When Freedom Isn't
How can we live by God's standards without coming across an "intolerant?"
By Frederica Mathewes-Green

Q. Today people everywhere claim the "grace" of our Lord but live a life that is not consistent with his laws. How can we live by God's standards without coming across as "intolerant"?
—Jackie Humphrey via e-mail

A. Your question addresses the awkward position many Christians feel themselves in today when they make a plea for upholding traditional moral requirements. We're bound to be scolded as unloving or intolerant, but contemporary life is so chaotic that we can't keep silent.

For many people, the least persuasive part of our argument is that these laws come from God. It's not the divine imperative, but a human one, that makes the average non-Christian choose the straight-and-narrow. Look, for example, at the recent turn against tobacco. Many preachers railed against the "devil weed" decades ago, but it wasn't going to have any impact on sophisticated people as long as smoking was cool. When they learned that smoking was deadly, it went out of fashion fast.

At present, anyone who reasons against sexual freedom is dismissed, especially if they do it from a standpoint of God's laws. But these laws are like the law of gravity—they predict the outcome of certain actions. Promiscuity has brought in a tidal wave of sorrow—abortion, disease, children in poverty. Eventually people will realize that they don't have to go on having fun if it hurts this much. The voice of hard experience is the only voice some people will hear.

Frederica Mathewes-Green is the author of The Illumined Heart (Paraclete Press).

Copyright © 2004 by the author or Christianity Today International/Today's Christian magazine.
Click here for reprint information.
January/February 2004, Vol. 42, No. 1, Page 15