“Rough” Draft

I’ve spent the last couple of days working on a rough draft of my comment for my journal (Dispute Resolution Law Journal). It is supposed to be at least 25 pages long, and it is due the day we return from Christmas break.

There are a couple of “rough” parts to this rough draft:
(1) It is hard to do law school stuff over Christmas break;
(2) For some unexplained reason, I’m having a hard time hitting my flow with the article.

There are some good parts to all this, however:
(1) I’m already through 15 pages, so I’m on the downhill side;
(2) I really like my topic, and it is terribly important to me.

My working title is: “The Truth Shall Set You Free: A Distinctively Christian Approach to the Use of Deception in Negotiation.”

Now before you jump me and my future profession, deceptive tactics aren’t contained to lawyers. All of us are familiar with fudging the truth a bit (or lot) when we’re buying a house or a car – or just about anything else that involves negotiations. Does Christianity have anything to say about such things?

Of course. Christianity has a lot to say about a lot of things, but I am continually intrigued that all of us seem to choose parts to follow and parts to ignore.

As I wrote today, I got to the section of my paper devoted to establishing the standard to be used when evaluating the Christian approach to culture, and I was reminded of how important that is to how we see everything. In fact, that might be what allows us to pick and choose the parts of “Jesus” that we follow and which parts we ignore.

It seems that our approach tends to shape our views on sex, money, politics, war–and I’m learning now, telling the truth–more than what Jesus actually taught.

In the end, I’m particularly fond of John Howard Yoder’s approach to “Christ & Culture,” which risking extreme oversimplification says, who cares about the Christian approach to culture. Just follow Jesus.

I said I’m particularly fond of it. I didn’t say I’m anywhere near adopting it in practice. Not yet at least.