There is little doubt that a basic problem for the church relates to the contradictions found in Christian doctrine, teachings, practices, persuasions, and virtually any other factor related to faith and practice in the culture of Christian faith context. About the only factor that emerges with some repetition is the person of Christ, but even that is compounded with contradictions – such as he was a remarkable human being but not divine, to the affirmation of his Deity. The most accepted is that he bore both his Deity and his humanity in one person. He was unique in this sense, and the word unique is used by the French in translating the word the English translates only begotten in John 3:16. The Catholics and the Protestants have differentiated each other over the matter of the details and experience of Christian faith. If it were not so, and proven in history, it would seem inconceivable that two massive movements, claiming the centrality of Christ, would be at significant difference with each other. Happily for us in current society the differences have abated somewhat in the manner in which they are managed. In the words of Lincoln referring to the Americans of the North and South: We are not enemies, but friends. In fact we are brothers/sisters – if in Christ.
The principle, which is quite significant, is a broad one for mankind. Which is the best government, the free democracy of some nations, or the management of nations by an elite group? Which is the best economy, the free markets of the west as developed by some European and English speaking nations, or the controlled economies like the socialistically oriented nations practice? These contrasts can be multiplied in nearly any context we might address. The problem is being extended, for example, in personal lives so that we have legally changed the meaning of marriage from one man and one woman, to include marriage between two persons of the same sex. At this writing we wait to see how the contradictions will play out. My purpose here is to affirm that human beings are prone to contradict each other for anything that relates to us. There are various reasons for the contradictions, but one is related to the tendency to skepticism that touches everyone who thinks seriously about life, and is aware that there is so much that we do not know about life, meaning, and the universe. There is an unspoken, perhaps unrealized, impression that we are not adequately informed, so we may as well go in the direction of our impressions. Those impressions are formed by our upbringing, culture, individual tendencies, and what we believe to be the available evidence for us. Since the same evidence may be used to opposite conclusions, we skew evidence to fit our preferences. This would be reason enough for God to offer his revelation of what he expects of us.
We mess things up by interpreting even his word to us, by imposing our views on the manuscript rather than permit the manuscript to form our views. So Scripture is used as other literature is used to advance contradictory viewpoints. The contradictions themselves are used to weaken the meaning of the word to the extent that many persons cannot form their faith effectively. Which is true – does the Bible defend slavery as the South contended in the Civil War period, or did it condemn slavery as the North contended? There were those, like the eminent Henry Ward Beecher in New York who firmly objected to slavery on biblical grounds. Down the street was another minister of an influential church who defended it. Even in the dominant cultures on both sides there were defendants of the opposite points of view. What happens when the die is not well cast? The abolitionist abandons the Scripture in the confusion of interpretations. The slaveholder turns to economics as defense for the peculiar institution. Tension increases, a race of people is degraded even in the eyes of many persons who would free that race, and the consequence is warfare seen in the inquisitions of long ago centuries in religious contexts, or the murder of tens of thousands of citizens in a Civil War in a secular context. The problem is human, not divine. What does all this mean to the gentle Jesus? Come unto me all ye who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest, he said. The matter was made practical for application in Scripture and the model of those who truly followed him. What folly we follow in distorting Scripture and God’s gospel. We do well in remembering that the contradictions are generated within ourselves. Why blame God? *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020