This post is the third addressing Christian Values. If you haven’t read the first two, you can read them HERE and HERE.
In the the last post I suggested a two step approach in assessing Christian Values. Step 1, the subject of this post, was: “Conduct a complete and thorough self-examination to determine my real values .”
In the intervening three months since that post, I have continued to ponder and examine my values. Although far from complete and through, the exercise has been exasperating and enlightening.
In the beginning, I naively assumed clarity about (my) Christian values. It did not take long to run aground. A previous post included a list of 100+ values. I suggested examining them and eliminating the non-Christian values and put them on card to carry with you. Conducting that exercise, I found only a handful that I would eliminate as non-Christian and most of those were debatable. Interestingly, each value examined closely could produce a neat Biblical Sunday School lesson.
(I’m thinking about writing “100 Values for the Christian Life” or a daily devotional entitled “Christian for a Day”)
It occurs to me “Christian Values” are, perhaps a unique product of a post-Christian age. Dominated by individualism and relativism esteeming choice, we create a super market of values to satisfy our consumeristic desires.
Examining my “real” values:
[the things that I believe are important in the way I live and work, determine my priorities, and, deep down, are the measures I use to tell if my life is turning out the way I want it to]
I found the list of values to be a handy reference. Essentially, I thought of values I hoped would be the content of my eulogy.
Weirdly, the Boy Scout pledge from my youth came to mind:
On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law; to help other people at all times; to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight
“A Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.”
That would sound pretty good at my funeral: “George did his duty to God and country, helped people, stayed fit (not) and morally straight. He was a nice guy trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.
My grieving family and friends are tearful, but in their mind they saying “Yeah, he was a nice guy but…”
I really don’t want to be cancelled at my funeral.
Here some conclusions from Step 1:
- I have good values.
- I may be a better Boy Scout than a Christ follower.
- I have chosen values that I feel best fit my definition of Christian.
- In that regard, I have chosen to eat the fruit of the forbidden ” Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil” (This idea is explored in Greg Boyd’s book “Repenting of Religion: Turning from Judgement to God’s love”)
Here are some thoughts I’m pondering.
Choosing to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil results in alienation from God and death.
Only the fruit of “The Tree of Life” produces eternal life.
Perhaps values I hold are more akin to Aaron’s Golden Calf, idols created from God’s good gifts I have chosen to worship rather than trust God.
Values are derived from the fruit we eat.
My next post will address Step 2. How do my values align with “Christian Values”?
Still on the Journey
I had never thought about how my so-called Christian values might be more akin to the Golden Calf than those pleasing to God. The Genesis account makes it clear that God’s original intent was not for humans to gain knowledge of good and evil because knowledge gives us the ability to control which requires less trust in God by at least having the illusion of control. Only fruit from the Tree of Life gives eternal life though so many of us still seek eternal life through so many other means, such as the extent to which some of us go to leave a legacy and to be remembered.