Be Careful

This two-word imperative, "Be careful," is shorthand in the world of Christian jargon.  It's what one Christian tells another when they believe that the other is on the vaunted "Slippery Slope."  It means, "I can't say what you're doing is wrong, but I don't like it, so what I'll do is tell you that it might eventually lead you to do something wrong."  There is an implication that one wrong will lead to more and more wrongs, until the poor slippery-footed Christian is accelerating down the slope, aka "backsliding," until one day they are no longer living for Christ and most likely are on their way to Hell.

Be careful.  Two words,  well-intentioned, but full of heavy implications incongruent with the ease with which they're spoken.

Most Christians, if asked, will say they are okay with people asking honest questions.  What they often mean by that is, they are okay with the kinds of questions that kids ask in Sunday school.  But ask a question like, "How do you reconcile an eternity of conscious torment with the idea of a just God," then you might be told to be careful.  The message is that some questions are good, but others might lead us to heresy, backsliding, bad doctrine, or maybe even Hell itself.

This also leads me to wonder, why do we rarely see the 'danger' of becoming too conservative?  Was that not the problem of the Pharisees, that they were unable to stop exalting their own ideas to the status of holy writ?  And yet, rarely does anyone say, "Be careful there brother.  If you become a pre-Millennialist, you might find yourself on a slippery slope to being a crazy religious zealot."

This baffles me.  Why do people think that it rains only on one side of the hill?  It almost seems that we have this underlying assumption that of the two choices, it's obviously better to become too conservative than too liberal.  I disagree.  I dare speculate that Jesus might have disagreed also, judging by the severity of his warnings to the religious establishment of his day.  But that's somewhat beside the point.  I'm not trying to debate which side is more slippery so much as I am advocating getting rid of the slippery slope rhetoric altogether.

The Apostle Paul told the Phillipians to "work out your salvation with fear and trembling."  This encourages me to believe that it's okay that I am working things out, as long as I properly revere Christ and his teachings.  Until I lose the fear and trembling, I will reject the notion that I am in danger because of my questioning.