As some of you may have heard in the news, former Miss California, Carrie Prejean, has decided to file a lawsuit against the Miss California organization, accusing them of libel and religious discrimination. Now without weighing in on the rightness or wrongness of her decision, I do think there is an irony inherent in her claim, given that Jesus told us to expect religious discrimination. In Luke 21 Jesus prepares the disciples for such treatment, but his response is to “make up your mind not to worry beforehand how you will defend yourselves” because “this will result in your being witnesses to them.” (vv. 13-14)

I’m just saying…

But this whole situation brings up the very relevant issue of whether or not it’s right for Christians to sue people. I wrote a post on this topic a couple years ago, so I have decided to re-post it today as a little food for thought. I would be interested to hear your feedback as well.

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Lately I’ve noticed an interesting pattern in the news. Again and again, at the tail end of any news report in which a person suffers any kind of loss, we are informed that the victim is suing for damages. I almost expect to hear these words because I hear them so often. And that is how rampant the practice of lawsuits has become. If someone wrongs a person in any sort of way, whether it be legal, medical, spiritual, or emotional negligence, then a lawsuit is sure to come. Granted, there are times when lawsuits are reasonable, but sometimes they are downright absurd. Check out some of these insane lawsuits that I found…

A woman in Israel sued a TV station and its weatherman for $1,000 after he predicted a sunny day and it rained. The woman claims the forecast caused her to leave home lightly dressed. As a result, she caught the flu, missed 4 days of work, spent $38 on medication and suffered stress. She won!(Source: CALA)

A surfer recently sued another surfer for “taking his wave.” The case was ultimately dismissed because they were unable to put a price on “pain and suffering” endured by watching someone ride the wave that was “intended for you.” (Source: CALA)

A college student in Idaho decided to “moon” someone from his 4th story dorm room window. He lost his balance, fell out of his window, and injured himself in the fall. Now the student expects the University to take the fall; he is suing them for “not warning him of the dangers of living on the 4th floor”.(Source: CALA)

Now these examples are definitely extreme, but let them not undermine the reality that we live in a lawsuit culture. Lawsuits are are being filed for every possible reason, and there are a number of things that disturb me about this trend. What follows are the theological pitfalls of this culture, because we as Christians must not fall prey to the secular worldview that this pattern reflects:

1. It stems from the belief that suffering, or even discomfort, is unnatural and always bad. We live in a fallen world, which means that suffering is an unavoidable reality for us. Until Christ returns, there will never come a time at which we are not painfully aware of the ways in which sin mars the world. However, this is not always a bad thing. We serve a Redeemer God who takes that suffering and uses it to strengthen us. What man intends for evil, God uses for good. What’s more, being a Christian means we are called to a road of suffering. It’s a part of the deal, so rather than find someone to blame and punish for it, we should look to the ways in which God desires to redeem it, and how we can be a part of that redemption. Lawsuits are not the solution to sin–God’s grace and forgiveness are, and we should be reflecting that truth in our own lives.

2. It puts a cheap price tag on human suffering. Before I explain what I mean by this, let me first say that there are certainly times when a person or organization’s negligence results in such financial hardship that a person is unable to support themselves or their family, thereby making lawsuits permissible, if not necessary. (Thought I would encourage one to seek the wise counsel of their church community before making such a decision. Not only can they hold you accountable so that you are not suing out of incorrect motives, but they might also provide you with exactly the resources you need, thereby making the lawsuit unnecessary)

However, in addition to acting as a form of punishment or vengeance, lawsuits often imply that we can financially quantify what we have lost. If a doctor leaves you with an unexpected scar, you get money. If someone slanders your reputation, you get money. If you lose a loved one, you get money. The implication here is that money makes everything better. Money serves as a band aid for the wound. Unfortunately, this is an illusion. Money does not dissolve bitterness. Money does not bring that loved one back, or restore your reputation. It only enables you to buy more things in an attempt to fill the void in your heart. We turn to lawsuits to provide us with the healing that only forgiveness can bring. No matter how much money a person gets, it is a shockingly cheap payment. The only gift large enough to heal our brokenness is God’s Son.

3. It make everyone a victim. As I mentioned earlier, we live in a fallen world, which not only means that bad things happen, but that we, personally, are to blame for many of those bad things. Yes, some people are blatantly irresponsible or greedy and should be held accountable, but a lot of lawsuits are filed against people who simply made mistakes. None of us are perfect, but we expect everyone else to be. If they fall short of our standards of perfection, then we punish them. I’m fairly certain none of us would want to be held fully accountable for every mistake we’ve made, so why do we have to be so harsh on others? The reality is that every person is a sinner, which means that every person is bound to make a mistake sooner or later. The question is how we will respond. Will we judge them, or show them the grace that has been shown to us?

As I said, there is a time and a place for lawsuits. Even Paul used the government’s laws to his advantage when he was being denied his rights. However, what’s often at stake is our witness. If we consider engaging in a lawsuit, we must carefully consider what it says about our dependence on God. Do we really need the money, or are we seeking it out of a need to be vindicated?

In Matthew 5:39-41, Jesus teaches us, “But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles.” Ultimately, it would be better to be mistreated in the name of Christ, proclaiming that our satisfaction comes from him alone and nothing else, than to push people away from him due to our need for vengeance or personal justice. God tells us, “It is mine to avenge,” (Rom. 12:19) so we can leave that in His hands to a certain extent. Instead, we must do the hard work of forgiveness. Forgiveness is far more difficult than all the legal complexities of lawsuits, but it is worth the effort, and reaps a treasure that cannot be destroyed by moth or rust.

This week the Lutheran Church figured prominently in the news as it took a giant step forward in affirming homosexual lifestyles. While the denomination stopped short of out-right supporting homosexual lifestyles with Scripture, it did affirm those who are “bound by their conscience” in their reading of Scripture. As the ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) put it,

“In our Christian freedom, we therefore seek responsible actions that serve others and do so with humility and deep respect for the conscience-bound beliefs of others. We understand that, in this discernment about ethics and church practice, faithful people can and will come to different conclusions about the meaning of Scripture and about what constitutes responsible action. We further believe that this church, on the basis of “the bound conscience,” will include these different understandings and practices within its life as it seeks to live out its mission and ministry in the world.”

They later go on to state that in matters of salvation it is important to be dogmatic, but in matters of morality and lifestyle Scripture allows a little more wiggle room:

“When the clear word of God’s saving action by grace through faith is at stake, Christian conscience becomes as adamant as Paul, who opposed those who insisted upon circumcision. … However, when the question is about morality or church practice, the Pauline and Lutheran witness is less adamant and believes we may be called to respect the bound conscience of the neighbor. That is, if salvation is not at stake in a particular question, Christians are free to give priority to the neighbor’s well-being and will protect the conscience of the neighbor who may well view the same question in such a way as to affect faith itself. For example, Paul was confident that Christian freedom meant the Gospel of Jesus Christ was not at stake in questions of meat sacrificed to idols or the rituals of holy days. Yet he insisted that, if a brother or sister did not understand this freedom and saw eating this meat as idolatry to a pagan god, the Christian was obligated to “walk in love” by eating just vegetables for the neighbor’s sake!”

What really stands out to me in all this rhetoric is the consistent use of the word “conscience.” This word and this logic is popular in both liberal and conservative circles alike. You may also have heard it referred to as “natural theology.” Yet in both instances, denominations are appealing to the idea that within every human being there is an inclination to know and recognize truth. C.S. Lewis himself makes this argument in his apologetics:”

Whenever you find a man who says he does not believe in a real Right and Wrong, you will find the same man going back on this a moment later. He may break his promise to you, but if you try breaking one to him he will be complaining “It’s not fair” before you can say Jack Robinson….This law was called the Law of Nature because people thought that every one knew it by nature and did not need to be taught it. They did not mean, of course, that you might not find an odd individual here and there who did not know it, just as you find a few people who are colour-blind or have no ear for a tune. But taking the race as a whole they thought that the human idea of decent behaviour was obvious to everyone. And I believe they were right.” (Mere Christianity)

While I love C.S. Lewis and find great encouragement and teaching in his writings, I am wary of his conclusion, as well as that of other Christians today. It sounds worryingly similar to a liberal philosopher by the name of Immanuel Kant. Kant believed in the “categorical imperative,” a philosophical idea that our systems of morality must be based upon the inherent good-will possessed by every human being. He taught that there is an ingrained knowledge of right and wrong inside every person. A conscience.

Kant’s influence was so sweeping that he subsequently defined the grounds by which much of the philosophical AND theological discussions have been conducted ever since. Whenever you hear a Christian apologist argue on the grounds of conscience or objective experience, you are hearing the echoes of Kant.

But here is where Kant, C.S. Lewis, and much of natural theology perhaps wander astray–the CONSCIENCE CAN BE WRONG. The ELCA decision is a prime example of this. When we begin to appeal to people on the grounds of their conscience instead of revelation and Scripture, we underestimate how profoundly sinful human beings are. Without the divinely inspired truth of God, we will always choose wrongly. We cannot help ourselves apart from the intervention of God through Christ, the Holy Spirit, and His Word.

That is why the ELCA’s language is such a great lesson for us in the direction of our own churches and the theological language we use. If we insist on appealing to conscience and natural theology, we will go the way of the ECLA and the Episcopal Church before them. Conscience and Scripture do not equate. Even if human beings are given the common grace to discern a tiny sliver of truth in this world, D.A. Carson reminds us that “Error is truth out of proportion.” Our broken natures have a profound ability to take that bit of truth and turn it into a God-slandering idol. Our churches must never fall into such a snare.

While I’m on my honeymoon, my friend David Goodman will be posting his thoughts about the relationship between science and theology. Now before you tune out because this sounds nerdy/boring, you should know that my conversations with him have surrounded the issue of birth control, and that’s why I’ve asked him to post. He is going into his 4th year of medical school at UNC-Chapel Hill and has wrestled with this topic a lot as he considers the ethics of prescribing birth control, and how it coincides with his pro-life beliefs. He is a godly man, as well as being super sharp, so I thought you all would benefit from his insights!

 Hello blog world.  She Worships has been invaded by a dude, most notably illustrated in the picture from Rocky IV situated to the left.  No, this is not a shameless plug to get Sly Stallone on Sharon‘s blog.  This was the image that came to my mind when Sharon asked me to write about the relationship between science and theology.  You see in the film Rocky is a fiery, passionate boxer with a mission to prove going up against the formidable Russian Ivan Drago, the machine-man that represents the overwhelming strength of the Cold War USSR who crushes opponents with almost superhuman force.  At one point in the fight Rocky is dancing around the ring, taking punches from the Russian and taunting him saying “You ain’t so bad!” in an effort to tire him out.

I published this post over a year ago and still find it to be a great reminder. I hope you will find it to be so as well.

For the last two months I have been serving as a college minister at UNC-Greensboro. During this time I have often heard the university referred to as a “suitcase school.” Four thousand students live right on campus during the week, but each weekend a large portion of these students pack their bags and go home. As a result, the campus is all but dead on the weekends, hence the label “suitcase school.”

Now even if you didn’t attend a university like UNCG, most of us knew at least one person in college who couldn’t seem to leave their hometown behind. Maybe they had a boyfriend or girlfriend back there, or maybe they simply struggled to adjust to college life, but whatever the reason these suitcase students were frequently absent Friday through Sunday, and their life at school whithered as a result.

And this is what happens when you live your life looking back–you are so busy living in the past, that your present life essentially dies. God calls you forward, but you cannot forget what is behind, so you miss out on the blessing God has for you in the present.

We see this principle all throughout Scripture, but there is no example that is more memorable than that of Lot’s wife. The story begins with Lot and his wife being warned to get out of Sodom and Gomorrah as quickly as possible because God is about to destroy the two cities.

In addition to these instructions, God warns them not to look back. So Lot and his family flee the city just in time to escape its violent destruction, but what does Lot’s wife do just as they reach safety? She looks back. And as a result, she is turned into a pillar or salt.

Now I don’t know about you, but this punishment seems a little harsh. After all, if God was destroying an entire city, I would probably want to look, if for no other reason than morbid curiosity. Fire raining down from the sky would probably be quite a sight to behold! Yet God considers her action so grave that he turns her into salt. What is going on here?

Ultimately, the sin of Lot’s wife was not in her action, but in her motive. Though she did disobey God by looking back, the real problem was the state of her heart–she was unwilling to let go of the city she had left behind. And while anyone who has ever left home can relate to this sentiment, Sodom and Gomorrah was no ordinary place. It was a region in which sin ran rampant–the people were all about excess and immorality, and they completely neglected their poor. The people who lived there were intensely wicked, which means that Lot’s wife was not experiencing your average homesickness for girl friends left behind. Instead, she was probably missing the sinful pleasures she had enjoyed there. God wanted to make her new, but she liked her old life better.

And Lot’s wife was not the last to make this mistake. Luke 9:62 tells us, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.” Even though Christ delivers us from sin and death, we will oftentimes look back at the life we left behind. I sometimes find myself missing some of my old vices, thinking how fun it would be to enjoy them one last time. Yet in the same way that looking back led to Lot’s wife’s demise, turning back to our old sins can lead to spiritual death as well.

In fact, looking back can lead to all kinds of death. For example, women are terrible about holding grudges. Guys will get in a fight, duke it out, and be done with it, but women will hold onto their bitterness for years. And as a result, they sabotage their relationships. You may have told your friend that you’ve forgiven her, but in reality you can’t forget what she’s done, so the friendship slowly dies.

And then there’s the kind of looking back that leaves us bound by guilt. God wants us to walk in the freedom of forgiveness, yet we cannot forgive ourselves, and so we remain in a self-imposed cage of self-doubt and shame even though the prison doors have been flung open.

In this way, the fate of Lot’s wife serves as a warning to us all: Living in the past means almost certain death in the present. Yes, we should learn from the past, but we should not be bound by it. If we believe that God is a redeemer, then we can trust that whatever happened behind us will be redeemed for good in the future, so rather than cling to that which we cannot change, we must put our full energy into what we can do today–namely, learning to serve, honor and love God better and better with every passing day.

Well, actually three days. That’s right, I’m about to hit the high seas for a few days to see the Great Barrier Reef and the Whitsunday Islands. So far Australia has been INCREDIBLE! Several days ago we spent some time at Manly Beach, which was given its name because the Aborigines there were the only ones who didn’t run away from the European settlers–they were “manly,” and hence the name. True story.

Yesterday we climbed the Harbor Bridge which was absolutely gorgeous. I also found out that my Austalian nickname is “Shazzah, ” which sounds kind of like “Shazam.” I hate it, but my climbing guide felt it was necessary to refer to me as Shazzah the enitre 3 and a half hours.

Today we flew out of Sydney for the Whitsunday Coast, named for its white sand, and it’s beautiful. Tonight we’re hopping on a boat for several days, so pray that I don’t get sea sick and that the boat doesn’t sink in shark-infested waters. That would be bad.

And thanks to all of you who contributed to me having “In the Land Down Under” in my head for the last couple days. Seriously…I hate that song now.

Cheers!

For those of you who don’t know, I’m in Australia right now, and will be for the next 10 days, so I won’t be blogging too much in that time. But as soon as I get back I’ll be starting back up again asap!

Til then, a brief summary of my time so far: Went to the sydney zoo, which overlooks sydney’s skyline and is amazing; went to a bar type place made entirely of ice (walls, chairs, tables, glasses) and they give you a coat and ugs and gloves to go in there because it’s so freezing; went to a ballet at the opera house; am currently at the beach.

Australia is awesome and I highly recommend it! Please pray for my safety, and I look forward to writing again soon!

I thought I would procrastinate with the following post. I don’t have time to think deep thoughts because I’m funneling all of my intelligence into a 16 page paper, but I found some bumper stickers that I thought were kind of funny, so if you need to procrastinate as well, then enjoy! (And p.s.–these bumper stickers don’t necessarily reflect my religious views, but I think sometimes it’s healthy to laugh at ourselves…I hope you agree).

Get a Taste of religion. Lick a Hindu.

God’s true name is unpronounceable…because God is Welsh.

If God didn’t want us to eat animals, why did he make them out of meat?

God please grant me chastity, but not just yet. – St. Augustine

If you were made in God’s image, how did you get to be so ugly?

The Big Bang theory: And God said ‘Pulleth my Finger’

And now, the TOP TEN THINGS PEOPLE WON’T SAY WHEN THEY SEE A CHRISTIAN BUMPER STICKER OR FISH ON A CAR:

10. “Look! Let’s stop that car and ask those folks how we can become
Christians.”

9. “Don’t worry, Billy, those people are Christians. They must have a
good reason for driving 90 miles an hour.”

8. “What a joy to be sharing the highway with another car of
Spirit-filled brothers and sisters.”

7. “Isn’t it wonderful how God blessed that Christian couple with a
brand-new BMW?”

6. “Dad, how come people who drive like that don’t get thrown in jail?
Can we get a bumper sticker like that, too?”

5. “Stay clear of those folks, Martha. If they get raptured, that
car’s gonna be all over the road!”

4. “Oh, look! That Christian woman is getting a chance to share Jesus
with a police officer.”

3. “No, that’s not garbage coming out of their windows, Bert. It’s
probably gospel tracts for the road workers.”

2. “Oh boy, we’re in trouble now! We just rear-ended one of God’s
cars.”

1. “Quick, Alice, honk the horn or they won’t know that we love
Jesus!”

I put this up there because I used to have a fish on my car and yet I drove like a maniac. I think people might have noticed the inconsistency…