Now, what was it you wanted me to do?

It was called horse sense where I grew up, but you might know it as common sense or savvy or gumption, but it is a quality that indicated the ability to see the obvious and call a spade a spade. Folks that didn’t have it were labeled as thick, or dense or just plain dumb. It seems there are more and more spades today that are not being labeled as such. Take this oft used statistic, for example. Research shows that there is very little difference in the morality, if you want to call it that, between people who proclaim to have faith in Christianity and those who don’t. Divorce rates are the same, teen pregnancies are similar. Christians seem to have just as many affairs and who know what other kinds of problems. Why is this? There is a religious segment that would say its just old fashioned sin that needs to be repented of. This group has been pounding the drum loudly that all our social ills are an indication that America is being punished for these sins and the solution is that we simply need to stop what they are doing and turn back to God. Let’s say that’s true. How does that happen? This was the line of thinking I was handed in my early faith development. It was more like the sentiment of Nike than anything supernatural. The Sunday preacher would open the Bible and point out all the behavior that we, the struggling followers, should avoid, and we were expected to “just do it.” Nothing really mattered other than raw obedience, and since nothing ever changed, this gave the preacher job security, who would continue the same browbeating week in and week out. Why didn’t this work, and by work I mean results in any kind of change in social or personal behavior? I would venture to say that we had no idea of what we were to become. There was no Ideal, if you will, to look toward and emulate. And without an Ideal, we are left with whatever we see around us. And if the majority of people I know are getting a divorce, why should I expect to be any different? When the going gets tough in marriage, why not jump ship? What really keeps me wanting to make it work? You might say Jesus is that Ideal and that he should be the example for all our dilemmas. But I’m not sure that was the main point of his short lived earthly presence. Jesus wasn’t married. He doesn’t live next door. He didn’t play basketball. He didn’t drive a car or have use of the Internet. There is so much we do today that he never did. WWJD can only go so far. Could it be the Ideal is much closer to us than the example of one who lived in a far away culture hundreds of years ago? To be continued...