“Who’s to say?? That’s none of anyone’s business but mine!” It was said with ... emotion. The business? What she and other Christians should do with their money. That’s what we were discussing and then came something I heard more as, “It’s mine and I’ll do with it what I want.”
My answer to the question was going to be, “Christians praying together perhaps.” We could say together that in our current community a $100k annual salary would be sufficient and we could give away the rest. It was just an idea. I thought Christians praying together could be a good answer to "Who's to say?" I thought it was an interesting question for us to discuss. But what I heard blowback-wise was something along the lines of I do what I want or what I think is best. End of discussion.
I got to wondering where we don’t insist on this as a natural, obvious right. I do what I want and it’s none of your business. Marriage? Once in it, one person just doesn’t just do what one person wants. Military? What I do and where I do and how I do is my business and no one elses? Nope, not in the military. We accept that. The Benedictine Order? I think we go along with what the community says or what the abbot says or what the vows said. So we surrender individual rights in that situation. We allow others to direct, even dictate.
If you belonged to a church and you started having an open extra-marital affair, it’s no one’s business except yours? Or did you when you became a part of that church surrender some part of your individualism to the community? Do we vow to follow the session? We say we do until they do something that we don’t like and then we go our merry way. I am THE authority in my life. But doesn’t it make sense that the church and the pastor would say to the church member having an affair, “Not as a Christian in our community you don’t”? Get rid of that sin, walk with us in the way of Christ, listen to our “right” to speak into your life given by Jesus when he made his church and put us in them, and if you don’t, we need to excommunicate you.
Our physical bodies do this? Sick organ, sick cells … get right or die. If that action doesn’t happen, then the whole body becomes sick and dies.
Enough musing on this. I’m not surprised that American Christians don’t submit their lives to an authority in terms of some form of church in their lives. But it doesn’t seem completely right to me. Does it to you?
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