I was asked an interesting question today.
"What do Christians believe about the nature of Man? Are we basically good or basically evil?"
I answered the question with (in my opinion) the correct answer, and then moved on with my life.
But then I started to think a little more about it. And the more I think about it, the more I believe the answer is not so completely cut-and-dried as I originally thought. I still have no doubt my answer was the right one, but I can certainly see how someone else might have answered it differently.
The issue is this:
A "Christian" is just a person. It's a particular type of person (one who has received salvation from God and been "born again"). But just as Christians don't all look alike, we don't all think exactly alike either.
And it seems to me that the differences lie in the "and".
Are you a Christian and a Democrat? A Christian and a Romantic? A Christian and a Child of the 80s? A Christian and a former Buddhist?
What I mean is, you're a Christian, yes, but from where do you get your information? worldview? beliefs? What exactly informs and fills your answer to the question I was asked?
My answer was "basically bad". My answer is pretty much straight from the Bible.
But I can see the next Christian who comes along answering "basically good" if his answer comes from the influence of (for example) a heavily Humanist education.
And now another thought enters my mind. Barely perceptive and sleepy as I am right now, it occurs to me that I've written this blod before. A couple times, probably. But maybe this time it's a view from a slightly different angle.
I say - and have said - the wise Christian will get her answers, worldviews and beliefs from Scripture.
That's where the Truth is.
The wise Christian will always ask herself (you regular readers, shout it out along with me now...) "Where in the Bible did you learn that?"
Excellent.
