Light, Life, Love: Fearless Love – 1 John 4:17-5:5
November 8, 2020Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Speaker: Jerry Cisar
The Economist published an article asking, “Why shouldn’t parents be treated as badly as smokers?” The author is serious. “Signs proliferate demanding no smoking, no spitting, no parking, even no walking…. The Economist would like to suggest restrictions on a source of noise pollution: children.” Why? Because just as smoking, driving and mobile phones cause what economists call ‘negative externalities,’ so do children; they cost other people too much.
They offer two possible solutions: a tax on parents to offset the cost of the social pollution created by their children or banning children from many public places. They land on a combination: All airlines, trains, and restaurants should create child-free zones, and charge more for children to offset the costs.
Of course, they fail to account for the fact that they did not come into the world as grown-ups. They themselves have imposed “negative externalities” on others. Others had to put up with them in order for them to now be put out by children. If one were to impose such fees or taxes on children, would we not all have to pay a huge back-debt for our own social interference?
There were then and are now disciples who would prefer a version of Christianity with child-free zones. They want to be Christians without sharing life with other children of God.” For John the apostle, you can no more be a Christian and uninvolved in shared life with the other children of God, than you can be a fish and not have fins. Christianity has no room for child-of-God-free-zones.