Conscience: What It Is, How to Train It, and Loving Those Who Differ
Series: Book Notes
A conscience is a God given capacity to make moral judgments. All humans have one. It is “your consciousness of what you believe is right and wrong”.(J.D. Crowley 2015) This is a very helpful little book. And what follows are gleanings therefrom.
Conscience loves black and white and has a hard time with nuance and greyscale. It is susceptible to calibration and may be rendered insensitive and oversensitive. A seared or warped conscience is often pulled in bad extremes on both sides; think licentious legalism. A warped conscience can frame its own false morality and object to Christianity on the basis of its’ own false morality.
The conscience changes. It may be changed by lies, truth and other people laying their standards down. Christ being lord over conscience, changes it through the scriptures. There is due process: prayer, scripture, calibration all have a place, think: adding to or subtracting from a scale.
God alone is the creator and he is the authority over conscience.
The blood of Jesus cleanses our consciences and enables us to think rightly and to serve God without fear. A clean conscience is one of the greatest benefits of the gospel.
As Luther said at the Diet of Wurms, “to go against conscience is neither right nor safe”. He was right, violating the conscience is a sin.
Wisdom is needed to put things into right buckets: non-negotiables, boundaries between Christians, and “conscience” matters. This is a continuous process. When parenting, teach kids to evaluate rules in terms of these buckets.
Paul’s answer for when I am in conflict with others: welcome them, assume they are being strict or lax for God’s glory. Do not let your freedom destroy another’s faith.
The cross cultural aspect is also a factor; some things are not considered sins in certain cultures. Don’t major on your cultural sins, you risk the result of your hearers straining gnats and swallowing camels before long. Additionally, don’t break customs for the sake of ‘authenticity’; it messes with your message. Flex but don’t fail, Jesus took on Jewish culture, flexed and did not fail.