Right and Wrong

Thanks to tmamone for turning me onto The Sarcastic Lutheran. It’s now one of my favorite blogs. A new post came up earlier this week that really touched me; it was Nadia Bolz-Weber’s sermon in honor of the baptism of a child in her congregation, House for All Sinners and Saints. It’s about the promises God makes to His children and his steadfastness in honoring them, and about the importance of dying daily to self and the joy of returning to God.

I posted a link to this on my Facebook page, and a good friend of mine with whom I often disagree pointed out a specific passage: “Don’t listen when people say that following Christ means being right. To follow the crucified and resurrected one is to live as a people who get to be wrong.”

My friend responded, “I always have qualms when someone claims with certainty that Christianity is not knowing what is right. I mean, if she is absolutely certain about re-birth in baptism, then isn’t she right?”

His comments bring up a really interesting quandary about right and wrong in Christianity. Surely there’s value in recognizing our potential to be wrong in nearly everything; it keeps us humble and helps us to give God the respect He deserves, He whose thoughts are not our thoughts and whose ways are not our ways. However, isn’t there some necessity to be right in some things? We must be certain of the power of the resurrection and the holiness of God, right? But at some point doesn’t too much certainty lead to Phariseeism?

Where do we draw the line between where we must be right and where we might be wrong?