Comfort Versus Conscience

some thoughts on systems built on guilt and compliance

Easter is just around the corner. For many of you this means a week of special services at your local congregation. On the other extreme, this means Easter egg hunts but no sermons on the resurrection.

In my heritage in the Churches of Christ, the Easter bunny would visit Easter morning, we would dress up a little more to take pictures, and we would even have an Easter egg hunt, but we would not celebrate Easter in any religious sense.

If we happened to sing a song about the resurrection, such as “Low in the Grave He Lay,” or if the preacher happened to deliver a sermon on the resurrection, it was by accident.

Unlike many of the churches that surrounded us, although it wasn’t a tradition exclusive to us, we would take communion every week, so to us, every Sunday was Easter.

Since our church followed the regulative principle to the extreme, we thought that the Scripture’s lack of any mention of a yearly celebration of Jesus’s resurrection meant that we didn’t have the authority to celebrate. We applied the same logic to Christmas and other religious holidays. In some instances, this take was retroactively justified by pointing out alleged connections between these various holidays and pagan celebrations.

Well, I don’t think that any more, and many of you who used to think that way don’t anymore. At the very least, you don’t care if someone celebrates Easter religiously or not even if you don’t, and that’s definitely a “biblical” position per Romans 14.

But here’s what happens: even though you know in your mind and in your heart that there is nothing wrong with celebrating Easter, you still may be uncomfortable with the idea of it, especially if you’ve found yourself at a church that keeps those holidays.

What do we do with this?

If you’re uncomfortable, you may shy away from attending that worship service. You may say something like, “Whatsoever is not of faith is sin.” In this scenario, you are equating your conscience with feelings of comfort.

You do this, and I do this, because for so long we equated our comfort with our conscience because we were led to believe that the two are practically the same. If you’ve been raised to expect certain things at a worship service and to avoid other things, such as having a Christmas tree in the building or a sermon on Resurrection anytime during March or April, then introducing something new isn’t just a matter of comfort, it is a matter of doing something that is potentially not authorized.

The problem is when we change our mind, what we are comfortable with doesn’t automatically change, especially if the line between conscience and comfort has been blurred—perhaps intentionally.

Our inner legalist, or as Brian McLaren calls it, our inner fundamentalist, speaks up and reminds us how wrong this all feels.

Now this is where things get dangerous.

Really.

Let’s say you can’t shake these feelings of discomfort, so you go to the leadership at this new church and say, “Listen, I am uncomfortable with an Easter service. Since a yearly Easter celebration isn’t in the Bible, can we skip it this year? Romans 14 says that the stronger is supposed to bear with the weaker, and I am weak right now.”

At this point, a dangerous precedent is being established that could lead to the entire congregation being held up by the whims of the “weakest” member.

But here’s the catch.

If you have no problem with whatever is being debated, then who do you think you are demanding that everyone else adhere to your preferences? How dare you demand that everybody keep you comfortable when you have no real problem with whatever is being discussed?

STOP! Don’t freak out and get all mad.

And who do you think you are who demand that people get out of their comfort zone all the time? Is there not something to be said for tradition? Do we always have to change? Is this about you keeping up with the times, or is this about God?

There. Now everyone is mad.

So what do we do?

First, we need to quit conflating comfort with conscience. Everything that offends your conscience should make you uncomfortable, but not everything that makes you uncomfortable offends your conscience. You aren’t weak because you have a different preference than someone else. You might be stubborn, but you aren’t weak. If something actually does offend you and cause you to sin, then there absolutely needs to be an urgent conversation with the leadership of that congregation.

Second, we need to put other people’s needs over our own. Read both of these sentences:

We who are strong ought to put up with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. Each of us must please our neighbor for the good purpose of building up the neighbor. Romans 15:1–2

“Each of us must please our neighbor.”

I can already hear it: “You want us to be people pleasers?”

Yes, insofar as it builds up your neighbor. Take it up with Paul.

When we say “we ought to please God, not man,” what we really mean is “we need to adhere to my very specific preferences because they are the exact things God wants with no variation allowed, so to please me is to please God.”

I should be fighting to keep the traditions you love most, and you should be laying down your life in encouraging change that might make you uncomfortable but would build up the church.

Paul literally said, “Do nothing from selfish ambition or empty conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests but to the interests of others” (Philippians 2:3–4).

Third, we need to stop asking, “What do I want? What would make me most happy?” and even “what would make that demographic within our church most happy?” Instead, we need to ask, “What will build up the body of Christ, promote the good news, and bring love and peace and justice to our community?”

And if we answer that question, debate over who is more comfortable and who gives up the most will cease because we all will be equally uncomfortable.

In fact, if Jesus wanted us to be comfortable, he wouldn’t have told us to take up our cross and follow him.

Here’s one more piece of advice: if you are uncomfortable with a change in your local congregation, look at the person to your left and to your right and glean joy from their sense of fulfillment. Do this and you’ll find that questions of comfort will give way to resurrection.

After all, it’s Easter.