The Knowledge of Good and Evil

"I myself serve the law of God with my mind,

 but with my flesh I serve the law of sin."  Romans 7:25

A few years ago, I joined a discussion on the internet where the topic had turned to the need of missionaries to connect with the native people they were ministering to in order to contextualize their message.  I brought up the issue of the inherent tension between making relationships and having a mission with the same people.  Inherently, I surmised, being a missionary, regardless of whether you are proclaiming the gospel, the virtues of Islam, or democratic principles, means you have goals other than wanting to befriend a person, so that relationships will always be mercenary.  I tried hard to be clear that I wasn’t saying all missionaries are bad people that don’t give a hoot about relationships, but that when in “missionary mode” relationships become secondary to the final goal that they are commissioned to do.  My two cents weren’t received all that well, but I bring up the subject because it highlights some of my basic, deeply held beliefs.  

First, I set extreme value in integrity.  In fact, I think the vast majority of us instinctually do.  Particularly kids.  Consciously or not, kids sniff out hypocrisy in a flash and tend to show deep contempt of this “vice”.  By the age of high school, I believe kids have seen so much hypocrisy they are parched for any sort of authenticity.  Second, to build on the issue of integrity, I firmly believe we need to value and pursue things or activities for the sake of themselves.  So in the case of relationships, a friendship, I believe, has in and of itself enough value that it needs no justification.

A third belief is a primarily a reaction to Gnosticism.  Back in the infancy of Christianity a branch of believers were labeled Gnostics (Greek root of gnostic = knowledge) because they placed higher moral value on knowledge than on the things of the material world.  These believers were heavily influenced by the Pauline scriptures that emphasize the renewing of the mind and the rejection of the things of the flesh.  I believe this is an inherent weakness of any monotheistic religion, mainly due to the strong held belief in God’s transcendence.  When God, as Other, is spirit, the best the material world can be is a good second.  Personally, in my thinking, I stretch the gnostic label to include any separation of our lives into the two categories of sacred and ordinary.  Even when modern believers do their best to affirm the goodness of the material world, I still consider the prevalent separation of sacred and ordinary as a gnostic attitude.  And this attitude has caused a great deal of damage throughout the last few millenniums.

At first glance, I wouldn’t blame you if you thought these beliefs were solely a reaction to the Evangelical upbringing that I obviously had.  But’s it’s more than a knee-jerk reaction.  At least I sure hope so.  And I do have bachelor’s degree in philosophy to try and back it up.  Something for next post, I think.