People often come to me asking for help in making difficult decisions. Usually they have already weighed all the pros and cons, but are hesitant to do anything because they don’ t want to make the wrong choice. When I ask who judges whether a choice is right or wrong, they often tell me that it is God. So the question shifts from“ How do I figure out the best thing to do?” to“ What does God want me to do?”
We human beings are pretty insecure sometimes, especially when dealing with uncertainty as to what to do. It is difficult work sorting through all possible courses of action, having to settle on one, and still not being certain what will come of it. Many of us would much rather have someone( e. g. God) tell us the“ right” choice so we can forgo all that work( and let someone else take the responsibility for the outcome).
Many religions are adept at“ helping” people attain certainty. Religions tend to claim they speak for God, the definitive judge of right and wrong. So if people do what the religion says, they don’ t have to worry about making a wrong decision. Terms like“ intrinsic evil” are used to label wrong choices, while rules, laws, and doctrine are used to label( mandatory) right choices. Of course the price people pay for this certainty is the forfeiture of their right and responsibility to make their own moral decisions. But we can never ethically shirk our responsibility to make our own moral decisions.
The same thing can happen in politics. It is hard work sorting through all the issues facing us as a country, and coming to some level of understanding that will guide us in urging law makers toward the best course of action. So it is tempting to see our job as simply electing our favorite person and letting them take responsibility for everything that happens after that. This can easily devolve into
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blindly following and defending that person regardless of what he / she says or does. This idea probably motivated some people to criticize protestors after this last election, calling them whiny sore losers that should just shut up. The implication is that their job was only to vote, and since their person didn’ t win, they have no more rights or responsibilities for voicing which direction the country should go.
God has given us human beings divine wisdom as a guide to all good. But the catch is that each of us has a part of that wisdom, often called collective wisdom. If you or I choose not to offer our piece of that divine wisdom because of apathy, fear, or self doubt, the direction we need to go as a people becomes less clear. If you or I let some religion, elected official, or party platform speak for us, we again deprive others of our unique piece of the divine wisdom, and we end up with only a few people( or one person) making decisions for all. If you or I don’ t listen to what others have to offer because they are different than us, or because we see them as enemies somehow, we miss their piece of divine wisdom, and may lose our way, ending up in division, mistrust, and violence.
We have a moral and Spiritual responsibility that we cannot delegate to anyone else. This moral responsibility is to make sure that every person’ s piece of wisdom( including my own) gets included in the public discernment of where we need to go. Only by trusting this divine wisdom with which God has gifted us( which means trusting each other) can we ever hope to find our way through all the complicated issues facing us. Only this divine wisdom can draw us together in the common task, which in our faith tradition is called building the reign of God. W