The Balancing Act of “Accountability” vs. “Blame”
“Well, if they hadn’t X-ed, then I wouldn’t have Y-ed!”
“How could so-and-so treat me like that?”
“I didn’t do anything as wrong as them!”
“Well, it’s not MY fault!”
These sorts of questions and statements are ultimately exercises in futility, and the psychological and spiritual equivalent kicking oneself in the shins. While there are certainly different levels of wrongdoing — a kid pocketing a candy bar is certainly not Bernie Madoff — there also needs to be an objectivity to morality for us to be able to discern these distinctions at all. However, we can’t blame each other, or God, for our actions or their results more than we take personal accountability for them.
We live in a corrupted and fallen world, and paradoxically and confusingly, it both is and isn’t our fault.
It only took until Genesis 3:6 for man and woman to botch Creation by listening to a talking serpent and eating of the Tree of Knowledge of Good & Evil. Thankfully, they were quickly cast out before they could also eat from the Tree of Life, and be stuck forever like that.
If what is “right” and “wrong” is squarely dependent on the “cultural conversation” and how people feel about a subject… Without taking sides on any particular issue, I think we can see pretty plainly these days how easily manipulated the cultural conversation on morality can be.
Things that were absolutely unacceptable and shameful in decades past are practiced and displayed wantonly, even boasted about — child exploitation, substance abuse, abortions, divorces, infidelity within relationships…every passing day, fewer former taboos seem to be “off-limits”, to our own detriment.
I’m not making myself out to be an exception to this, as one can see in my “Dropout Professor” videos and stand-up clips on YouTube.
While I’m by no means proud of my psychedelic exploits and ruined relationships — I actually regret these things more profoundly than I can adequately express in words — if I can sway even one person towards putting their belief in the transformative power of authentic faith in the Most High God, and a more wholly actualized life than the one I’ve endured thus far, through my writing or videos, then it’ll have been worth publicizing it. I’m trying to mitigate as much suffering as possible.
A large part of why I’ve struggled with adopting the label of “Christian” is the dilemma I’ve encountered of intellectualizing forgiveness. Especially with how it pertains to child abuse, both of the violent and sexual varieties, which are rampant within both Protestant and Catholic backgrounds.
“Sure, Christ can forgive my sins, but theirs? GRRRR!”
But forgiveness doesn’t come from the head, it comes from the heart.
What I believe is that it has been made possible by Christ’s incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection for Holy Spirit to enter into a person’s life and transform their heart and mind without a persisting need for animal sacrifice, self-flagellation, or another person as an intercessor between God and the individual.
But the choice has to be ours. God cannot force us to choose Him.
Atheists and skeptics frequently argue that the God of the Bible is evil and malicious for things like The Great Flood, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, ordering the annihilation of entire civilizations, and providing moral strictures for masters owning slaves rather than outright prohibiting slavery as it existed in the ancient world.
I still find our American model of slavery completely indefensible. As someone who has moseyed over from that naturalistic side of the aisle to the theistic apologists, I can still empathize with this perception, as wrong as I now perceive it to be on the whole.
From within the constraints of flesh and time, God ending people’s lives appears callous, cruel, even unjust. But maybe death is not the villain we perceive it to be from our humanly, earthly perspective. If life were perfect and fair, maybe death would be a force of evil, but you’d be hard-pressed to make the argument that life is consistently so.
Do you give the Creator of all that exists any credit for the good things you enjoy, or only blame Him when things are going poorly?
Do you take all the credit for everything you’ve accomplished in your life, or do you acknowledge how others have played a part in getting you to where you are?
Do you consider yourself to be the sole originator of your experience, or are you a cooperative partner in it with God?
I’ll openly concede I’m not the most cooperative, but I’m working on it.
An important caveat that ought to be mentioned here, since it seems to be an idea gaining traction; the Devil is not “just the flipside of God” any more than oil is just a thicker kind of water, or salt is just bitter sugar.
There are distinctions that must be made if you have any regard for truth.
