it depends...or does it?

tuesday's class was out of the ordinary. Marvin Daniels (from KAA...Kanakuk's camp for inner city kids) came and spoke to us about situational ethics. he started by "teaching" for the first hour and then had us get up and walk to the back of the classroom. our assignment for the next 2.5 hours was to choose whether we agreed or disagreed with a list of statements he projected onto the screen. we had a chance to make our decision and then explain why. it was a healthy debate and very interesting to hear my classmates' points of view. i'm not going to tell you what i decided for each of them, but here are the statements we had to pick sides on. there's no middle ground..you either agree or disagree.
1. if i saw someone being beaten up by a group of guys/girls i would help.
2. i believe sex before marriage is wrong, unless the couple has a valid engagement symbol (ring).
3. i would lie to get out of serious trouble.
4. i believe that if a human was ever cloned it would not have a soul.
5. i believe that the Republican party are more Christ-centered than the Democratic party in the US Government.
6. i believe God made different races with some having physical superiority and other having intellectual superiority.
7. i believe abortion is always wrong.
at first glance, this may seem like an easy assignment, but think about them. really think about them. i challenge you not to simply take your initial reaction to the statements. think deeper, beyond face value. it would be easy to answer to pick sides for these statements based on my initial reading of the question, but i struggled when i began looking at the bigger meaning behind them, or when i looked at alternative ways of interpreting them. i chose to take God's perspective as opposed to man's perspective. the result being some responses that surprised even myself. but think again, and be honest. it's healthy. it's not what you should do, it's what you would do. go discuss your opinions with someone else, but use Scripture and what you know to be true about the nature of God as your argument. :)
my excitement about this discussion probably stems from the belief statement assignment that we're working on. we're formulating our beliefs about God, Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, Man/Sin/Salvation, and many others to come. i'll keep you posted. so far it has been eye-opening and i'm appreciating the value of formulating my beliefs and basing them solely on Scripture, not church traditions i've grown up hearing. sola scriptura. i highly recommend that all of you do this little assignment. it's going to be a work in progress for the rest of my life i'm sure. anyway, enjoy your weekend and i'll write again soon.

so the world may know,
bekah <><

live for Jesus. laugh uncontrollably. love unconditionally.