Why is it that the “center” is so beloved by leftists and moderates? Why is it that Bruce Springsteen is so charming portraying the center as a romantic ideal? When they decry the divided position of our country asking for the reunited states of America, what precisely are they asking for? What does the center look like through the lens of its advocates? I can imagine a host of issues where consensus would be fruitful: disproportionate incarceration, illegal wars, free speech, etc. But when the “middle apologists” ask for the middle ground, are they inquiring how we can more easily end the abortion of human beings in the first trimester? actualizing an ethic derived from Genesis instead of Lada Gaga? The answer is too obvious to even ponder.
We need to remind ourselves that the Van Tilian paradigm stands on just about every phase of human growth. When we contemplate articulate modes of communication, we need to truly ask, “who is to gain?” The evangelical wing of the republic, the Bible-believing radicals who vehemently support the thesis of Genesis 1:1 and 3:1, or the romantics of Middle-Earth who are eager to entice you to an agenda that is diametrically opposed to biblical truth?
I have never been afraid of loving my neighbor, and I’d like to think that I have gone an extra mile in doing so throughout my life; at times fully knowing that there was no reciprocation. But I am deeply afraid of people who fight in the “love thy neighbor” banner without advocating loyalty to the Lord thy God who is quite diverse in his applications towards our neighbor. The “middle” ground comes in all shapes of “love thy neighbor” sizes.
Don’t get me wrong: I love the idea of the magical middle ground. I love the idea of coming together and reaching an agreement about the color of the rug and the ideal coffee beans to grind, but where you lose me is when I have to negate some part of my Christian identity in order to join the happy middle. It’s not that I can’t come together with you, but my disposition and desires are inherently tied to my identity. And therefore, such effort, however noble, is simply an impossibility.
The political center is the place people come when their convictions are weakened. When Yahweh called the people to reason together, he was not calling them to the center. He was calling them to see their entire world just as he sees it.
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