The Elephant in the Room

“While some of these gray issues might seem trivial, they often become the elephant in the room – that big and attention-catching behemoth that no one wants to tackle or deal with, so everyone pretends not to see it. That way, no one has to be challenged to make decisions about it.” Brent Crowe, Chasing Elephants

With “Into the Gray,” I’ll be delving into Brent Crowe’s book, Chasing Elephants: Wrestling with the Gray Areas of Life. Perhaps the title is an odd combination of clichés, but it’s perfectly to the point: this is about dealing with the elephants in the room, the gray areas that usually make me, for one, cringe, because I’m either not sure where I stand, or I don’t know how to stand in the first place.

These so-called gray areas aren’t the kind of things you can search for in a Bible concordance, pick out select verses based on key words, and fit them neatly into a list of “dos and don’ts.” But even if they were, doesn’t that approach to morality seem inadequate, deeply flawed, superficial? Beyond acting morally based on compliance with specific rules, what does it mean to really think morally – to approach controversial topics from a certain, consistent worldview, rather than trying to look for answers that just won’t be found in the text of the Bible?

I chose to blog about Chasing Elephants for my book review project for Biblical Heritage, because Crowe appears to be addressing the same central concept that this class is addressing: developing “biblically informed perspectives on contemporary ethical issues” (straight from the syllabus). Crowe’s book deals with several key subjects that the Bible doesn’t necessarily address specifically, which, as we all know, includes most of the issues we encounter every day – from social drinking to social networking.

I first met Crowe when I was a high school freshman attending a Christian leadership conference for young adults, called Student Leadership University. Crowe is the vice president of SLU, and as a student at SLU 101, 201, and 301, I’ve had the opportunity to hear him speak on numerous topics over several years. I am impressed both by his deep convictions and by the way he presents them with humility.  As a student hearing him give presentations, I appreciated the way he discussed serious and controversial issues with respect and yet humor – he is adept at making subjects accessible and applicable.  Throughout this blogging project, I am interested to see the way his voice comes across in written form.

I’ve divided the book into roughly eight sections, beginning with the introduction, which is titled, “The Journey is Freedom.” Crowe opens his book with the idea that when it comes to making moral choices, sometimes life feels like a series of empty rituals, routines that have lost the significance they might have once had. In Crowe’s words, “For most of my life, I was taught what to believe . . . . Recently though, I awakened to an unfortunate reality: I have never taken the time to learn ‘how to believe’” (11).  In many ways, I identify with this predicament. Although I am, admittedly, a bit denominationally confused, I grew up in the Christian church. Although as a young adult I became committed to the Christian faith, I don’t remember when I first “gave my life to Christ,” because church was a given for my family. I am so thankful for that. But I’ve been listening to sermons every week and reading Christian books and going to youth groups for so long that sometimes it’s hard to know why I believe what I believe: are these convictions things I’ve inherited from my home, or do I really have an opinion? Perhaps surprisingly, the movement from a public high school to an out-of-state private Christian college (and the slew of different ideas I encountered as a result of that move) has made for some serious existential crises. Here, even surrounded by other Christians, I’ve never before encountered so many conflicting ideas. How is it that Christians can have such different perspectives on the same issues? If the outcome of our opinions (on, say, hot topics like abortion) can be so opposite, can we really be following the same Christ? I’ve been sincerely pursuing a life of righteousness since before I can remember, but sometimes I run into issues that don’t seem to have a right answer – or at least not an obvious one.

Crowe clarifies that when he speaks of his struggles with how to believe, he isn’t talking about “the main principles of the Christian faith but about hundreds of gray areas. Those matters of life that the Bible doesn’t specifically address and preachers don’t like to preach about” (11).  He believes adamantly, however, that the existence of these gray areas does not mean that we have to settle for a life of ambiguity.

So as Christians, what can we be sure of? The cross, and by extension, freedom. Crowe writes, “Christ has set us free to live a free life! Jesus both sets us free and enables us to live free. A proper understanding of this freedom can help us know what to believe in the gray areas of life and be fully convinced in our own minds,” so that we can “readily address them” (12). I have to admit, at this point I am ready for Crowe to define his terms. For me, “Freedom” is often one of those disembodied religious words that we Christians use all the time, but can’t seem to agree on what it means.

Thank goodness his next heading is titled, “Freedom Defined.” Here’s Crowe’s working definition of freedom based on Genesis 2:16-17, the story of Creation and “the very essence of this God-given gift of freedom” (12). In the Garden of Eden, freedom involved:

a.) respect for the authority of God’s words;

b.) responsibility to stay within the boundaries established by God’s words; and

c.) consequences for crossing said boundaries.

The Fall, Crowe writes, was a “picture of freedom mishandled and eventually lost” (13).

From the beginning of Creation, God’s intention for humanity was a life of perfect freedom in Paradise. Yet what made this a state of freedom was its existence within boundaries set by God. Even before the Fall, living in freedom did not mean anarchy, where each is “free” to do as he or she wishes. Freedom is sustained by protective boundaries. It is when these lines are crossed that our freedom is taken away from us – or rather, we give up our freedom when we reject God’s will in favor of our own.

But with the redemption given to us by the New Covenant of Christ, we can regain our freedom through grace. And grace doesn’t sync with legalism, the tendency we may have “to make knowing God more about morality than transformation,” reducing “Christianity to rules and regulations” that leave us feeling hindered, not free (14). In response to this problem of legalism, Crowe explains that the rest of his book is designed to help followers of Christ to “know how to believe with a deep sense of appreciation for freedom,” using Scripture to create a sort of grid through which to engage issues that seem ambiguous, rather than making assumptions about them based on popular thought or avoiding them altogether.

“If you desire to move beyond ‘what’ and ‘why’ to ‘how to believe’ . . . Then this book was written for you.” – Brent Crowe

I fit this definition. I'm looking forward to the rest of the elephant chase.