Making reality
Dear Friends,
Two recent news stories have caught my attention, partly because of the link between them. The first is the revelation that some abortion clinics are agreeing to abortions solely on the grounds of the gender of the baby. The second is the government’s proposal to re-define marriage so as to extend it to same-sex couples. What do these stories have in common? Of course, one connection is that they both have to do with gender issues.
But there is, I believe, something deeper – and that is the natural desire to define our own reality. People find things are not as they want them to be, and so they try to re-make reality to their own liking. Now, that is not always wrong. This is not an argument against change and for tradition. Of course it is right, for example, to eradicate small pox and to develop new technologies.
The real problem comes when we refuse to accept reality as God has given or defined it. The human race has faced that problem since our earliest days. God defined reality by telling Adam that if they ate from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil they would surely die. Eve preferred the ‘reality’ defined by the serpent, who said, “You will not surely die” (see Genesis 2:17 and 3:4). At one level, we can re-define reality all we want. But we can’t do so without there being consequences. After all, reality is reality, especially when God has made it. And, more importantly, God is God.
Chris Hobbs,
Vicar.