By: Curt Williams
In the coming weeks, I will be publishing blog posts on the most sensitive, divisive and controversial subjects of our day.
I have never been one to feign away from a good controversy, however, I have been in a position where I have to tiptoe around certain issues so as to not place at risk the ministry that I have led for almost four decades. Unfortunately, there are those who cannot delineate my thoughts and opinions from this organization. This is why these posts are published here on my personal site and not connected in any way to the program where I serve. That said, I hope that you can get mad at me and not take it out on a very effective program.
In these posts, I plan to take on the subjects of immigration, abortion, homosexuality, politics and more. All of these subjects have the same things in common: they are polarizing, they solicit anger, they invite small minds to devolve to pithy sound bites and cheap insults, and they cannot be well-addressed without nuance.
Nuance, as defined means, “to provide a subtle difference or distinction in expression, meaning, or response”. So many of today’s hot-button topics are used by compromised politicians and culture engineers to foment division and hatred. It has become anathema to be associated with someone who holds an opinion outside of your tribal creed, and we have watched our country divide and even riot over these drawn lines. Yet, I truly believe that there is room for nuance.
We may not end in agreement, but we may be able to find a bit more common ground. Heck, we might even discover that the real enemies are those bringing gasoline to the fire and not those watching it burn.
News commentators, politicians and even many preachers want you to believe that every subject is cut and dry; that each subject has an absolute right and an absolute wrong. They are so stubborn that they will demand you take a side and castigate those who will not.
I have found that there is one group that frustrates these people: free-thinkers. That’s right. They hate those who think for themselves. They cannot manipulate those who listen, evaluate, test and think. In Acts 17, the Bereans were commended for being free-thinkers. They took what they were being taught, listened and then took it to the scriptures to test it out. Today, politicians, the media and some preachers would like nothing more than for you to shut up, believe whatever you are told, fall in line and become a good little foot soldier carrying the water and showing up when told to do so. They do not want you to think.
And they hate nuance.
They want to divide us, to throw their verbal Molotov cocktails and have us slip in their sly innuendos that will leave you to fear the next boogie man. They want you to believe that the sky is falling, the world is going to end, someone is going to take your guns and internal composition engines and that the oceans will be lapping up to Oklahoma City by 2030. So, if you are interested, I will be daring to anger both sides of many debates by not fully endorsing any platforms or opinions without asking the uncomfortable questions.
In the end, we just might see that we cannot be so dang dogmatic and simple with issues that are so complex.
Buckle up!
