Relationships Without Entanglements

Both men and women ponder evil and discuss it from ever so many divergent viewpoints. Many who care remain hopeful that the problems of wrongdoing can be solved if we simply elect the right leaders and inaugurate effective programs. If something is wrong in a moral sense, why is it wrong? What standard has been broken? If it is only a social standard, we can revise the standard and eliminate the wrong. However, if there is some immutable standard in existence, should we not consider the architect of that standard and his authority over it in our groping for solutions?

When some wrong becomes troublesome to society, we often set up another encounter group to cover it, or we add it to the already heavy burden of social workers and law enforcement officers. We use Band-Aids to attempt to deal with sexual promiscuity, broken homes, substance abuse, prejudice, sexually communicated diseases, pedophilia, serial killings, and on-and-on-and-on. If we class most or all these things as 'wrong,' we need to know what 'wrong' means and why it happens. For this we need to take an even stronger look at what is 'right' and why it is so. If you garner an intimate knowledge of 'right' you will quickly discern what is 'wrong.' In this book, I will take us back to a grass roots examination of the underlying causes of these multitudinous categories of moral wrongs. Once we put these things out on the table, we can go to work finding ways to deal with them.

As young boy growing up in the Cumberland Mountains of southeast Kentucky, I had a group of very special school friends. We spent a great deal of time together. We hiked the mountains together, explored caves together, went to ball games together, and all those other things in the 'big band' era like dancing, dating, and swimming. We went out with nice young ladies and knew their families well. Before going home in the evening the boys would stand on a neighborhood street corner discussing 'lofty' topics, speaking of plans for the future, and laughing a lot. Standing in the light of an overhead luminaire, I can remember the ring of light moving around when the mountain breezes would blow. At those times, I'm sure we were certain of our center-stage status under that wandering spotlight. In our own minds, our thoughts and opinions were very weighty. We did not hesitate to share them with each other.

I remember vividly my home town of Middlesboro, Kentucky, for its beauty--a bowl-shaped valley surrounded by mountains and bordering Tennessee and Virginia. It was orderly planned and laid out by English settlers and boasts the second oldest operating golf course in this country. Many vacationers visit the Pinnacle, a lofty mountain peak with its scenic surroundings, and Cudjo's Cave in nearby Cumberland Gap, Tennessee. I have come to appreciate some of the grass roots principles instilled in us during those years due to our native circumstances.

There was still some feuding during this time back in those hills. Ours was partly a sedate and partly a rip-roaring coal mining town with a section downtown where drinking, gambling, fighting, prostitution, killing, and 'you name it' abounded. The coal miners earned good wages and went into town to spend them. Many were simple mountain men who did not know how to use their money to improve their lot. Perhaps it never occurred to some of them to add onto their one-room houses or buy their wives a pair of shoes.

Our group had great fun together, but we never got involved in sex, drinking, or serious trouble. We definitely were not little angels, but we knew what others did because we spent time together and talked about our thoughts and lives. There was another group of boys and girls who were involved in sex, drinking and many of the other things our little town had to offer. We all went to school together and were friendly, but our interface was one of tacit acceptance, with neither confrontation nor compromise. Unconsciously, we were most tolerant of each other and really had no ax to grind. We knew how they lived and they knew how we lived; there was definitely a dividing line which neither group considered crossing. Our group shared and discussed our lives because we liked each other and were interested in what was happening in each other's lives.

Looking back, I not only see those years as enjoyable, but as powerfully stabilizing. If someone had used words like 'relationship' and 'accountability' I would not have known what they were talking about. That said, I now realize I was not a Christian then, even though I had been churched since infancy. I must confess I was under a cloud of the greatest of sins, 'the failure to receive Jesus Christ as my Savior.' While my early adult life had stabilizing restraint, it was one of a lost sinner. With this brief background, I am privileged to share with you what I have discovered about proper safeguards and relationships and how they can give victory to the Christian life in a sinful world and help us preserve the integrity of our lives and witnesses.

If not violated, the spiritual rebirth produces a disposition within each Christian to desire glory for God and to enjoy His presence at all times. Having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ is what separates Christianity from Religion--the difference between trying to appease a god and the worshipping and joy of the intimate presence of the true God. A proper relationship with God and with other believers is the wellspring of the Christian life.

Can you remember when you were a child, trying to keep all the vegetables separated on your plate, not letting the peas touch the potatoes, or the potatoes touch the corn, etc.? I never thought much about why children do that. It's just a game, I suppose, a natural thing for many children to do. Even some adults live as separatists, partitioned off from others. But, people separated from each other are unnatural within the family of God. The mission of the Church is to fortify relationships and service to Christ within its body, worship God in unity of spirit, and reach out to others, broadcasting the love of God to all mankind. This is most eloquently portrayed in the sharing of the Gospel of salvation. This 'reaching out' hinges on having relationships with the people of the nonbelieving world. Even knowing that relationships with the world can create snares to our faith and that we can become unwary and careless, we may neither dismiss nor avoid these relationships. They are our existence, our mission; however, these relationships must be properly formed and constituted.

Decline is the fate of any unattended process. Nature would be characterized as totally pejorative if not accompanied by repair and renewal. The Second Law (entropy) of Thermodynamics states that given no external sustenance, the matter and energy of all things tend to reduce to a simpler form--things degrade toward an inert state. Water ponds dry up, health deteriorates, and bicycles rust. The cells of our bodies are constantly dying and our bodies would die completely were it not for a life renewing process constantly in operation. God not only created us, He sustains us--His creation is perpetual. The morals of mankind follow an analogous path of degradation when there is no renewal. When you read of the horrible acts of the past ages, including the persecution of Christians, the acts of Idi Amin Dada and others, you will see that evil has been with us throughout history. I ask you, 'If there's such a thing as evolution, when's it gonna start?' While the hearts of individuals may be no more evil than in antediluvian days, many speak of the increase of evil in the world today. I do not argue against that position, for the expanding population alone increases the probability.