A Christian Liberal is NOT an oxymoron.

Posted by XT on May 11th, 2009 in Progressive Faith

Reverend Mother has an interesting point to ponder (which is why I continue to read her blog – she does this regularly). Does a person have an obligation to live up to their potential?

Spiderman dons his suit because his Uncle Ben taught him “with great power comes great responsibility.” The problem is that very few people are ever given the type of power that Spiderman has. I don’t mean the whole super-strength, walking on walls, spinning webs stuff. I mean that Spiderman’s power is obvious. So the reason for that power is obvious – either it is to be self-indulgent or it is to help others. Self-indulgence doesn’t make a good story, so it goes to the other end of the continuum (and super-powers necessitates super-villains).

The problem isn’t really about responsibility and potential, I think, but discernment. RM says that she feels called to be a head pastor, but not right now. She’s trying to discern, not what to do, but when to do it. But it’s still a discernment issue.

Part of discernment – a part I’m not particularly good at, I might add – is known what to say “no” to as well as knowing when to say “yes.” It might be hard to say no to Jeb Bartlett, especially when he’s offering you something you’d kind of like to do anyway. But sometimes it’s the right thing to do.

I can’t give too much advice on discernment. I often wonder what the hell I’m doing. Everytime I think I find out what I want to do and set about trying to do it, I tend to find at least one stumblingblock that just doesn’t seem to fall the right way. Perhaps there’s a lesson in that. Perhaps there isn’t. As I said, discernment isn’t really my strong suit.

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