Monthly Archives: April 2010

“God doesn’t really care what we do, as long as we don’t hurt other people.” That’s what Sam told his buddies at the lunch table. “Am I hurting Lisa when I have sex with her? No. God doesn’t care then.” His buddies all nodded in agreement. It made perfect sense. “I mean, he cares much more about whether or not I help the poor, or fight for equal rights. As long as no one hurts me, they can do whatever they like. Its not my business.”

Classic.

Simple.

Sweet-sounding.

Naive.

And a complete lie.

Contrary to what society wants you to believe, this is not God’s rationale. The rules of engagement are not do whatever you like as long as nobody gets hurt. First of all, God has set up rules, and the reasons aren’t so nobody gets hurt, but the reasons are that he is God and what he says goes. It may sound very prideful, but let’s be honest, he created all that is, and so he gets to make the rules for he knows this universe a little bit better than we do. Second of all, we are foolish if we believe that physical hurt is the only hurt we feel. Nobody may get physically hurt in extramarital sex (though it does happen), but you may be emotionally scarred, whether you like to admit it or not. But that is beside the point, the rules aren’t there primarily to prevent pain, but rather to glorify God.

It’s a clever lie, though, isn’t it? It’s cleverness exploits our own humanity. It takes a complete advantage over our desire for love and acceptance. From the deepest fountains of our heart and soul is a hunger for love, a hunger that only God can fulfill. But seeing as how you can’t see the Persons of God standing before you, it is often difficult for us to experience that fulfillment, and so we aim that desire on the next best thing, our fellow brothers and sisters. We yearn so much for their love, acceptance, and approval, so much so, that we will betray our own consciences, our own knowledge of good and evil to experience that feeling of love from them. We would rather keep silent about sin so as to not upset them and perhaps lose their love. But this isn’t true love, its ruled by fear, shame, and guilt. When we say only what people want to hear so that we stay in their graces, we betray ourselves and we really do betray our love for them and most of all we betray Jesus Christ, nailed to the Cross for our transgressions.

But worse than this desire for the love of others is the dangerous desire to love ourselves. Our thorny flesh desires much that we know is wrong. Original sin and concupiscence; it all drives us to do what we know we ought not to do. We fear the pain and agony of denying ourselves what the flesh wants. We find it too difficult, not worth the fight. We would rather satisfy our bodies than satisfy God. We love ourselves so much that we choose not to love God.

The irony of it all is this: that when we love ourselves or others to the point where we lie or keep silent about moral truth or theological truth, when we call vice” good” and virtue “bad”, when we try to “love” them by accepting their sins, we actually cease to love them. No one who knowingly allows a child to pet a rabid mangy dog because the child wants to “pet the puppy” loves that child. He knows that the dog is unsafe and could lead to harm. Yet we are often silent when our neighbors freely, openly, and joyfully engage in rabid, mangy sexual sins, support the brutal murder of the Jew, the minority, the unborn. We do not love them if we silently or vocally approve of their sins.

The truth is that God does care about what we do to ourselves, to others, and with others. God would not rather we clothe the poor than abide in purity. He wants and demands both from us. This is the truth, and it is something we should not and cannot keep silent on. So what does this mean? Do we go and picket the funerals of soldiers with signs saying they will burn in hell for the sins of sodomy? Does it mean that we deface the fronts of business that sell pornography? Does it mean that we burn down the stores that sell clothing made by child laborers? Does it mean that we gun down the abortionist as he mows his lawn on Saturday afternoon? No. What it means is that we continually be a voice for sanctity, for respect of life, for virtuous living. It means we become a people of prayer, a people who instruct the ignorant. We become a people who live saintly lives, to show the world that it is possible to save sex for marriage, that it is possible to keep an unplanned baby alive, that it is possible to rise to new life in Christ.

And that is the truth.