The Anatomy of a Straw Man

Recently, there have been two major debates that I have been acutely aware of. Locally (to me), there was a referendum on liquor sales and an ABC store being opened in Alexander county (near Taylorsville in western NC). The other debate, which involves many more people, is the debate over the idea of 'civil unions' or some iteration of marriage-like legally binding relationship for homosexuals being tossed around in front of various judicial bodies.

I'm not going to tell you what I think about either one of these issues. That isn't the point, and it's really not useful to engage someone in debate on any matter by way of social media. If you take nothing else from my words on this blog post, take this: it is utterly useless and hideously time consuming to attempt to have any rational conversation about a topic of more than mild importance using the internet as a communication medium. It leads to passive aggression, lack of clarity, and general frustration.

In a previous post, I spoke about judging and how we are not called to wholly withhold judgement, but instead to judge rightly. I should also note that basically all of the exposition of scripture is based on a teaching by a guy named Stuart who is a teacher for a Church body named Radius in Greenville, SC. You can find more of his teachings (please do, they're awesome) here.

In logic, there is a variety of argument called the 'straw man,' which is a fallacy based on misrepresenting the opponent's position. Basically, this means trying to defeat someone's argument by representing it as something that on the surface looks similar and subsequently showing the second argument to be false. The straw man is equivalent to me rejecting my friend's argument about pizza when I in fact am using a calzone as my example.

If you're still confused (don't feel bad, I've been known to be unclear), you can find Wikipedia's explanation here. This variety of argument is not only obviously invalid, but it's also quite popular and successfully used. By everyone, including me.

 Day after day there have been arguments made by both sides about why it is wrong or right to prohibit homosexuals from having a legally recognized sexual union. Similarly, I have driven past signs that slander opposing positions, the pinnacle of which being a car that was pulled out of a junk yard covered in splotches of red paint (as if to signify blood) sitting in the front yard of a church building.

Honestly, almost everything I've heard said about these issues is pretty shameful, including at times many of the things that have escaped my own lips. It is not shameful because Americans and Alexander county residents and Christians and non-theists are wanting to be heard. The shame is in our unwillingness to for a second consider that we might be talking a lot about something with which we are only vaguely familiar and have little or no evidence for, excepting the little we propagate within our own ranks.

As someone who has been guilty of these tactics, let me be the first to confess and the first to call us all to change our minds about how we discuss things that we don't like. The fact of the matter is that homosexuality is unilaterally, universally, and without any exception condemned as a sinful act in the scriptures. Bar none. However, we should not forget that mentioned equally often are lying, unrighteous anger, and eating too much at Golden Corral on Sunday after church (gluttony). On the other hand, America is not a Christian nation. Whoever told you that must have read a different version of the Constitution than the one that is in the Library of Congress.  Similarly, the Bible warns about the dangers of drunkenness and instructs us not to be mastered by sin.  Conversely, Jesus, who we believe to be God in the flesh, drank wine. Not grape juice, but wine. Those facts aren't negotiable.

I'm not sure what to do with these things. I do not know all of how living in the world but not of the world works, and I am very young and immature. What I do know is that you can't really live in a false world you create for yourself, and what seems best is not always easy.

When considering how you will interact with the people about things, let us ultimately look no further than scripture. And let us cling desperately to what it says and not what we want it to say. After all, it is not about specifically about marriage or alcohol or anything, but about brotherhood and edification of the Church when Paul writes these words:

"If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. ² If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. ³ And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.

⁴ Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, ⁵ does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong, ⁶ does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; ⁷ bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

⁸ Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. ⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part; ¹⁰ but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. ¹¹ When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. ¹² For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. ¹³ But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love."

- 1 Corinthians 13, NASB