sides and extremes

and what they do to ideas

Photo by Peter Lawrence on Unsplash

Hey friends! Sorry if you’re getting this in your inbox twice; I had some weird tech problems when I published the first post and had to repost it. (:

So often Western culture is sickening to me. Why? It’s dominated by extremist “advocates”.

The word “advocate” is such a good word. It speaks of courage, of standing up for a deep inner conviction. So why has it become such a stink—not only to me but to so many moralistic individuals?

I think the answer lies in the phenomenon of sides and extremes. Rather than seeing the great English word advocate used in it’s true context, that of standing up and speaking in defense for what you believe is right, it has instead become a favorite word of people who like to “champion” what they believe are oppressed groups or individuals—groups that I personally believe are often not oppressed.

Championing the oppressed is not a bad thing. Quite the opposite. However, so often what our Western culture compartmentalizes as “oppressed” is an extremist fallacy of true oppression. It’s instead a vivid illustration of how good we actually have it that we would even dare label such a thing as oppression. Take a women living in Palestine and put her in America and I doubt she’ll say she still feels persecuted and dominated by men.

The definition of the word advocate hasn’t only been ruined, but the ideas of misogyny and racism and abuse have also become faulty to me. Don’t get me wrong—it’s not because I believe they don’t exist—but what our extremist society calls misogyny and racism and abuse often isn’t actual misogyny, racism, or abuse.

This cultural overemphasis on these ideas, this aim to see them all around us, is a disrespect to the actual horrible reality of them.

If I saw true misogyny and true racism I would be mortified. If I saw women regularly being sold as property and people regularly being judged by their skin color I would be nothing short of sick. But these humanist extremes illustrated for us in our western culture, the taking of a principle and bringing it to the farthest and most fantastical level, is taking good principles and solid ideas and ruining them.

Extremists take good ideas and ruin and ridicule them.

I see a lot of this in the Christian world when it comes to theology. Assumptions are made and viewpoints are almost always viewed through the lens of the said sides’ extremists. No, most Calvinists don’t believe that Christ only died for the elect, and no, most Armenians don’t believe you can lose your salvation.

Extremism is part of the natural fallen human makeup—part of what makes us so broken. I would say it often manifests in our inability to find a reasonable in-between.

That being said, I believe that some “middle grounds” are never worth taking—for example, I would never take a middle ground stance on abortion by saying that abortions are “sometimes okay” depending on the different circumstances. However, I wouldn’t necessarily go to the extremist opposite side of the spectrum by saying that married couples shouldn’t ever carefully plan when and where they want to have children either.

Being an extremist and being a very convicted person doesn’t have to be the same thing. You as an individual have a duty to make up your mind about this world and your purpose in it. You have a duty to create your own strong convictions. But these strong convictions do not have to cross into fantastical extreme ideologies with rocky foundations built on the sand.

To the Christian reader I would say that the gospel of Jesus Christ does not call us to unreasonableness. It calls us to faith. These are two very different things. We have been called to a reasonable faith (Isaiah 1:18).

(Check out Dr. William Lane Craig’s reasonablefaith.org).

I am a very convicted person. I am very tempted to move towards extremes. I’m consistently reminding myself that part of being a whole and complete individual in Christ is not only being strongly convicted but also being able to accept gray areas and nuances. I think there’s a biblical case that, to be fraught by worries that turn into extreme ideas such as, “I will never watch a movie with swearing because swearing is bad” “I will never celebrate this holiday because it has pagan roots” “I will never read a fantasy novel because all magical portrayal is demonic” is not only an unreasonable stance but also a fearfully faithless one.

I love how Dane Ortlund put it in his book Gentle and Lowly when he said,

As long as you fix your attention on your sin, you will fail to see how you can be safe. But as long as you look to this High Priest [ this being Christ ] you will fail to see how you can be in danger.

-Dane Ortlund, Gentle and Lowly

This same principle applies to ideas and convictions. God is big enough to keep you safe from the wickedness and wretchedness of the world. Your convictions, if drawn from the divine Sovereignty of His Word and Heart through the action of reading His Word and seeking Him in prayer, will not be too “weak” no matter how un-extreme they are.

Our hearts are drawn to the extremes of groups and ideas because our souls long for something strong, something dogmatic, something definite and real to grip in this ever-changing world. So often we look to causes and cases to fill this insecurity instead of the cross of Christ.

I love the song “A Little Bit of Everything” by the band Dawes because I believe it does such a good job lyrically on the nuances of ideas and the world around us. You can listen to it here.

Today I want to tell you that:

To be reasonable and conservative in your convictions does not make you a weak-minded individual.

To carefully research, make up your mind about an issue, and then not pick the most extreme side of that idea does not make you lukewarm in your beliefs.

That being said, there are many people who are very lukewarm in their convictions, who refuse to research their point of view and pick the middle ground. I pray, dear reader, that you never become one of those people, and to those people I quote Edwin Chaplin:

“Neutral men are the Devil’s allies.”

-Edwin Chaplin

Pick a side. Find an answer. You don’t have to bring your convictions to the very thin line, the brink between logic and fantasy, for it to be legitimate. And at the end of the day, the answers to the depth of longing in your soul is not a side or an idea. It’s a person.

That person is Jesus Christ.

Go to Him with your questions. He has all the answers to all the questions worth asking.

God is the highest good of the reasonable creature. The enjoyment of him is our proper; and is the only happiness with which our souls can be satisfied. To go to heaven, fully to enjoy God, is infinitely better than the most pleasant accommodations here. Better than fathers and mothers, husbands, wives, or children, or the company of any, or all earthly friends. These are but shadows; but the enjoyment of God is the substance. These are but scattered beams; but God is the sun. These are but streams; but God is the fountain. These are but drops, but God is the ocean.

-Jonathan Edwards