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Compromise

  • Wearing trousers to church.
  • Carving pumpkins for Hallowe'en.
  • Dancing.
  • Popping to Aldi on a Sunday.
  • Believing that you can be LGBTQ+ and a Christian.
  • Owning multiple electronic devices.
  • Playing cards.
  • Supporting women in church leadership.
  • Paying tax.
  • Thinking that there isn't a "Biblical view of marriage".
  • Eating meat during Lent.
  • Washing clothes on a Sunday.
  • Buying non-Fairtrade chocolate.
  • Not wearing a hat or headscarf to pray.
  • Driving a car.
  • Wearing clothes that were probably produced in a sweatshop.

All of these are things that I do.

So, which ones do you think suggest that I am compromising my faith by adapting to the culture around me?

And, if your answer is not "All of them" or "None of them": how do I tell the difference?

We have had a series of sermons at church, from the beginning of the book of Revelation. This is before John gets to all the dragons and horses and lakes of fire. There are seven letters to seven different churches, and their general theme, at least as it comes across in the sermons I have heard, is: Don't compromise in your faith.

I'm not sure I can do that.

There's an argument that every single one of those things I have listed is incompatible with following Jesus. Most of them have had proponents of that view at some point in church history. Some still do.

Some actions on that list are things I wish I didn't do. Some, I feel, are a valid outworking of my faith. Several others don't really seem to matter one way or another - although they have produced strong disagreements in various times and places.

So when I hear a sermon about not compromising, I want to say: But we always compromise. Even Jesus compromised. He healed on the Sabbath, he touched lepers and dead people, he ate dinner with outcasts. He defended all these by saying he was following the guidance of his Father. Others saw it as dangerous backsliding. Not so different from our disagreements today.

And probably the deepest compromises are the ones we don't even see. I can imagine a future where, in 300 years, people are appalled that we continued to drive cars and call ourselves Christians. "Didn't they know how dangerous they were?" those future Christians will say. "Didn't they care that cars killed thousands of people and animals every year, and caused pollution and disease? Were they unaware of the mining and manufacturing processes that brought so much misery to those involved? Surely every right-thinking church must have been campaigning against this scourge to society!"

No. We were just wondering if we would get a parking spot less than two minutes' walk from the church door.

History may judge us on the issues we find contentious today. Or it may judge us on something that is so normal we don't even see it. And what God may judge us on, I have to confess, I find increasingly difficult to tell. I sure hope it's not that I wore leggings to church today and put a load of washing on before I left. 

But, if you are saying, "Oh no, definitely not," - then are you sure you're not just reflecting the culture around you?

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