Fair Haired Children and the Right Brothers

Fair-Haired Children & the Right Brothers(1,208)

July 15th, 2011

“It’s not fair!”

“I don’t care. It’s right.”

Therein lies the raging battle in our great nation—a conflict between the “Fair Haired Children” of liberalism, who always want to believe that things should be constant, equal and evenly distributed—and the “Right Brothers”—those of a conservative nature, mostly concerned about fulfilling the precepts they consider to be worthy of honor and recognition.

You can understand why very little gets accomplished in a country where plurality of the majority is extolled and a history of honoring the minority has proven itself to be also beneficial. So which is it? Are we a nation of plurality? Or a government set out to be sensitive to the needs of the lesser number of votes?

It is a difficult situation, for after all, if slavery had been voted on at one time, we might have a much different situation for the black man and woman—stimulating a repertoire with many more Negro spirituals.

If the right of women to vote had been decided by solely men, I am not certain that a feminine touch in the government would have been allowed.

By the same token, if every minority opinion in this country had been held as law—as in the case of Prohibition—would we have been better off in the conclusions of the common welfare of our society?

What IS right? Is it being liberal—those Fair Haired children, trying to find justice for all? Or is it the conservative, holding fast to commandments as the standard by which we should all live?

Some people want to go to the Bible for an answer. Good luck.

God made it clear from the beginning that he was apolitical by telling Israel that he did not want to usher in an era of kings to rule over them. And Jesus maintained that profile by speaking strongly against liberalism when he said, “He who has much shall more be given, and he who has little—even the little he has will be taken away from him.” It doesn’t exactly sound fair, does it? Certainly not evenly distributed.

On the other hand, Jesus certainly dashes the agenda of the conservatives by saying, “Judge not, lest ye be judged—for the measure you measure out to others will be measured back to you.” You see, the word “measure” in this particular verse refers to the intensity by which we evaluate and critique our fellow-man, not by the truthfulness of what we are saying. So it is perfectly possible to be right by a standard and utterly wrong in God’s eyes.

So what is a Biblical perspective on conservative and liberal, right and wrong, “fair” versus “written in stone?” Let me give you two constants in the gospel of Jesus. We know they are constants because we are told that he pursued them himself.

1. “He grew in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man.” Anything we pursue, therefore, needs to increase the possibility of wisdom and needs to find the mutual favor of God and man. In other words, there are many things the Bible, or even the Koran, may have rebuked at one time or another, which have now proven to be necessary, if not friendly, to the human experience.

For example, in my lifetime, divorce has gone from being a curse hung around someone’s neck, threatening eternal damnation, to being an unfortunate circumstance requiring therapy, to finally ending up being a common human condition which is offered in many churches as a Sunday School class for those who want to recover—and date again.

Likewise, during my journey, “Negroes” have become “black,” later to go back to “Negro,” to transform into the “black community,” then “people of color,” to land on “African-American,” to gradually inch back to … I don’t know—who knows what? It is an issue of sensitivity to the human family. There are just some things we can talk about and some things we can’t.

· I do not feel that a church that preaches against birth control has any right whatsoever to postulate on the subject of abortion.

· I don’t think the German people are entitled to extol any of the virtues of the Nazi era.

· I don’t think those who live in the South can talk about the heritage of the Confederacy, considering the atrocity of slavery. (And by the way, speaking of slavery, I don’t think the members of a political party have the right to discuss slavery as a concept or even a word, when they are as white as a sheet.)

There needs to be a growth towards wisdom that produces favor with God and man. When we settle for less, we fail to achieve the lifestyle of Jesus.

2. “He learned obedience through the things he suffered.” An attempt to remove all suffering from mankind to create fairness, equality or even relief is to take away a necessary struggle that teaches us how to avoid stupidity and move towards excellence. The notion that Jesus was born to be God leaves out the factor that “he learned.” And what did he learn? Obedience.

If conservatives really want people to respect values, they should give them a climate to learn the obedience instead of demanding it or trying to pass laws to achieve it. If liberals want people to become more solvent and successful, they need to grant them the possibility to sacrifice and suffer the slings and arrows of competition.

America is great and receives God’s blessing as long as we remain open and competitive. But there seems to be a movement in this country to close our borders, close our hearts, close our minds and generate an environment for our children where they no longer need to compete in a world market, but instead are rewarded for merely showing up.

You will find these two principles to be indigenous to every piece of the landscape of the mindset of Jesus. You grow in wisdom, stature and in favor with God and man and you learn obedience through the things you suffer.

The Fair Haired Children of liberalism want to remove suffering, competition and struggle, to create a common malaise for everyone.

The staunch, reverent, Right Brothers of conservativism want people to adhere to rules whether they are archaic or not—rules which can prevent personal growth, discovery and space. What is the answer?

Study the earth instead of fighting it. The earth does give to those who have—so the best thing is to teach people how to get their own instead of standing in line for bread. The earth returns the intensity with which we impart to it right back at us—so it’s best that we don’t spend a lot of time spitting in the wind unless we want to drown in our own spittle.

So beware the Fair Haired Children and the Right Brothers. They are the extremes that take us away from the workings of earth, and therefore, the heart of God.