The Bondage of Neutrality

Neutrality takes on many forms in life.  Neutrality in one sense can be choosing not to take a side or in other words, choosing the safe position.  Neutrality can be pretending for the sake of self-preservation.  Neutrality can be picking what’s popular over what is poignant.  Neutrality masquerades as being objective or principled and hides in diplomacy.  Neutrality is never taking a side in an attempt to appear wiser or more Christian.  Neutrality revels in being cloaked in shades of gray as if it were some new fashion statement of the elite or intellectual.  Actually neutrality is how pacifists adorn themselves like the mindless trend followers who dress to be in the middle of the crowd rather than dress in bold statements to indicate where the line of freethinking begins. For this reason it annoys me when I feel or hear neutrality in others.

That may sound strange but its interesting how the topic of neutrality does not garner much thought or conversation.  Well, maybe you’re not like me but at times when I’ve been low on gas I drive to get gas on my side of town because it is much cheaper.  When I get off the freeway my favorite low priced gas station is on the bottom of a slight hill. Sometimes I get off the freeway at the exit and my gas gauge is lingering near E.  With this knowledge I know I will barely make it to my gas station of choice.  I know some people faced with my situation just put their vehicle in neutral so that they can coast down the slight hill into the gas station. Those drivers at that point would not be in control of their vehicle. Gravity is the force that is pulling their vehicle forward and the driver is steering and managing the speed. Neutral does two things, on a flat road it keeps a vehicle from moving forward or backward, and on an incline or decline pulls a vehicle down.  In order to be in control of a vehicle’s direction a vehicle has to put in gear.

Neutral people ascribe to the fallacy that there can be two sides to an issue and the truth can be somewhere in the middle.  If I am in my van and don’t choose a gear I will be in bondage to either stay still or go where gravity takes me.  If I live in neutral or in other words live a life of neutrality I am bound to a stagnant life or to be pulled toward a position I didn’t choose.  That’s not freedom.  Paul said in Ephesians 6:15-16 “…Having done all to stand. Stand…” Paul then goes into the armor we must wear as Christians. God deals in light and dark, hot and cold, good and evil, true and false.  There are only 2 sides to every issue, true and false.  I have found that if I look for God I can find the truth of any situation. God doesn’t live in neutrality.

Some think neutrality is safe.  I read about the church of Laodicea in the book of Revelations.  I have come to learn that God does not like neutrality or pacifism.  In the 3^rd chapter of Revelations in the 15^th and 16^th verses, God spells out his dislike of lukewarm to the point of spiting.  God said “you are neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth”.  I also read in 2 Corinthians 3:17 “…wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.”  Now this changed everything for me.  This means that if God is not where you are you are in bondage.  If I put that together, I can only come to one conclusion.  If I am lukewarm then God will spit me out.  If I am spit out then I have no freedom.  Wait a minute; neutrality is a form of bondage. Taking a position is displaying freedom.

So the question is, why do so many people live in the bondage of neutrality?

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