bring to all who are touched and corrupted by them. With a single question and a single answer and an attempt to clarify that answer, many honest sincere Christians now reject him. In the same thread spaced only a few entries apart, I saw conservative Christians decrying his liberalism and in essence promoting a boycott of anything he had ever written alongside liberal Christians decrying his having gone back and rejected gays and siding with haters and in essence promoting a boycott of anything he had written. A single litmus test that was broadcast to the world to bolster a meaningless tally of "who is on our side" has resulted in many Christians deciding to reject him as unworthy of any support. It was like the man, his ministry, his feelings, and anything to do with him was little more than a pawn on a giant chessboard. A single litmus test reduced him from a human being with dignity to some object to be discarded because it was too impure to touch anymore.
Here are copies of my two posts on that thread.
It seems like every group has yes/no litmus tests that determine if someone is a "bad" person or not. Answer "incorrectly" or attempt to nuance an answer and you are often assumed to be and treated as the enemy. It seems it used to be that this largely involved shunning or ignoring such a person, having as little to do with them as possible, or even agreeing to disagree. It has now seemed to have turned into hurting and punishing them to the full extent possible to make them examples and force conversions. I see this going both directions. Until we all shout down *everyone* who uses and applies litmus tests on a single issue to determine if people are "good" or "bad", these tests will continue to exist and flourish and amplify differences. But, I'm guessing that will never happen because we all love our litmus tests too much because they make it so easy to determine if someone is on our side or not. Besides, "my" litmus test is reasonable and fits what is right and "yours" is biased and wrong.
After someone basically said, "he brought it on himself." I then put up a second post.
To lay the entirety of someone's spiritual walk and social standing and whether we are going to sue them or boycott them based on a single answer to questions like "would you perform a gay wedding" or "would you bake a cake for a gay wedding" is not good in my opinion. On the one side, it turns spirituality into legalism. On the other side, it turns "we are good loving people" into "cross us and we will destroy you" avengers. I dodge giving my opinions on same-sex issues. Why? Not because I don't have strong opinions. But because the current obsession with litmus tests means that it closes doors for relationships I could build with people. My primary goal is not to stop sin as I understand it to be. My primary goal is to help people grow spiritually. The gospel is basically that spiritual growth is what leads to lack of sin, not setting and enforcing a bunch of rules. Much of what people choose to fight over are symptoms of problems; not the main problems themselves. I choose to choose which battles I will engage in so that I can have a real impact in someone's life; not just a momentary sense of satisfaction of being right. As much as possible, I do not let others choose these battles for me. Try to corner me with litmus test questions and you'll usually get this lecture on litmus tests. If I give my opinion on whether gay marriage is right or not, so what? It won't convince many people one way or the other. But if I say yea, many people would ignore whatever else I say. If I say nay, many people would ignore whatever else I say. I believe that helping people grow spiritually and getting to know me will bring them around to my point of view much more effectively that saying yes or no to some questions. I just think we should all be complaining about the effect of litmus tests rather than saying, "ha.ha. that person fell into it and now we know whether they are a good person or not." A single question, a single answer. Some conservatives will never trust Eugene Peterson again. A single question, some hemming and hawing. Some liberals will never trust Eugene Peterson again. Is the most serious matter here the interpretation of scripture on sexual matters and having the right view of it? Or is the most serious matter how easy it is to damage anyone's ministry to so many people in a few seconds?
End of FB post.
Anyway, this was a paradigm shift I went through quite awhile ago. I used to be a die-hard seeker of Truth meaning that I wanted to understand everything about Christianity perfectly so I'd believe the right things. I then realized that knowing God Himself was much more important than knowing *about* God. I also then realized that seeing God work in my life and other peoples' lives was much more important than how I *explained* what He was doing.
Over the years, I have found that my opinions and words have much more impact on people when they are backed up by actions and love. I cannot do this without building relationships. There are some relationships I cannot build if I apply litmus tests to them or allow litmus tests to be applied to me.
Thoughts? Experiences?
What is a litmus test? It is any question or issue which I might use to determine if someone is "for" me or "against" me or my "groups" or if they are spiritually "safe" to be around. Things such as, do you speak in tongues?, do you believe in eternal security?, what denomination are you?, are you liberal or conservative?, did you vote for Trump?,would you attend a gay wedding?, what is your stand on biblical inerrancy?, what color is your skin? and the like.
It was a thread on Facebook yesterday about Eugene Peterson that reminded me of the bondage that litmus tests bring to all who are touched and corrupted by them. With a single question and a single answer and an attempt to clarify that answer, many honest sincere Christians now reject him. In the same thread spaced only a few entries apart, I saw conservative Christians decrying his liberalism and in essence promoting a boycott of anything he had ever written alongside liberal Christians decrying his having gone back and rejected gays and siding with haters and in essence promoting a boycott of anything he had written. A single litmus test that was broadcast to the world to bolster a meaningless tally of "who is on our side" has resulted in many Christians deciding to reject him as unworthy of any support. It was like the man, his ministry, his feelings, and anything to do with him was little more than a pawn on a giant chessboard. A single litmus test reduced him from a human being with dignity to some object to be discarded because it was too impure to touch anymore.
Here are copies of my two posts on that thread.
It seems like every group has yes/no litmus tests that determine if someone is a "bad" person or not. Answer "incorrectly" or attempt to nuance an answer and you are often assumed to be and treated as the enemy. It seems it used to be that this largely involved shunning or ignoring such a person, having as little to do with them as possible, or even agreeing to disagree. It has now seemed to have turned into hurting and punishing them to the full extent possible to make them examples and force conversions. I see this going both directions. Until we all shout down *everyone* who uses and applies litmus tests on a single issue to determine if people are "good" or "bad", these tests will continue to exist and flourish and amplify differences. But, I'm guessing that will never happen because we all love our litmus tests too much because they make it so easy to determine if someone is on our side or not. Besides, "my" litmus test is reasonable and fits what is right and "yours" is biased and wrong.
After someone basically said, "he brought it on himself." I then put up a second post.
To lay the entirety of someone's spiritual walk and social standing and whether we are going to sue them or boycott them based on a single answer to questions like "would you perform a gay wedding" or "would you bake a cake for a gay wedding" is not good in my opinion. On the one side, it turns spirituality into legalism. On the other side, it turns "we are good loving people" into "cross us and we will destroy you" avengers. I dodge giving my opinions on same-sex issues. Why? Not because I don't have strong opinions. But because the current obsession with litmus tests means that it closes doors for relationships I could build with people. My primary goal is not to stop sin as I understand it to be. My primary goal is to help people grow spiritually. The gospel is basically that spiritual growth is what leads to lack of sin, not setting and enforcing a bunch of rules. Much of what people choose to fight over are symptoms of problems; not the main problems themselves. I choose to choose which battles I will engage in so that I can have a real impact in someone's life; not just a momentary sense of satisfaction of being right. As much as possible, I do not let others choose these battles for me. Try to corner me with litmus test questions and you'll usually get this lecture on litmus tests. If I give my opinion on whether gay marriage is right or not, so what? It won't convince many people one way or the other. But if I say yea, many people would ignore whatever else I say. If I say nay, many people would ignore whatever else I say. I believe that helping people grow spiritually and getting to know me will bring them around to my point of view much more effectively that saying yes or no to some questions. I just think we should all be complaining about the effect of litmus tests rather than saying, "ha.ha. that person fell into it and now we know whether they are a good person or not." A single question, a single answer. Some conservatives will never trust Eugene Peterson again. A single question, some hemming and hawing. Some liberals will never trust Eugene Peterson again. Is the most serious matter here the interpretation of scripture on sexual matters and having the right view of it? Or is the most serious matter how easy it is to damage anyone's ministry to so many people in a few seconds?
End of FB post.
Anyway, this was a paradigm shift I went through quite awhile ago. I used to be a die-hard seeker of Truth meaning that I wanted to understand everything about Christianity perfectly so I'd believe the right things. I then realized that knowing God Himself was much more important than knowing *about* God. I also then realized that seeing God work in my life and other peoples' lives was much more important than how I *explained* what He was doing.
Over the years, I have found that my opinions and words have much more impact on people when they are backed up by actions and love. I cannot do this without building relationships. There are some relationships I cannot build if I apply litmus tests to them or allow litmus tests to be applied to me.
Thoughts? Experiences?
