On Value Systems, Part 1: or, I was expecting my abyss experience to come with a sucking sound

When someone becomes a follower of Jesus Christ, their internal system of values begins to morph into a value system reflecting the values of Jesus. As a person becomes more aware of the life-encompassing message of God, as given to us in the Bible and through the work of God's Holy Spirit, the follower of Jesus often alters various aspects of his lifestyle so that they reflect this changing inner value system.

Often, they will make choices about such things as clothing, music, social life, etc. (among a myriad of possible areas) so that their lifestyle will reflect the values of God.

In my circle of churches, these choices are known as standards. They are given a great deal of weight, and are often viewed as a rough indicator of a person's depth of spirituality/commitment to Christ/etc.

I bring this up because I've had several conversations recently on the general subject of these choices, with people my age and from my circle of churches. These conversations have prompted some thoughts about lifestyle decisions in the journey of followers of Christ.

My general observation from these conversations is that many of the factors involved in the decision-making process are headed in wrong directions. A composite might include the following scenario:

Lifestyle decisions are not taught in the context of relationship: they’re preached from a pulpit. So, when the time comes for a person to deal with the issue, there’s no indication that the matter is up for further explanation, or explanation in the context of an individual’s life, or anything like that. Just do it, already.

Lifestyle decisions are made for members by their leadership. For some, this is their pastor; for others, it starts with their parents and continues with their pastor.

These decisions are made, in general, with what is at best the flimsiest of explanations. This is not unexpected, given that these decisions are generally expressed as five-to-ten minute components of fourty-five minute sermons that are generally on another topic.

So the above circumstances result in this virtual vacuum in which a person is left to come to their own decision. Void of a relationship in which to work out the details of the decision, and with the aforementioned flimsy explanations in hand, the person is often left to interpret someone else's explanations on their own. In this vacuum, when someone else's interpretation of a Biblical principle doesn't make sense to them, it can be simply discarded as a disagreement that has no bearing on their own process.

Often, the result of these environmental factors is that a person's own lifestyle decision will be, to varying degrees, different from the decision made for them by parents or church leadership. In those cases, more often than not, the reaction on the part of leadership often is disappointment in them. Many times this disappointment, though palpable, is not actually articulated; rather, it remains just under the surface, and becomes part of the lens through which leadership views the person. Sometimes it manifests itself in subsequent sermons, or in conversations with others. All of this happens without any substantive interaction with the actual individual. At all.

And then the person, having made this decision that goes against precedent, discovers that the floor doesn't drop out from under them and they don't get sucked into the abyss and...they don't even feel bad about it. And because the whole process has happened in this vacuum, they assume that it never was wrong, and that there are entire segments of their lives that they want back, and now they wonder what other stuff they could be doing without getting sucked into the abyss...

I have not mentioned particular decisions at all in this piece. I won't: that's not the point. The point is, the above composite description is a bad, unhealthy way to come to any decision. But it is a frighteningly common one. And, in my view, it's producing confused, irritated, grass-is-greener-on-the-other-side followers of Christ.

In a future post, I'll share my thoughts on how this process could be more reflective of the way of Christ. In the meantime, I'd like to hear if you identify with any part of this story.