Sometimes when I’m driving I switch on conservative talk radio. What intrigues me most on these stations is the fear. According to this subculture’s world view—we live in a very scary world, full of conspiracy, of evil cloaked as good, of impending doom.
Interwoven with the sense of this evil “now” is nostalgia for the “good old days” when the founding fathers promoted Christian faith, when nativity scenes and the 10 commandments were valued in public spaces, when schools promoted prayer and taught a sevenday creation and family values reigned supreme. But these are long gone and we’re in trouble.
This perspective calls us to be fearful of the slippery slope—one step in the wrong direction, one compromise, and you’ll be sliding down— to hell in a hand-basket.
Maybe it’s my background as a skier, but I’m inclined to think slippery slopes are a good thing.
Fear of the slippery slope has excellent precedent: Jesus’ opponents thought he was taking people down one. Why didn’t Jesus make his disciples wash their hands properly? Why did he heal on the Sabbath? Why did he eat with immoral people? How dare he try to move people from the heights of strict obedience to the law— sliding them toward a world of love and freedom?
Paul’s opponents (with whom he is constantly disputing in his letters) see him going down a slippery slope—away from a religion strictly designed for Jews. For heaven’s sake, Paul was saying new Christians didn’t need to keep the law, that circumcision wasn’t necessary; he was willing to include the horrid Gentiles! Over and over he argues for freedom and love.
If we look around, we see evidence of the slippery slope everywhere. Think how far we’ve slipped from the good old days when anyone who disagreed with your religious sensibilities could/ should/would be beheaded! From those blessed times when family values reigned supreme, when wives who didn’t have access to contraception died young (during the birth of her seventh baby) leaving families in dire straits. How about the halcyon years when sexual abuse of girls and young women was so common as to be unremarkable—just part of the way ‘boys will be boys.” Oh for the good old days when people owned other people! Whatever happened to treating native people as animals? Or those wonderful days when women didn’t have the vote!
The slippery slope is getting completely out of hand. People who were once despised as society’s most perverse—well now they want to commit themselves in faithful covenant relationships. They want to serve their country in the military! They want to mentor by leading Scout troops! They want to respond to God’s call to ministry in the church! What could be more shocking! See how slippery these slopes can be?
The fact is that things have changed. And not always for the better. I’m a firm believer that relativism with its apathy, its sense of its own superiority, its lack of commitment—has done terrible things for the world. See colonialism, for example. In the world around us we see a mixture—things which show the hand of a good God at work, and things which show ongoing human weakness.
More than anything else, Jesus says, “Fear not.” We are not meant to live fearful lives. Instead Jesus modeled a different way of being in the world—loving, healing, breaking down barriers. Christ called (and continues to call) us to help bring in the Kingdom of God—a place where those values are lived. We can begin to do that by rejecting fear, apathetic relativism, and nostalgia. Who knows—we may begin to see God’s good hand in the way we’ve been led along the slippery slope, and want to bring others along!
Each month a member of the Cook County Ministerium will offer Spiritual Reflections. This month’s contributor is Mary Ellen Ashcroft, Vicar of Spirit of the Wilderness Episcopal Church.
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