Estimated reading time: 4 minute(s)

I have thought a lot recently about the dangers of viewing the world as black and white. One thing is right, one thing is wrong. There can be such a rigid interpretation of this way of thinking that legalism, and even hatred and violence completely take over. People take sides, and create battle lines. Wars are waged over the noble cause of Truth and Purity.

I understand that there are some things in life that are true, and right, and good. Unfortunately, there are so many things that do depend on the circumstances of the situation to determine their “rightness”. Sometimes, it’s ok to take another person’s life. It is a side effect of a broken, fallen world. Even though murder is wrong, if someone attacks you, with the intent to kill, and in self-defense, you end up taking their life – though tragic – it’s not “wrong.”

There certainly can be danger in a world full of shades of gray. Who’s to say what’s right and wrong? Who determines which version of “right” is actually “right”? Well, unfortunately, it is often those who see the world as black and white who attempt to enforce their views on the rest of the population.

I watched the movie Remember The Titans yesterday. I had just copied it from VHS to DVD and was testing out the DVD, but was quickly captured by the story. It was about black and white. Right and wrong.

If you’ve not seen it, please do. Excellent movie. It’s not really just a football/sports movie. There’s a lot more there. It’s set in 1971 Alexandria, Virginia. The social climate is hot with racial tension. T.C. Williams is the first public school in the area to be forced to “integrate”. (At the time, “colored folks” did not mix socially with “white folk”, so this was quite scandalous.) (EDITOR’S NOTE: I can’t believe this happened only 3 years before I was born. That’s insane.) The movie focuses on the school’s football team (it’s based on a true story, by the way) where a hall-of-fame coach had commanded the troops for quite a long time to many state championships. As part of the integration however, Herman Boone – a black man – was named the head coach. The rest of the story is how two starkly opposite worlds – black and white – are forced to integrate, and in the process learn that their “black and white” understanding was not so clear after all.

Titans is a wonderful story of people choosing to see what’s inside a person rather than prejudging from what is seen on the outside. Very cool movie. I highly recommend it.

I watched it by myself – no one else was awake! – but Jen is going to watch it with the boys today. I hope they see the craziness that used to pervade our society. How we treated people like animals, even worse than animals, just because they had different skin color. I can’t even believe we could think such a thing. I still see remnants of it in my grandparents’ speech. Every once in a while, an old way of thinking will emerge in a word or a sentence. But for the most part, it is really good that we have moved on from seeing our world as “black and white”.

We’re not done yet. There is more to go. Maybe when our kids are having kids things will be different. Perhaps by then, their children will look back at the mid to late 20th century – even the early 21st century – and wonder why we just didn’t get it.

But, probably not.

In every generation, there will be people who will see black and white. It may not be applied to skin color, as it was in the 60s and 70s. It might be something else. But it will be black and white. I am right, and you are wrong. It is, as I said, an unfortunate reality of a fallen world.

All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God – Rom 3:23

But all are freely justified by faith in Christ Jesus. All of us. Whether we can’t leave other people to their own journey because we can only see black and white, or whether we steal, kill, lie, commit adultery, or some other “grand” sin. We’re all on equal footing, whether we think so or not. There are no sides – like black and white.

We are many shades of gray.