When the Bible Isn't Black and White
CBN.com People dream in black-and-white. But the real world is in living color. Remember the movie Pleasantville? In the universe of Pleasantville (filmed in black-and-white instead of color) life was. . . pleasant. Nothing like the horror of war, famine, or AIDS existed there. The bathrooms didn’t even have toilets—that would have been impolite. The high school basketball team never missed a shot, firemen only rescued cats stuck in trees (there were no house fires), families were perfect and high school sweethearts never went past first base. Everything, absolutely everything, was perfect in that idyllic little town.
In Pleasantville everything was simple and clear. Black-and-white ruled. But as the citizens of Pleasantville began to explore the joys and choices of life, things started turning from black-and-white to color—first a flower, then the surroundings, then people. But with the appearance of color came the dark side of human nature. That’s the danger with color—it comes with the potential of good and evil. In response, some in Pleasantville were willing to do whatever to maintain the status quo, to maintain their simple black-and-white world. Their fear and paranoia lead to intolerance, hate-crimes, and violence against anything colored.
The Complexity of ColorLot’s of folks try to make faith a black and white issue, but it’s not. It is filled with complexity. I believe in God most of the time. Sometimes I am red hot in love with him. Other times I resemble the heat of a skillet an hour or so after being red hot—there is a rumor of warmth. Other times I get scared that I might not believe in God at all—like I’m just going through some religious motions. Yet, something in me keeps pulling me towards belief and I realize I really do believe in God. Messy stuff. I guess faith comes in color.
When it comes to discovering truth, most parents and spiritual leaders prefer black and white and resist complexity. Complexity is too colorful. We prefer doling out black and white deductions and conclusions. Telling people what seems so much simpler than telling them why. And safer too.
To Dance or Not to Dance
Brian was a teenager when he talked with me about his dancing problem back in the late 1970s. He was a new Christian and came to me wide-eyed because he had just heard that dancing was a sin. He loved dancing (discothèques were extremely popular back then).
He asked me straight up, “Is it a sin to dance?”
I was a member of a church that had labeled dancing a “worldly” activity and forbade it completely (the prohibition was in small print on our membership cards). So, when Brian asked, I found myself beginning to say, “Of course.” But just as I started to speak, I felt something in my heart checking the pat answer I had always given. So, I paused for a split second, abandoned my oversimplified, rigid position and took what I understood to be God’s position, though it was messier and less direct than I preferred. I said, “The Bible really doesn’t say, ‘Don’t dance,’ but it does teach us not to call attention to ourselves in inappropriate ways. We are not supposed to try to be Mr. Cool or to act in seductive ways. Sometimes dancing is all about those things and that’s why some would say it is a sin.”
“So, let me ask you,” I continued, “Are you planning on going dancing again soon?”
“Yes, this Thursday night,” he replied.
“Well,” I suggested, “when you go out on the dance floor, watch what’s going on in your heart. If you can go out and have fun and not be lewd or Mr. Cool, and if you can worship God while you’re out there—go for it, man. If not, quit dancing.”
I’d be lying to you if I told you I didn’t get nervous. I did. Abandoning my black-and-white deductions and opening the door for Brian to process truth felt so unsafe. Had I opened Pandora’s box? I had to trust Brian and the Holy Spirit—who I was hoping was the one who told me to answer Brian’s question in this way.
I saw him about a week later. His first words were, “I can’t go dancing anymore.”
“Why not,” I asked, relieved that I hadn’t made him more “worldly.”
“I just felt dirty,” he said. “I found myself trying to impress and hit on girls. It wasn’t good.”
The Brian event showed me that we can dare to give truth to people in the same way God gives it to us—messy and not so full of absolutes, deductions, and conclusions. Though the truth remains the same for all of us, God trusts us to wrestle with it till it makes sense for us. Perhaps that is why Paul penned, “One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind.” How cool is that? God believes in us and in his ability to interact with us. He allows the higgledy-piggledy of our humanness into the mix of sorting things through and applying them in a way that builds and strengthens us. Some of us will come to different conclusions, but that is okay. Perhaps life is to be experienced in living color.
But living in color means we must allow room for differences. That means that sometimes it may be okay for Christians to dance.
When Gail and I began pastoring in Central Wisconsin a couple in the church asked me to perform their wedding ceremony. It was our first big wedding in that rural culture. All went well until we got to the reception. Everyone started dancing—many of them our parishioners. Gail and I both looked at each other trying to decide if we should stay or bolt in order to make a statement discouraging this “worldly” behavior.
Up to that point we were opposed to dancing. But now something was different. The best we could tell, these dancing folks weren’t being lewd or weird—they were just having fun. We watched for a while and when we decided this was no cover up for evil, I grabbed Gail and we went out on that forbidden floor. We had a total blast.
We still dance.
Dangerous. That’s all you can say about steering away from black-and-white. Don’t misunderstand me, there are plenty of absolutes given in Scripture: the Ten Commandments, for example. But there are many areas where God just gives us parameters, not absolutes, and he affords us the space to work within those parameters. He doesn’t always give us a loaf of bread. Often he gives us the raw ingredients (flour, yeast, salt, oil, et cetera) and we can either make bread or pizza crust, leavened or unleavened. As long as we do not add some harmful ingredient (i.e. sinful motive), we can enjoy choice and still live within the parameters of holy living.
God Trusts Us
I think God trusts us more than we realize.
Jesus had told his disciples he was going to die. They got depressed. Who was going to lead them? Who was going to tell them what to do? Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away.” Why? Because he said that the Holy Spirit would come and “when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth.” Jesus wasn’t panicking because he knew these guys would get connected with the Holy Spirit. I think Jesus was okay with the messiness of incarnation—the God and human mix. He knew the Holy Spirit would “guide” them and fill their lives with truth.
John takes the same position. He writes to believers, “But you have received the Holy Spirit, and he lives within you, so you don’t need anyone to teach you what is true. For the Spirit teaches you all things, and what he teaches is true.” Whoa. We don’t need anyone to teach us? Before you fall off your chair, let me assure you that he is not saying we should not teach the Bible or tell people the truth. He is saying we must respect people’s ability to think and the Holy Spirit’s role in weaving truth into the human soul. But that requires trusting God in people. The problem with that is, not everyone consistently submits to God’s working in his or her life, and that means there will be error.
Did you ever notice how much time the writers in the New Testament spend on correcting erroneous thinking and sinful actions? It seems if the writers had just listed a boatload of do’s and don’ts, it would have eliminated much of that. But it would have also eliminated freedom. Freedom is a funny thing. The power to be free is also the power to be wrong. Some have wondered why God gave Adam and Eve the power to sin? The best answer I have heard is that the power to choose right is the same power to choose evil. The power is the power of choice, period. Sometimes I think in our quest to eliminate harmful evil, we inadvertently eliminate the power to choose at all.
Paul declares, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.” Then he warns, “But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature.” If we decide to honor people’s right to think and to choose, we need to be okay with challenging people when they use their freedom as a cover up for sinful agendas. This is untidy stuff. You can feel the tension as Paul tries to encourage responsible living without robbing Christian freedom: “Everything is permissible—but not everything is beneficial. Everything is permissible—but not everything is constructive.” Paul is challenging believers to prayerfully think through their deductions, conclusions, and choices in life.
But giving people the freedom to think and interact with God in faith is a scary enterprise. I’m convinced there is something in us that compels us to want assurance that people are getting exactly what God is saying—so we kind of add stuff to the truth.
Colorphobia
There are scads of difficult topics from the roles of men and women to appropriate attire to dating to issues of sexuality to disciplining children, et cetera. These are broad topics. Complex topics. Topics where not many deductions or conclusions are voiced in Scripture—just general parameters to ponder, wonder, pray over, and wrestle through. More color, less black-and-white. Certainly we can tell others what we believe and think about various issues, but I think it is more important that we respect people and trust God to guide them into the often not-so-specific statements and general tone of Scripture. We must allow individuals the right to contextualize truth for themselves and believe God is working in them in ways we may not be able to understand. Please don’t misunderstand what I am saying—the truth never changes, but how it is applied within the context of each person’s life does. I think we need to trust God and people more. That will mean we need to be okay with a little more diversity and difference of opinion—color.
Color is more complex than black-and-white. But it is also more interesting. We all crave for more than a black-and-white, “Pleasantville” world, but color comes with danger—evil is colorful too. The color of righteousness is amazing and much more wonderful than the color of evil. But if believers are hammered with the repressive black-and-white mandates of the religious, they will never know the color of righteousness. It is a sad thing when the only color we know is the color of evil.
Adapted from Religiously Transmitted Diseases: Finding a Cure When Faith Doesn't Feel Right by Ed Gungor, Copyright © 2006, Thomas Nelson, Inc., Nashville, Tennessee. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
