Dr Paul Allen

I n the parable of The Rich Man and Lazarus, the rich man, suffering in hell, asks Father Abraham to send Lazarus to his father’s house to warn his five brothers to save them from hell. His attempt, though not the core teaching of the parable, reveals a general truth, i.e., when a grievous thing strikes us, our natural instinct is to warn others, especially our loved ones, so that they would not suffer the same fate. For one thing, the culture of the rich man — different from ours — tends to encourage such an effort. In that culture, a person does not exist as an independent entity, but as part of a larger group. Within the framework of a shared identity, social obligation always preempts the individual’s self-interests. In the case of the rich man, he is obligated to alert his brothers of an impending terrifying doom. He does so without obsessing with the possibility of being belittled as to why he has landed in the awful spot in the first place. For him, social obligation offsets how...

Recently, the option of living together, rather than moving into a formal marriage contract, has proliferated in our culture let alone fake marriage that homosexuals pursue. Christians must be careful not to establish their precepts of marriage (or any other ethical dimension of life) on the basis of contemporary community standards. The Christian's conscience is to be governed not merely by what is socially acceptable or even by what is legal according to the law of the land, but rather by what God sanctions. Unfortunately, some Christians have rejected the legal and formal aspects of marriage, arguing that marriage is a matter of private and individual commitment between two people and has no legal or formal requirements. These view marriage as a matter of individual private decision apart from the external ceremony. The question most frequently asked of clergymen on this matter reflects the so-called freedom in Christ: "Why do we have to sign a piece of paper to ...