Currently Listening: The Reception - Does it keep you awake?



I played a game called ‘Scruples’ last night with some friends. The point of the game is to choose which one of your friends is going to answer a morally challenging question the way you want them to – yes, no, or maybe – depending on the answer card you have drawn from the pile. For example, I would ask Tito (a fictional friend) the following question. “Tito,” I’d say, “You manage a TV station. Your female news anchor doesn’t look the way she did 15 years ago. The ratings are falling. Do you replace her?” To which Tito would reply, “Absolutely, comrade (he always calls me that). Get a new hottie in the chair.” I would then be awarded a point, because I knew that Tito would say yes, hence my questioning of Tito as opposed to Charmaine, Jazz or Shanay-nae. Jazz, sitting to my right, would then ask a similar question from his pile of cards to whomever he figured would answer the same as the answer card he has drawn. Let me illustrate 'script-style'.

Jazz: Hey-yo Shanay-nae.
S-N: Hey-yo what, Jazz?
Jazz: Your family is hungry. You’re broke, and can’t find a job. Do you steal?
S-N: Heck-yes I would.
Jazz: Oh, man, that’s trippin’! I thought you’d say depends.
S-N: Well, I dit-n’t.

(Both exit stage left)

So, hopefully you get the point of the game.

The reason I bring this up is that I find it fascinating how we can act morally inappropriate in one situation without batting an eye, but in a different situation, there is no room to compromise. It is interesting how we come up with our own moral law. Yours is different than mine, and mine is different than yours, but we’re all quickly becoming soft on ourselves. And it is totally skewed. I mean, not many of us have a problem driving a few kilometers over the speed limit or leaving just a few dollars of ‘under-the-table income’ off our tax claim but many in our society would never consider acting on emotions for that ‘certain someone’, if a good friend likes them, too. That would be wrong! Our ideas of right and wrong have become so messed up. We would never tell someone that their beliefs about something are wrong, but everyday people lie to their employers about being sick in order to get a day off. Or how is it that robbing a bank is wrong, but illegally downloading music from the internet is a fundamental right in our i-pod society?

Where does this “law” come from?

This is why I am glad that ALL sin falls short of the glory of God. If it were up to us to decide and enforce which ones are appropriate or which ones were just little oversights, we would be completely lost. Being called to a morally perfect standard leaves us all in need of forgiveness. But I’d better not impose this view on anyone but myself, because that… would be wrong.

Cam