attitude toward personal discretion

Not all Christians agree on some arenas of behavior; not all actions are commonly known to be "sin" or "holy". As conscientious devotees enact their personal discretion, there are two basic categories of possibilities: 1) restriction, 2) allowance. Which attitude shall fellow believers take? Are they to cheer restriction or allowance?

In my opinion, that question is a trick. People who always lean toward either of the two categories aren't properly exercising their own discretion. Sometimes restriction is prudent, and sometimes allowance is quite harmless. It's not a question that can be answered in general. Default answers are too often unexamined answers.

Furthermore, Christians must be highly alert to the danger of amplifying differences in personal discretion into haughy attitudes. Some consider the embodiment of commitment to consist of constant sacrifices of virtually every delight in the pursuit of holiness; some consider the embodiment of Spirit-led freedom from the Law of death to consist of joyful and love-filled improvisation combined with continual self-monitoring in every individual at every time. An accusation "Your restrictions close your mind to understanding and reaching the unbeliever" can be just as toxic as "Your permissiveness clouds your heart to understanding and reaching the Holy One".

Personal discretion isn't an excuse to take revenge on the downfalls of your upbringing through attacks on differing Christians. Whether you feel that your physically or emotionally absent parents failed to give you a firm compass, or that your domineering and humorless parents failed to give you affection for God, your opportunity is to move beyond rather than merely react against their excesses.

problematic virtues

Oddly enough, I suspect that for too many Christians the mental barrier to greater spiritual growth is what they call their "virtues". Whenever a Christian conveniently considers a personal flaw as a virtue, it's a blindness. How can someone start to improve without first recognizing the need for improvement? Ponder the possibilities...

• "I'm bold". But are you also impatient or foolhardy?
• "I'm truthful". But are you also attentive and wise about when and how to speak the truth?
• "I'm compassionate". But are you also respectful of others' autonomy?
• "I'm holy". But are you also contemptuous?
• "I'm visionary". But are you also willing to incorporate feedback?
• "I'm strong". But are you also distant?
• "I'm joyful". But are you also responsive to the pain around you?

These variant inclinations are just one reason for Christians to join together. Christians in a group can expose and smooth everyone's rough edges. And since not all strengths are appropriate at all times, they can cooperate to send the best person for each task. Even the difficulty of confronting and accepting Christians who are radically different from oneself provides a stage for exercising Christianity.

For instance, I'm aware that I have far to go. I struggle with the assumption that people who are typically courageous have tiny and limp imaginations. I think to myself, "If he, like I, had any creative inkling of what could go wrong or how extremely unpleasant it would be, he wouldn't have that rather blank facial expression of nonchalance." Then again, I was one of those children who couldn't watch monster movies without experiencing subsequent horrific phantasms that stealthily stalked me...

is it there or not?

This is supremely illuminating about the public's way of thinking. People have spent extended periods of time debating how and why there is a Christianity without Hell, only to abruptly shift to the opinion that a specific "truly awful" dead person must be in Hell.

Arguments about the very existence of something cannot be murky or half-resolved. The answer is "yes" or "no", "aye" or "nay", "true" or "false", "reality" or "fantasy", "fiction" or "nonfiction". There can certainly be discussion about the precise nature and characteristics of the disputed thing, but those are separate prior questions.

I could assert or retract innumerable rhetorical claims about the absence of my hairbrush. But the fact is that it's sitting right over there in another room, with volume and mass quite independent of my imaginings to the contrary. I could do the same about the presence of my rowboat in my backyard. But the fact is that no rowboat is in my backyard.

Hell is the same way. People can think and say whatever they like, but if they constantly contradict their own statements, it's difficult to figure out how their beliefs, ill-defined guesses that shift around like the tide, could ever be confirmed or violated. If someone isn't taking a position either way, or taking opposite positions simultaneously, it's more honest to just express one's total lack of clarity than to give away one's lack of intellectual commitment by spewing out half-considered sentiments on a deeply important topic.