This is http://www.essayz.com/a9309122.htm         
Previous-Essay      <== This-Essay ==>     Following-Essay
Click HERE on this line to find essays via Your-Key-Words.
{Most frequent wordstarts of each essay will be put here.}
==========================================================
   %UNIQUE DIFFERENT PERSON GOD GIVEN GIFTS CONFORM 930912

     If  God  has  created  us  as  unique  and  different
creatures,  how then are we to conform to his will without
doing violence to the unique characters and differences in
ourselves  and in each other person?   How can we best  be
true to ourselves and to each other?

Shall we try to make our  eyes,   hair color,   skin
color,   weight  and  height  conform  to  some   "normal"
standard.    What human differences should we tolerate and
what differences shall we refuse to respect?  How shall we
decide which to tolerate and which to respect?

     How  can we creatively deal with this dilemma and  at
the  same time conform to God's will as each of us in  our
creatively  different ways understand what God's will  for
us and each other is?   If we try to conform each other to
our own various conceptions of what God's will is for each
other, we are bound to generate conflicts which will be to
us ultimate conflicts between our different conceptions of
what God's will is for each other!   This kind of conflict
is not  likely  to  lead  us  into  personal  and communal
integrity.

     Invoking  the  Bible  as the  ultimate  authority  in
resolving such conflicts does not resolve the dilemma, for
history  shows  that many different kinds of  people  have
sincerely used and abused  the  Bible in  support of their
many different conceptions of just what God's will is  for
each other.  Used in such ways the Bible is not a means to
personal and communal integrity.

     We cannot enjoy personal integrity if we are not true
to  ourselves and to each other;  true to our differences.
Conformity  which does violence to our differences is  not
integrative   conformity.     When  efforts   to   promote
conformity  undermine the possibility of us being true  to
ourselves  and to each other they are disintegrative,  and
so are not worthy of respect and support.

                                                                                                                               
                         (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in      
                    (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy)  
                                                                                                                               
==========================================================