Tried With Fire

"They will know we are Christians by our love" doesn't seem to apply to social media these days. Rather "They will know we are Christians by how tenaciously we hold to our opinions and our unwillingness to listen to anyone who differs from us." If I was a sociologist, I would be collecting data for a book on this phenomena. But I am not, so I read what other people have researched to gain better insight. Here are a few excerpts from Disunity in Christ that may shed some light on why we circle the wagons. This is worth considering and may help us be more understanding and gracious toward one another. If we understand the world around us, we have a far greater chance of controlling it. Even if we can't control our world, understanding can help us make informed choices about what to do next... We have a strong need to know and a strong need to eliminate uncertainty... 1 Because we're uncomfortable with ambiguity, if we can find a concept to help us...

Over the years, we've studied some very interesting topics in Sunday school. We learned about eschatology, the law's relationship to the believer, the Protestant versus Roman Catholic view of justification, and creation, to name a few. These subjects also had something in common - differing biblical interpretation which resulted in disagreement among Christians. Given the opposing viewpoints, the teacher was very careful to use primary sources. This would prevent any misrepresentation and allow each camp to speak for itself. Although he probably needed to read material with which he disagreed, this demonstrated his intellectual integrity and the desire to provide accurate information to the class. For example, I had heard from someone somewhere in the past that the Roman Catholic view of justification is "justification by works." Our teacher pointed out that this statement is incorrect. Rome would agree with justification by faith and the need for meritorious work...