Being fair for the sake of fairness is a big problem in our culture. This act creates the perception that you are a reasonable person. Being fair on an important issue allows for your bases to be covered, out of fear that your opponent will tell you that you are not objective. Sometimes people do this to make themselves look better among those who even agree with them. Also being fair is done out of fear.
There are issues that naturally don’t have reasonable opinions on both sides. Just take sin, for example. You justify an action that isn’t justifiable. Ironically, some Christians excuse sin based on circumstance and environment. Don’t get this conflated with judging the sin and judging the person. Actually, we are suppose to judge the sin. We generalize “Don’t judge” to everything and lose complete context of what the word of God is saying. The bible is way more clearer on things then we give credit to. When we take verses out of context we believe the lie that there is both sides to many issues.
The fear of judgement, many times, leads us to the pursuit of being fair. This concern is wrong. We should pursue the truth first. If the truth offends people then it is out of our hands. When people’s misconceptions are challenged we are told that isn’t following “love thy neighbor.” We are not only allowing the culture around us to determine what love is, but we are allowing the church to do the same. The most contentious issue of the day doesn’t get addressed at church or from religious leaders. This needs to be addressed all the time. When we replace “fair” with feckless, the world at the same time doesn’t care what our views of what fair is.
Fair for the sake of being fair leads into false doctrine. Hard truths in scripture become watered down. A good example is “love thy neighbor.” The cultural left determines the definition of love. Confronting someone with a basic truth sometimes isn’t determine love if that truth hurts their feelings. Therefore, we entered into false doctrine. In an attempt to be fair for fairness sake we create degrees of sin. Lie of omission, half-truths, dishonesty, lie of protection, lie, nefarious lie. Some of those lies are accepted culturally. It starts with the phrase, “To be fair he/she was only trying to protect…”
Being fair for fairness sake has a very damaging effect. 2020 is a huge example of this. Many ideas I have had about Covid and other cultural issues have been meet with disdain. Issues regardless of political affiliation have been meant with disdain by the right and the left. You need to actively try to find the truth. The only thing you have to be fair to is the truth. Truth doesn’t care about your tribe or virtue. If 2020 is the norm and not the exception we are heading into serious problems.
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