Anonymous Tip: Aaron Gives Peter a Talking To

A Review Series of Anonymous Tip, by Michael Farris

Pp. 178-181

It’s Friday morning and we’re at the Red Lion coffee shop with Peter and Aaron. Peter got there early and pulled out his notes to do some work while waiting. When Aaron arrives he assumes Peter is working on a case, but no.

“If this is a case, then I have a fool for a client,” Peter said.

Aaron gave him a puzzled look.

“You know, the old saying that he who acts as his own lawyer has a fool for a client.”

“Oh! I get it,” Aaron said with a chuckle.

“I know, I know,” Peter replied. “If you have to explain a joke, it ain’t funny.”

“Well, what’s all this about, anyway?” Aaron asked.

“I’ve got something important to talk to you about,” Peter said.

Any guesses? Aaron has a guess! Nothing gets past Aaron!

“It wouldn’t be about a certain blond client who came to church last Sunday, would it?”

“I’m that obvious?” Peter asked.

“Not exactly. I guess it was the two of you together that made a certain impression. Standing side-by-side, you looked like the models on a wedding cake.”

“Oh, get off it,” Peter laughed.

Just once, I’d like to see a romance between a homely man and a homely woman. Why do books always have to have characters who look like models? Most people do not look like models!

Anyway, Peter tells Aaron that he is “having real difficulties sorting out my emotions relative to Gwen” and that he needs help talking through the scriptural principals. He explains that while Gwen did say a prayer as a teen at a summer Bible camp, she does not appear to be a Christian in the present. He adds that he thinks she will likely become a Christian very soon, and explains that he had advised Gwen to test God by asking him to help her win on Tuesday, and they’d won, so God passed the test. Strongly, Aaron does not object, although there is this exchange:

“I expect she will respond very favorably when I get a chance to follow up.”

“Or when someone gets a chance to fAollow up,” Aaron said with one eyebrow raised.

“Uh . . . yeah,” Peter replied.

How much you want to bet Peter plans to follow up when he joins Gwen and her parents for dinner on Saturday?

“There’s more, isn’t there?” Aaron asked.

“Yes,” Peter said, lowering his eyes. “I am very attracted to Gwen, and it’s not just her looks, although her looks are obviously very appealing. But I know more than enough to curb that attraction unless and until she becomes a real believer.”

“You got that right. So what’s the issue?”

“The issue,” Peter replied, “is that she is divorced, and she didn’t have scriptural grounds. And you know I have a commitment to not marry a divorced woman under those circumstances.

“Why did she get a divorce?”

“Her husband divorced her because she kept complaining he wouldn’t get a real job. Now he’s an alcoholic. I’ve met him—he was a witness in the hearing. Her complaints were obviously valid. He wants to get back together and she refuses because of his continued irresponsibility. To put it simply, I believe Gwen probably will become a Christian. But there is no way she can chance her status as a divorcee. What I want to know from you is whether I have read Scripture correctly when I made a commitment to never marry a divorced woman?”

Aaron acknowledges that this is an area where people disagree—and he’s right. “Very solid men of God have come to divergent views on this point,” Aaron explains. The reason for this is that the Bible is a bit contradictory. There are some passages that seem to indicate that divorce is acceptable for certain reasons—what reasons depend on the passage—and other places that seem to indicate that divorce is never acceptable. One would think issues like this would make fundamentalist Christians realize they’re going to have to use some Biblical criticism and drop their literalism, but no.

Anyway, as Aaron talks, Peter becomes hopeful, but Aaron isn’t done.

“So, you’ve got a different kind of issue than pure scriptural interpretation. You’ve reached a conviction in the past about the meaning of Scripture and made a commitment to God based on that understanding. And now, when a very attractive alternative interpretation of Scripture comes on the scene, you are rethinking your convictions. I don’t think that’s the way that God wants us to operate. Sure, there are times we should change our views. None of us interprets Scripture with one-hundred-percent accuracy. But I don’t believe that we should change our convictions in the heat of the moment—especially when the reason for the change is not some new insight from Scripture, but simply a very attractive temptation to vary what we have believed.”

Peter sighed deeply and fiddled with his coffee cup. “I was afraid you were going to say something like that. You’re probably right.”

“Well,” Aaron replied, “I don’t feel that it is appropriate for me to give you a blanket answer about divorce. If God changes your mind, that’s one thing. But if it is a beautiful woman responsible for the change, I fear you set a very dangerous spiritual precedent in your life.”

“Well thanks—I think,” Peter said with a weak smile.

And here ends the section. So let’s talk.

You may be wondering about this whole “convictions” thing, because it definitely doesn’t seem to mesh very well with a literalist Bible-ab0ve-all-else worldview. When I was a girl, I read the Elsie Dinsomre books, and one thing that stuck out to me was that Elsie refused to read secular books on Sundays. I asked someone about this, because I knew we had no such rules, and that besides attending church, Sunday differed from any other day very little. I was told that because Elsie was convicted that reading secular books on Sunday was sin, and that therefore, it would have been sin for her to do so, regardless of what the Bible says.

I’m honestly not sure how widespread this teaching is, and I honestly haven’t even thought about it in years. Here, it seems to be applied only to issues that are not completely clear, scripturally. But I would note that many issues that one Christian things are unclear, another things are crystal clear. This is part of the problem with relying on a millennia-old book that is actually a collection of many very different books as the basis of your religious tradition—things won’t always line up, and people will eternally argue over what the book does and does not say. Except that actually, people seem to argue over the details of their religions regardless of their founding scriptures. And here I sense we’re getting off track.

Let me tell another story. When I was in college, I started a relationship with a young man at around the same time that I began to evaluate a number of my beliefs. My parents immediately argued that I was changing my beliefs to suit the young man in question. I was mad, but I was also a bit scared. Could they be right? Was that what I was doing? Because whether my parents realized it or not, that is not something I would be okay with doing. And that, quite simply, is the tension Peter is facing here. In this case it’s very clear that Peter is rethinking his convictions because he met a beautiful woman.

Now, don’t think I haven’t seen you all in the comments making bets on what happens to Gwen’s husband Gordon! Where do you place the odds now? Does (a) Gordon die in a tragic accident; (b) Peter change his mind about divorced women; or (c) Farris keep the two unmarried at the end of the book. And if you’ve read it, no spoilers!