Our public discourse is dominated by categorizations and absolutes. For a variety of purposes, some of them practical, it has become fashionable to impose categories on individuals and expect that those individuals will hold to the dogmatic criteria of said imposed category.
This sort of black-and-white category rendering isn’t simply confined to the political arena. It rears its ugly head within the context of religious belief, too. Churches are either fundamentalist or liberal and nary shall the two sides meet.
Perhaps the most bitingly clear issue here is that the majority of people simply don’t fall into black-and-white categories. We are, in fact, living in a culture that is moving rapidly towards the middle (much to the vexation of absolutists everywhere) and more individuals are finding something of value in both sides of the agenda. Young religious individuals like the orthodoxy of some of the fundamentalist churches, for instance, but wish to grasp the more fluid theology of a liberal church.
With Adam Hamilton’s new book, Seeing Gray in a World of Black and White - Thoughts on Religion, Morality, and Politics, this issue is pressed as the responsible and reasonable destination of religious life.
Hamilton posits “finding the sweet spot” and aiming for a sense of common ground of religious belief. The book is targeted mainly at Christians, of course, but there are many pieces of advice that can be utilized in all areas of public discourse.
Hamilton rightly chastises the Christian church for turning away from harmony, citing the words of Christ in Matthew 23:24: “You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel!” The viewpoint of making a “mountain out of a molehill” is to blame for the division within the church and, I daresay, in public life in general. Hamilton chides Christians for having the “desire to be right” above following the command to be compassionate.
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