Unequal Weights and Fair Discussion

Inconsistency is always a sign of falseness – in business, in court, in government, in debate.

Whether the claim is that only one ethnicity is capable of being racist, that only certain groups of people should pay taxes, that certain people ought to serve others as unwilling slaves, or that people who never participated in the sins of the past ought to pay for them in the present, a lopsided rationale in argumentation is as repugnant as cheating someone in a business deal.

For instance, the Bible contains commands against showing favoritism toward either the rich (James 2:2-4; Leviticus 19:15) or the poor (Exodus 23:3; Leviticus 19:15). God is more interested in real justice than He is in showy public displays of pious virtue (Matthew 6:1-18).

God expects His people to act justly because He is just (Deuteronomy 32:4) and does not show partiality (Acts 10:34). To be coherent, logical, rational, factual, fair and reasoned in your argumentation is to be just in it. It is both an acknowledgement of and a submission to something greater than what you might personally want for yourself. Concurrently, to acknowledge inconsistencies or flaws in your own positions when they are pointed out or to simply admit when you don’t know something is to engage in the conversation with humility (something else the people of God are commanded to do – James 4:6, 10).

Too often these days, the cultural conversation is more about winning than it is about acting with honor, grace, honesty and humility. Of course we should enter into debates in order to convince the other person or those who may be watching from the outside of the rightness of our position. But to do so with a win-at-all-costs mentality will not only tempt us toward the use of deceptive and unfair tactics, but it will also ruin any potential victory we may achieve along the way.

Honesty in our positions and consistency in our argumentation is far more important than winning any particular debate or grandstanding about our own virtue. If the truth is not really what we’re after, we will yield to a pragmatic approach that only values getting our own way. We will forsake the truth, reason, and logic for the fleeting exaltation of a sense of personal triumph. Don’t miss it: we cannot be loving and dishonest at the same time.

Are we forming our ideologies and world views based on truth or based on what we want for ourselves? Are we interacting with the world according to how it is or according to how we wish it would be?

Strive for consistency. Submit to truth. Speak it in love.

Life is not fair. How we interact with one another ought to be. 

Never forget that the Lord hates dishonest standards.