Where I live, people don’t think too highly of rules. If you don’t believe me, sit at any intersection and wait. It won’t take long to watch someone run a red light. It could also explain why the region is so conservative protestant. Hate on the rules and the government is the norm.

But like my previous post, it isn’t accurate to think of behaviors so simply. In fact, it seems that there are several types of drivers, but two big archetypes.

1) those that respect the purpose behind the laws and
2) those that follow their own moral compass

See, some drivers may go a little faster than the posted limits, but otherwise care about the interactive laws, such as traffic lights, merging requirements, and yields. Other drivers see speeding as extremely dangerous and drive under the limit–but roll through their stops, force their way into another lane, or treat yields like green arrows. The basic difference, of course, is that the former prioritizes how we treat one another and the latter prioritizes their understanding of personal rights and responsibilities. And in the church, we might call the former the Catholic approach and the latter the Protestant approach.

There are plenty of other types of drivers (just as there are other types of Christians). There are those that really don’t break any laws and those that are completely indifferent to any rules at all, doing what they please. But for most of us, we are eager to figure out the tension between the law and a deeper moral authority. And some of us have added incentive: we have children to teach and learn from.

My daughter, like most Christians throughout history, loves traditions, rules, and predictable behaviors. She even loves to clean up! She also loves learning where the boundaries are and playing with expectations. There is something in our psyche that wants to be both Catholic and Protestant–we want to follow rules and we want to have a say in it; especially when morality is involved. So we fall back on priorities.

How might we prioritize so that we can respect rules and faithfulness?