Extremism
DISCLAIMER: Pastor Scott DID NOT ask me to write this — I got the idea for it before I read his blog entry, and I wrote most of it before hearing his sermon on 12/16.
I just read a fascinating article about what happens when relatively like-minded people get together (go here if you’d like to read it). Someone took a bunch of people who didn’t know one another and grouped them together according to whether they identified themselves as conservative or liberal. Before they were put into their groups, the participants each completed a short anomymous survey identifying their positions on a number of issues, like taxes, civil unions, climate change, and the like. The folks were then placed in their groups and encouraged to discuss the issues. After fifteen minutes, everyone repeated the anonymous survey. The result of the fifteen minutes of hanging out with like-minded folks was that nearly everyone became more extreme in their views. Those who opposed civil unions opposed them all the more, those who support action to reduce climate change became more strident in their support, and the like.
The point of the article was to indicate that in the early 21st century, it’s very easy to find your own niche group and to find folks who will draw you to the extremes. It’s almost impossible to find support for the middle position. This got me thinking about how this phenomenon ought to work in Lamb of God. I’m not really talking about political or social views, extreme and otherwise, although it seems to me that the input of our brothers and sisters ought to have a significant impact on how we form our own opinions.
But there’s one thing about which we should be extremists, and that’s the area in which we should be encouraging extremism in one another: we should be extremely, insanely, incredibly in love with Jesus and His people, and we should be extremists about furthering the Kingdom of God, whether we do so though evangelism, or prayer, or good works, or whatever the Lord has given us to do.
