Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Why not rather be wronged?

I ran across this blog post a week or so ago, and it's been in my mind ever since then.

"Why not rather be wronged" (at Storied Theology)

The author (a WTS grad and now professor at Fuller Seminary) riffs on the verse "Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be defrauded?" (1 Cor 6:7). He is mainly speaking about the way that Christians act toward each other when it comes to possessions, but I've been thinking about it in all sorts of situations when I feel my pride start to rear its head as someone wrongs me.

Also, there's a really great story someone posted in the comments about a church who willingly gave up their property when their denomination refused to let them keep it as the church left the denomination. Obviously, not every situation can be handled like this--and I think there are situations where because of the complications of modern life legal action is required--and I won't think negatively of you or your church, Dave, if you fight a legal battle to keep your land as your church withdraws from the denom, but it's refreshing to see such an obvious act of self-sacrifice from a church.

Any thoughts on how this might play out in your (all of you guys) church situations? Personally, after living with two youth pastors who are constantly on guard about getting sued and have been threatened with it several times by crazy congregants, this message seems like one that should be preached over and over again.

Lastly, something I just thought of as I was writing this. The most obvious exception to this that I can think of would be in a case of sexual misconduct towards a minor. I would say that that's a situation where no one should think "You know, if I want to be really Christ-like, I should just let this go and try to be self-sacrificial."

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I think i get the flavor of the article and comments. Let me say if I regarded the national episcopal church as Christian then this would be cause for concern. However as of now they do not hold to an orthodox definition of Christianity, they call the work of justification by faith "the great western heresy".

For us at St. Andrews no lawsuit has been filed.

"A dog barks when his masters attacked" ~ J.Calvin