It’s Complicated (Or at least a little more complicated than we realize.)

I keep a grappling hook in my office – a gift from church friends with whom I have grappled with many complicated issues.

Leadership researchers will tell us that issues can be simple, complicated, complex, or chaotic, but for the sake of this post, I’m going with simple versus complicated. One of the wedges divided us politically and theologically seems to be the unwillingness to grapple with complicated things. It’s easier (and lazier) to cling to simplistic opinions and let those opinions direct our political opinions.

We do this by assigning negative (and simplistic) assumptions to catch phrases or acronyms:

• “DEI” comes to mean unfair hiring practices or the lifting up of unqualified people for the sake of being “woke.” But if we do some research, we find that DEI is a bit more complicated than that. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion actually ensures opportunities for people whom we might not consider otherwise for employment or even participation in an organization: The person who can do the job even though they are in a wheelchair. The person who doesn’t look like everybody else but it equally up for the task. There are countless studies on the benefits of including a diversity of voices at the table. We omit whole demographics of people if we ignore those who are not like us.
• Critical Race Theory has practically become a swear word that we attach to preschool programs or middle school field trips when – actually – it’s an academic theory studied in universities. According to Wikipedia “the word critical in the name is an academic reference to critical theory rather than criticizing or blaming individuals.” But we condemn people who consider Critical Race Theory by accusing them of “hating their country.”

Especially in these days, it’s really essential to do our research and by that I don’t mean getting our news from Raw Story or Turning Point Action. And I’m not merely referring to our media diet. This is also essential for those of us who take the Bible and our faith seriously.

When a political leader refers to “the Christian idea” that you “owe the strongest duty to your family” and “your first duty as an American leader is to the people of your own country” the curious Christian would grapple with that sentiment by studying their own Bibles and noting if this is what Jesus said.

When some Christians question the leadership of women in church, the curious Christian would do a deep dive into the context and culture of the words they quote to “prove” what they already believe. Turns out the apostle Paul was quite open-minded.

Christians who grapple with complicated issues of faith and life are taking the Scriptures seriously.

In some ways, following Jesus is quite simple: love your neighbor as yourself, feed the hungry, welcome the stranger, etc. It becomes more complicated when we dig into what these simple ideas mean:

• Is the trans person our neighbor?
• Is the hungry addict worthy of food?
• If the stranger is undocumented, what’s our responsibility?

Sometimes we might grapple with issues and find that what we’ve always believed is not as simple as it seems. Sometimes we might be shocked by God’s Truth and it forces us to repent.

Is it easy following the way of Jesus? Yes. And not always.