Something really interesting about the human condition:
Of the two "extremes" of discipline, Orthodoxy is by far the easier. It's the easiest thing in the world to read through a list of propositions and simply say, "Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes." But the sheer tortuous involution of our nature make this nearly impossible for us to attain, while orthopraxy seems to come, if not naturally, at least much easier. How much easier it is for us to hold, feed, or care for a suffering child, to become incensed and outraged by harm done to the little ones, than it is to acquiesce to a proposition like, "The Death Penalty is, for the most part in the present day, entirely unnecessary to assure justice." One almost never hears of someone arguing against feeding the poor or caring for children, but birth control incites a veritable firestorm of argument and counter-argument. And given the mechanisms of love, perhaps that too is part of God's merciful provision. He has made it easier for us to do as we ought to do that to think as we ought to think, because no matter what we think, so long as we serve His Son, we are His children.
Later--you know, I have to take part of this back, because while one hears few objections to feeding children who have had the advantage of partum, one gets a panoply of arguments pre-partum. And I suppose that is also part and parcel of the human nature. If I don't see it, it doesn't exist and I don't have to acknowledge it. Part of the reason that sonograms and films and photographs so outrage supporters of abortion--by them we make real what they prefer to treat in abstract and in theory.
One almost never hears of someone arguing against feeding the poor or caring for children, but birth control incites a veritable firestorm of argument and counter-argument.
That's because feeding the poor or caring for children doesn't cost us in terms of writing a check. If you'd frame it in terms of an adoption campaign such that people would be required to take in children, you'd see that sentiment melt real fast.
Birth control is controversial only because it costs us something: we have to curb our rampant sexual desire. With human behavior, always follow "the cost". Between Orthodoxy versus right practice, whichever is easier 'wins'.
I have a hunch the reason most Christians are far more disturbed about gays than divorce is that it doesn't cost us anything to rail against gay behavior, while it costs a lot to stay in a marriage that isn't working. And yet I would argue that divorce has been by far been the greater evil.
I meant "doesn't cost us except in terms of writing a check" in that first line. Doh!
Regarding the death penalty, I'm more inclined to be against it on principle than actually seeing some blood-thirsty criminal and dwelling on his crimes...
I think are huge problem today is lack of adherence to principles, rather than too much.
"Our", not "are" in that last line.
It seems I double the number of comments you get by making grammatical errors!