"Compassion"? A parable (re-post)

by Dan Phillips

First posted in January of 2011, this little item seems all the more timely today.

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A Visitor's Center one day was manned by twin brothers Nick and Knack. A car pulled into the parking lot, disgorging a breathlessly eager visitor.

"May we help you?" offered Nick genially.

"Yes, thank you!" bubbled the newcomer. "All my life I've been longing to travel Route 49! Can you show me the most direct way?"

Nick paled.

"Oh, I'm very sorry, but you don't want to go Route 49."

"But I do!" insisted the visitor.

"Let me rephrase myself," amended Nick. "You may want to, but you really mustn't.  The road goes along nicely at first, but then you'll see a bunch of roadblocks and obstacles laid across it, slowing you down and warning you off. These impediments aren't really a problem; they're actually a good thing...."

"How can they be a good thing," the visitor cuts in angrily. "This is my dream! I want to zoom, not be slowed down."

"I was going to say," continued Nick, "they're a good thing because otherwise you'll shoot straight off the stub of a broken bridge and plummet 800 feet to your death on the rocky rapids below."

"Oh," said the visitor, turning a bit white himself.

"He says," observed Knack, leaning forward, putting down his latte and stroking his soul-patch.

"The map says," countered Nick.

"Map?" asked the visitor.

"Yep, right here," replied Nick, spreading out the item itself on the counter. "See that red X there? It means bridge out."

"You say it means that," snarked Knack. "I say it means 'X marks the spot.'"

"Oh, come on," retorted Nick. "There's a legend at the bottom of the map, for crying out loud! See? 'Bridge out!' It isn't rocket science."

"Scholars now realize that 'X' means many different things in different cultures. Besides, you're talking as if that's the only map," drawled Knack. "This one shows a clear, delightful road right where our visitor wants to go. See?"

"That's in crayon!" exploded Nick.

"You got something against crayon?" inquired Knack.

"No," Nick shot back. "I have something against people destroying themselves."

"Psh," Knack sneered. "You just want safety in rules. The visitor's a daring seeker. He should seek. The journey is what matters, not the destination."

"Seek death?" Nick replied. "I think he'll care plenty about the destination when his car shoots off into space."

There was an angry silence, broken by a sob. It was the visitor, who has tears running down his cheeks.

"All I know is I've yearned to go down Route 49 as long as I remember. Some kids mocked me, others ridiculed me and were mean to me, but the desire has always been there. I can't conceive of not wanting to go down Route 49. It's what my heart tells me to do, and I have to be true to my heart, don't I? I can't lie. It defines me. You can't separate this desire from me. I can't imagine not wanting to go that way. It fills my dreams. I even have a T-shirt. See?" He pulled open his blazer and displayed the garment.

"I understand," crooned Knack. "There is nothing wrong with you or with what you want. And there's nothing wrong with going that way. For you, it is the only way. And in fact, I want to help you. I will personally go ahead of you and remove all the blocks, chains, signs, speed bumps, and ropes that have been stretched across the road. I will mount a parade for you — a Route 49 Pride parade. I will lobby to prohibit people from speaking against traveling Route 49. I will side with you against all the harsh, rule-happy Route 49 nay-sayers. In fact, I will get my brother here fired, because he made you feel bad about wanting to go Route 49. He doesn't care about your feelings, as I do. He doesn't have any love or compassion for you, and I've got buckets of both. Nick's all about rules and maps and shutting you out and playing it safe; I'm all about love and compassion and justice and being bold and daring. Nick is shallow, reactionary and not helpful. I'm deep and thoughtful and helpful. So you just get in your car, and you go go go!"

As the visitor beamed, Nick sprang to block the door. "Whoa whoa whoa, not so fast! Look, friend — how you feel about Route 49 doesn't change the facts: the bridge is out! My feelings aren't the map, your feelings aren't the map. Go that way, and you will die! I don't want you to die. I don't think it's loving or compassionate to give you bad information that means your death. The people who put up those signs and those obstacles knew what they were doing, and they did it because they care about people like you. It shouldn't be easy an comfortable to go down that road. It wouldn't be compassionate of me to focus on giving you a smooth ride to your own destruction, and it isn't "bold" and "daring" to head off to certain doom. Enabling you isn't really helping you. And look, I can show you other ways to go, or I can try to find other ways to help — but don't go that way! It'd be the end of you."

Silence fell again for a moment, then:

"We could call a five-year moratorium on this," offered Knack.

"But I want to go that way now," countered the visitor.

"The map says what it says now, and it isn't unclear," said Nick. "It's said that for a long time, and nothing's changed. Nothing's going to change in five years."

The visitor looked back and forth between the brothers, confused. He knew which brother's advice he liked best, which brother told him what he wanted to hear, but... was that the wisest way to decide?

PREMISE: the bridge was indeed out, and the map was indeed accurate.

QUESTION: which brother actually showed love and compassion?

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"Did you take him to coffee first?" dodge (NEXT! #32)

by Dan Phillips

Challenge: I felt I needed to say publicly that you should have privately taken X out for coffee before publicly taking him/her to issue for his/her public teaching and conduct.

Response A: Yeah... so where's my coffee?

Response B: You're as right publicly to fault my public statement as Paul was publicly to fault Peter's public behavior, and as I was to fault his/hers.

NEXT!

(Proverbs 21:22)

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"But otherwise": skewed priorities (classic re-post)

by Dan Phillips

Various bits of pastoralia have me too full-plated to finish half-done posts. So here's a timely post from October of 2006. Enjoy.

Consider this description of a guy. We'll call him... Guy. Guy G. Guy.

Guy's really a good person. He's as honest as the day is long. He's hard-working, a straight-shooter. He gives to charity -- and not just to formal charities: I've never seen Guy turn down a panhandler on the street. He's devoted to his wife and children, he's a regular church-attender. He drives within the speed limit, always seems neatly dressed and clean. I hardly ever see him sitting around. He's often out working on his yard, or even helping elderly neighbors work on theirs.

Good guy, right? Oh wait. Left out a trait.

Guy does have this one pastime. When the mood strikes, Guy molests small children.

But otherwise, a good guy, right?

Well, no. I'm pretty sure I lost you with that last, stomach-jolting little attribute. It's what we call a deal-killer. However nice the other descriptives might be, that last one counter-balances and stains them all. It's a vice so repellant, so intuitively appalling, that extended argumentation isn't necessary. Our image of this imaginary fellow does an abrupt volte-face, with one simple, specific bit of information.

So why do we, Christian and non-Christian, so regularly commit even a worse error in moral evaluation?

I just finished laboring through Four Views on Salvation in a Pluralistic World for a class. My, that was a chore. Four sets of authors batted around the question of "the fate of the heathen." They ranged from (IMHO) the clueless (John Hick, Clark "Evangelical! Really! I Swear!" Pinnock), to the sorta cluey (Alister E. McGrath), to the considerably more clued (R. Douglas Geivett, W. Gary Phillips [no relation]).

Hick and Clark "I Am an Evangelical! Really! I Am, I Am, I Am!" Pinnock wrung their hands about the horrible injustice of God sending good, moral, decent, religious people to Hell just because they didn't believe in Jesus. McGrath stood a bit to their Biblical right, though in a muzzy way; Geivett and Phillips considerably more so.

Unless I missed it, however, no one challenged what I think is the fundamental issue. Clark "Did I Mention That I'm an Evangelical?" Pinnock stood pretty much with John "At Least I Don't Claim to Be an Evangelical" Hick in accepting the proposition that "there are pagan saints in other religions" (p. 119) So Pinnock shrinks back from the thought that God could condemn everyone except believers. Even in their responses, the other three writers did not focus on what I think is a central issue.

Which "central issue" would that be?

Well, back up with me for one second. Can a person be rightly considered moral if he does all the wonderful things I mentioned, but just has this one little recurrent indulgence that he embraces and practices, involving little kids? If you can't give me a hearty "No" on that one, further conversation probably would not be fruitful.

Why can't we say that he's basically good, though? He does more good things than bad, doesn't he? But none of that matters, because we intuitively recognize a certain hierarchy in morality. Replace the sin of pederasty with a failure to signal his right turns, and we'd relax a bit. He might be a decent fellow after all. On any hierarchy, failure to signal one's turns ranks well below the abomination of child molestation. A child is infinitely more precious and valuable than a traffic regulation.

Let's stay with the same man, then, with an alteration. Remove the pederasty, leave him with all the other virtues (and if you like throw in a score of others). Just add this one specific: he does not hold Jesus as his Lord and Savior.

What do you think now? Is he a moral man?

Your answer to that question will tell me everything about your moral hierarchy.

Someone asked Jesus once what amounted to this: What is the chief imperative of the universe (Matthew 22:36)? What is at the pinnacle of the moral hierarchy?

As you may know, the Lord Jesus answered the man's question. Plus, at no extra charge, He laid out the second imperative of the universe.

And he said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets." (Matthew 22:37-40, emphases added)

Jesus laid down two categories: first the vertical, then the horizontal. First, the theological. Second, the social. First, love the Lord your God with everything you've got. Second, love your neighbor as you already love yourself.

When we rank a person's morality, we usually primarily judge as to whether he is kind, honest, generous, decent, giving, merciful, loving -- to people. What outrages us is pederasty, rape, murder, theft, violence -- against people. Horizontal crimes. These are, indeed, important areas. In fact, they comprise the second-most important area of morality in the universe.

Second. Not first.

The chief indicator of a person's character is his relationship to God. In other words, his theology, his doctrine, his faith.

Nor should we anachronistically imagine that by "your God" Jesus means "whoever you conceive God to be." No honest Jesus-scholar would suggest that He means any other than the living God of Israel, who reveals Himself in the Law and the Prophets. It is that God -- and, by extension, the God who reveals Himself through Jesus Christ (Matthew 11:27; 17:5; John 1:18; 17:3, etc.) -- who must be loved above all else.

Can a person be a moral person, and violate what Jesus calls "the great and first commandment," the commandment that comes before and above all others?

An affirmative answer reveals a genuinely worldly viewpoint. It indicates that we're seeing the moral universe through man-centered glasses.

But if you believe Jesus, you must answer "Of course not. It's a deal-killer."

Yet we have the odd spectacle of folks who may well confidently say of a rapist, pederast, murderer, or terrorist, "He'll burn in Hell" -- but balk at saying the same of someone who violates the ultimate moral imperative in all of creation. A good guy who rejects Jesus is, by our skewed priorities, still a good guy. But if he harms women or children -- well. That's different.

When you make yourself think it through, it's odd.

But the spectacle of folks who claim to be "really, really" evangelical, balking at the justice of laying the most severe judgment on the most heinous crime in all creation? "Odd"?

Worse than odd.

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The mugging: a parable

by The Pyromaniacs: Dan, Frank and Phil

A few people noticed that a mugging was about to happen. There was no doubt. It was unmistakable: an act of violence was about to unfold right in front of their eyes, and it was going to be gruesome.

Something had to be done. Those who saw events begin to unfold could not imagine not doing what they could to prevent it. So they let out a shout of warning.

The moment they began to cry out, however, a circle of people formed around both victim and perpetrator. The circle was composed of big, respectable, decent folks. Their backs were turned towards those crying out.

Oh good. The right people were on the scene! Surely they saw what was going to happen. Surely they'd intervene.

And yet... they did nothing.

So the outsiders, really alarmed now, raised their voices. They were pointed, they were specific, they were passionate, they were eloquent to the point of heart-breaking. It was a life or death situation; this was not the moment for collegial tea and crumpets on the deck. But there was enough time, if someone did something in response to all their shouts and cries.

To all this, the inner circle of watchers maintained absolute, lofty silence, as far as could be told. It was as if they couldn't hear.

But how was that possible? The folks who were sounding the alarm were right there, and they were plenty loud. Yet these good, decent folks just stood there. But this one... did he actually have his hands over his eyes so as to "not see" the people waving their arms? And that one... were those his fingers, stuck in his ears so as to "not hear" the cries of warning?

Others formed in the crowd as well, onlookers...

Then, suddenly and inevitably, it happened. It was every bit as brutal and shocking as the outer circle had warned. Worse. Still, they gasped. They gaped. How could this have happened?

And then, at long last, the inner circle finally turned around and faced outward.

As the bodies were being carted off.

They made hushing, calming gestures with their hands. "Now, now," tutted a central figure:

"No doubt what happened was regrettable. It's a sad day, and a sad, sad thing that happened. We are all deeply grieved. All of us love peace. We all detest violence. We cherish exactly what you cherish. We are with you. We are you.

"No doubt many will be upset. No doubt many will wonder why something wasn't done. Well, just be assured, your leaders are in charge. They have the situation well in hand. There is absolutely nothing to be alarmed about, nothing to be upset or energized about, certainly nothing to raise your voices about. If there had been, you know we would have told you.

"Perhaps something good may even come of this! 

"Now, back to your homes and churches with you, go on, that's a good lot.

"We may even write a book about this. If one of us does write a book, we'll be sure to let you know. And if we don't tell you, you don't need to know."

And to the slack-jawed amazement of those who had cried alarm and had been ignored, to their ears came the sound of...

Applause!

Applause, and shouts of praise for the inner circle of silent spectators. Praise for their sagacity, their "nuance," their "judiciousness," their "carefulness," their "graciousness" (towards the muggers), their "thoughtfulness," their "helpfulness"; the hours they'd put into such careful and intelligent watching and spectating, and then for so articulately commenting... after the mugging.

And so, in the end...

...nothing changed for the better.

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The "pious heretic" dodge (NEXT! #28)

by Dan Phillips

Challenge: Anyone who does good works in the name of Jesus must be acceptable to God. Especially if they're really-really good.

Response: ...and the man who rapes your daughter but gives her car an oil change because he "loves" her so much should be acceptable to you?

NEXT!

(Proverbs 21:22)

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Every reason to be thankful, regardless

by Dan Phillips

The pastor who started my own pastoral training was a mixed bag, doctrinally. But one of the two best and most memorable principles he ingrained on us stands out to me still, nearly forty years later; and it may be personally very relevant to some of our readers today.

This was the early seventies, and Vietnam still raged. Here's a paraphrase of what my pastor said:

If the Gospel you preach could not equally be preached in the trenches of Vietnam and in the dining rooms of Beverly Hills, it isn't the Gospel.

This simple (and true) principle smashes prosperity "gospel" heresies and "contextualized" perversions, and gets us down to the raw, timeless, transcultural dyamism of what Paul says is God's power resulting in salvation for every believer in every culture at every time.

I'll leap to make application for our day, on this day of Thanksgiving.

It is impossible not to think of Americans (or non's) who view our day of Thanksgiving with bitterness. "Yeah, right; easy to say thanks if you're employed, healthy, young, popular, happily married, in a growing and united church, borne on the shoulders of grateful, godly, loving children. And then there's me."

To that person, I'd just say: if you have Jesus Christ, you have reason to overflow with thanks, regardless of your situation.

I don't say this as a theoretician, though I'll not take you with me into the sloughs I've rented over the years. It's an ongoing lesson. So let me just turn to a better, a familiar friend to us all, Charles Spurgeon. One of the greatest, pithiest, truest, most encouraging little points he ever made was a meditation on Jeremiah 31:33 — "For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people."

Spurgeon wrote this:

Christian! here is all thou canst require. To make thee happy thou wantest something that shall satisfy thee; and is not this enough? If thou canst pour this promise into thy cup, wilt thou not say, with David, “My cup runneth over; I have more than heart can wish”? When this is fulfilled, “I am thy God”, art thou not possessor of all things? Desire is insatiable as death, but he who filleth all in all can fill it. The capacity of our wishes who can measure? But the immeasurable wealth of God can more than overflow it. I ask thee if thou art not complete when God is thine? Dost thou want anything but God? Is not his all-sufficiency enough to satisfy thee if all else should fail? But thou wantest more than quiet satisfaction; thou desirest rapturous delight. Come, soul, here is music fit for heaven in this thy portion, for God is the Maker of Heaven. Not all the music blown from sweet instruments, or drawn from living strings, can yield such melody as this sweet promise, “I will be their God.” Here is a deep sea of bliss, a shoreless ocean of delight; come, bathe thy spirit in it; swim an age, and thou shalt find no shore; dive throughout eternity, and thou shalt find no bottom. “I will be their God.” If this do not make thine eyes sparkle, and thy heart beat high with bliss, then assuredly thy soul is not in a healthy state. But thou wantest more than present delights—thou cravest something concerning which thou mayest exercise hope; and what more canst thou hope for than the fulfilment of this great promise, “I will be their God”? This is the masterpiece of all the promises; its enjoyment makes a heaven below, and will make a heaven above. Dwell in the light of thy Lord, and let thy soul be always ravished with his love. Get out the marrow and fatness which this portion yields thee. Live up to thy privileges, and rejoice with unspeakable joy.

There it is: "I will be their God" is "the masterpiece of all the promises; its enjoyment makes a heaven below, and will make a heaven above."

Think about it, Biblically. Make yourself, if your feelings aren't "there." Pray for God to help you think about it. What is the lot — the long-term lot — of the person who has everything but that promise to call his own? Family, friends, health, wealth... but God is not his God?

Then think: What is the lot — the long-term lot — of the person who has nothing but that promise to call his own? Little material good... God is his God?

We've worked at unfolding the treasures in that depository over the course of many posts; and we will do so, Lord willing, in many more. But that is it: if you have God as your God, through saving faith in Jesus Christ, then you have reason today for joy and gratitude. Though they matter, this central truth is true no matter how hard, happy, or non-existent your marriage; how thriving or struggling your church; how grateful or treacherous your children; how abundant or feeble your health; how many or few the candles on your birthday-cake.

Wherever you are, whatever your lot, look to Christ your Savior, Christ your Lord, and thank Him today.

You have reason, Christian friend.

I know this for a fact.

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Open Letter to the #Occupy Movement

by Frank Turk

Dear #OWS & your kin --

Back before my personal blog went on long-term hiatus, I presented this video, as provided by the BBC via YouTube:



Hans Rosling is one of those EuroIntellectuals who gets gigs at places like the TED talks and gets appointments from the UN, so his work on this sort of data ought to be of some interest to you as he is probably sympathetic to your points of view.  The animated graphic he runs in this video is actually available on-line here, so you can play with it yourself and invent all kinds of stuff to argue with people about.

I have a specific point to make to you today using that data, and I hope you'll bear with me.

Here's the first stop on the tour of this data:

CLICK TO ENLARGE

This is Rosling's data at 1800 with the country with the highest standard of living called out.  The UK in 1800 had a per capita GDP of approximately $2800.00 in adjusted US dollars.  You can refute that any way you want, as this is Rosling's research and not mine.  I'd call him slightly biased, and not in my favor, which is fine.  But note this: in 1800, the UK's standard of living rendered an average life expectancy of 40 years.

Now, let's jump ahead 210 years:

I've left the pointers on the map for reference.  In 210 years, controlling for inflation, there are still plenty of countries with a per capita GDP of $2800 or less.  Let's call some out --

For examples, Ethiopia has a per capita GDP of less than $1000; Zimbabwe is less than $500; Nigeria is just over $2000; Ghana is in the middel around $1500.  But here's the thing: all of these countries have a life expectancy greater than that of the UK in 1800, and their GDP per capita is lower -- meaning there is less overall income in these nations, and a greater expectation of longer life.  Ghana's life expectancy is 50% greater than the UK's in 1800 -- and their people live today in what we would call abject poverty.

Someone a little more doctrinaire than I am when it comes to politics would now grandstand on the answer to the question, "How can this be possible?" but I have different objectives here.  While this graph shows us a lot of things, there is something it does not show us -- and we need to interpose some other data to go there.  Consider this:

The green line there is the median household income for the United States in 2010. If you have forgotten 6th grade math, the "median" in a series of numbers is not the average of the series: it is the number in the middle of the series.  So if you lined up the incomes for all 113,146,000 households with incomes in 2010, the value in the dead center of the list is $ 44,389.00  This is an interesting number as it shows how incomes skew either to the high end or the low end of the distribution -- and given that the mean household income is north of $60,000, I grant you it shows that the household incomes in the U.S. skew lower than average.

But see here: that green line has a startling place on the graph of world economies.  There are only 4 nations that have an average per cap GDP higher than our median household income -- so the median household in the U.S. has it pretty good.  And that value has special meaning relative to Rosling's video: Rosling classifies income of $40,000 as rich.

Rich!  Isn't that awesome?  That puts your complaints into a certain light, but there's one more vertical line I want to stripe in here:

You may not be familiar with the quintile rankings for income, so briefly: if you took that list of 113,146,000 households again in lowest-to-highest rank, and broke them up into five evenly-sized groups, you would have quintiles of income.  The break point between the 1st (lowest) and 2nd quintile is at $18,500 -- meaning the bottom 1/5th of households in the US have an annual income of under $18,500.  That sounds pretty scary, right?  That's the kind of thing you are out in the street trying to educate us about, yes?

But check it out: the line where you and I would say is the line which designates the poorest of the poor is well above the per capita income of more than 85% of the world's population.  It's a level of income 80% greater than the per cap GDP of South Africa, 30% greater than Russia, and six times greater than that of India.

That is: we define poverty in an opulent way.  Compared to the UK in 1800, we have defined the crown of Western Civilization to that time down to a dirty little country which we would be offended to live in.  The great part about this is the punchline: it's because we're greedy.

That's right: the problem is not that "they" are greedy - whoever "they" are (the bankers, the capitalists, the stock traders, but apparently not the movie moguls, the actors, the politicians and pop stars) -- but that we are greedy.  We want things we didn't earn, and we can't imagine that we might have to live on less than we think we are entitled to.  We certainly couldn't live on what the average Englishman lived on in1800, and may God forbid we have to live on what the average Russian or South African lives on today.  There was a time when we would say it isn't "fair", but today we say it's actually an injustice -- as if "justice" has anything to do with us getting something we didn't actually earn.

So I say all that to say this: your problem is not actually on Wall Street, or Atlanta, or San Fran, or any other city.  It is actually in your own heart -- and your accuser is not me and my blog-audacity, but the billions who look at you incredulously and see you complaining that you have a silver spoon in your mouth rather than a platinum one.  Your problem is the problem of all mankind, which is sin.

And the only cure for sin is repentance and faith in the only savior of men, Jesus Christ.

So today, when you read this, don't gird up your loins to context the data: repent.  Turn away from your simplistic materialism and repent.

---

"But otherwise": skewed priorities

by Dan Phillips

Consider this description of a guy. We'll call him... Guy. Guy G. Guy.

Guy's really a good person. He's as honest as the day is long. He's hard-working, a straight-shooter. He gives to charity -- and not just to formal charities: I've never seen Guy turn down a panhandler on the street. He's devoted to his wife and children, he's a regular church-attender. He drives within the speed limit, always seems neatly dressed and clean. I hardly ever see him sitting around. He's often out working on his yard, or even helping elderly neighbors work on theirs.

Good guy, right? Oh wait. Left out a trait.

Guy does have this one pastime. When the mood strikes, Guy molests small children.

But otherwise, a good guy, right?

Well, no. I'm pretty sure I lost you with that last, stomach-jolting little attribute. It's what we call a deal-killer. However nice the other descriptives might be, that last one counter-balances and stains them all. It's a vice so repellant, so intuitively appalling, that extended argumentation isn't necessary. Our image of this imaginary fellow does an abrupt volte-face, with one simple, specific bit of information.

So why do we, Christian and non-Christian, so regularly commit even a worse error in moral evaluation?

I just finished laboring through Four Views on Salvation in a Pluralistic World for a class. My, that was a chore. Four sets of authors batted around the question of "the fate of the heathen." They ranged from (IMHO) the clueless (John Hick, Clark "Evangelical! Really! I Swear!" Pinnock), to the sorta cluey (Alister E. McGrath), to the considerably more clued (R. Douglas Geivett, W. Gary Phillips [no relation]).

Hick and Clark "I Am an Evangelical! Really! I Am, I Am, I Am!" Pinnock wrung their hands about the horrible injustice of God sending good, moral, decent, religious people to Hell just because they didn't believe in Jesus. McGrath stood a bit to their Biblical right, though in a muzzy way; Geivett and Phillips considerably more so.

Unless I missed it, however, no one challenged what I think is the fundamental issue. Clark "Did I Mention That I'm an Evangelical?" Pinnock stood pretty much with John "At Least I Don't Claim to Be an Evangelical" Hick in accepting the proposition that "there are pagan saints in other religions" (p. 119) So Pinnock shrinks back from the thought that God could condemn everyone except believers. Even in their responses, the other three writers did not focus on what I think is a central issue.

Which "central issue" would that be?

Well, back up with me for one second. Can a person be rightly considered moral if he does all the wonderful things I mentioned, but just has this one little recurrent indulgence that he embraces and practices, involving little kids? If you can't give me a hearty "No" on that one, further conversation probably would not be fruitful.

Why can't we say that he's basically good, though? He does more good things than bad, doesn't he? But none of that matters, because we intuitively recognize a certain hierarchy in morality. Replace the sin of pederasty with a failure to signal his right turns, and we'd relax a bit. He might be a decent fellow after all. On any hierarchy, failure to signal one's turns ranks well below the abomination of child molestation. A child is infinitely more precious and valuable than a traffic regulation.

Let's stay with the same man, then, with an alteration. Remove the pederasty, leave him with all the other virtues (and if you like throw in a score of others). Just add this one specific: he does not hold Jesus as his Lord and Savior.

What do you think now? Is he a moral man?

Your answer to that question will tell me everything about your moral hierarchy.

Someone asked Jesus once what amounted to this: What is the chief imperative of the universe (Matthew 22:36)? What is at the pinnacle of the moral hierarchy?

As you may know, the Lord Jesus answered the man's question. Plus, at no extra charge, He laid out the second imperative of the universe.

And he said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets." (Matthew 22:37-40, emphases added)

Jesus laid down two categories: first the vertical, then the horizontal. First, the theological. Second, the social. First, love the Lord your God with everything you've got. Second, love your neighbor as you already love yourself.

When we rank a person's morality, we usually primarily judge as to whether he is kind, honest, generous, decent, giving, merciful, loving -- to people. What outrages us is pederasty, rape, murder, theft, violence -- against people. Horizontal crimes. These are, indeed, important areas. In fact, they comprise the second-most important area of morality in the universe.

Second. Not first.

The chief indicator of a person's character is his relationship to God. In other words, his theology, his doctrine, his faith.

Nor should we anachronistically imagine that by "your God" Jesus means "whoever you conceive God to be." No honest Jesus-scholar would suggest that He means any other than the living God of Israel, who reveals Himself in the Law and the Prophets. It is that God -- and, by extension, the God who reveals Himself through Jesus Christ (Matthew 11:27; 17:5; John 1:18; 17:3, etc.) -- who must be loved above all else.

Can a person be a moral person, and violate what Jesus calls "the great and first commandment," the commandment that comes before and above all others?

An affirmative answer reveals a genuinely worldly viewpoint. It indicates that we're seeing the moral universe through man-centered glasses.

But if you believe Jesus, you must answer "Of course not. It's a deal-killer."

Yet we have the odd spectacle of folks who may well confidently say of a rapist, pederast, murderer, or terrorist, "He'll burn in Hell" -- but balk at saying the same of someone who violates the ultimate moral imperative in all of creation. A good guy who rejects Jesus is, by our skewed priorities, still a good guy. But if he harms women or children -- well. That's different.

When you make yourself think it through, it's odd.

But the spectacle of folks who claim to be "really, really" evangelical, balking at the justice of laying the most severe judgment on the most heinous crime in all creation? "Odd"?

Worse than odd.

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