Ok, so the title of this blog article is a little misleading. I don't think that there is anything inherently evil with the ice bucket challenge (IBC). In fact, it's been something that in many regards has been a great blessing to charity and non-profit organizations during this time of decreased giving. The IBC has caused ALS (Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) research organizations to report record-breaking donations and it's not even the end of the third quarter. No one can say that any campaign that causes folks to give record-breaking amounts of non-profits or research organizations is a bad things...or can they.
The IBC had been around for a few weeks; social media sites seemed like endless feeds of folks hoping on the bandwagon. My wife was even one of those folks. There were endless lists of celebrities, political figures, sports personas, sports teams, and even children accepted the IBC. Then, there came the nay-sayers. At first, it was what I like to call the "legitimate complainers". These were the folks that had a moral (and in many cases biblical) complaint not with the IBC itself, but with the ALS research organizations. You see, many of these organizations were using embryonic stem cells taken from aborted fetuses in order to find a cure for ALS. I myself fall into this camp (hence why I probably give this school of thought more legitimacy than the group I will mention later). I'm all for finding a cure and ending the horrible disease that is just as hard on those around someone diagnosed with ALS as it is the actual person who has it. However, I am not a proponent of elected abortions. I'm not in favor of a woman being able to have an abortion simply because she doesn't want to have the child. I could get into a whole different discussion when it comes to health concerns, but this isn't the place for that and I just don't have the time. However, what we ended up seeing was that people accepted the IBC, but instead of giving a donation to ALS research, they simply gave to some other institution. Great! As long as something charitable was coming out of this it was all good.
Then, after about another week, that's when it happened. That's when sin (as I see it) really reared its ugly head. People became tired of the IBC not because of the moral or biblical implications of ALS research, but because they simply got tired of seeing their Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram accounts littered with people pouring ice cold water on their heads. It was as if people decided that what really mattered wasn't all the good that was being done, but that they wanted their Facebook news feeds back.
You know, sin is a funny thing. It comes in the most subtle of ways. Over the past few months, I've been preaching on how here in America, sin comes in the form of comfort: comfort in our lifestyle, our friends, our surroundings. We have become comfortable, and therefore we don't seek out the lost or seek the will of God as much because we're just trying not to rock the boat too hard. It also comes in the form of envy, jealously, sloth, lust, and many other forms that we could keep on listing until our lungs gave out. But as I sit in my office this morning, I'm reminded that the things that are glorifying to God's kingdom are always going to come under attack. The things that are good and seek the best for God's children are constantly under fire. It's like what C.S. Lewis said in his book Mere Christianity about the fact that Satan has nothing to do with something (or someone) that's evil and separated from God because they're already doing what he wants them to do. It's the things that are being worked out for good that he tries to destroy.
We are a fallen people who live in a fallen world. Do I think that there are better uses for clean water than pouring on peoples' heads needlessly? Absolutely; go ask any third world country (or California for that matter). Do I think there are better organizations (morally and ethically) than those that use stem cells to try and cure diseases? Absolutely; that's why we've donated to a different institution. However, I'm all in favor of seeing things like this be spread across social media sites instead of whatever Miley Cyrus did at the MTV VMA's last night (although I have no clue if she was even there seeing as I didn't watch it). There's times when we (as humanity as a whole) stumble into something good and seek good instead of evil. This happens to be one of those times. There's going to be people who seek to stop all things good, but we (as people and more importantly Christians) have to simply keep our eyes on the cross and continue to strive forward, seeking the will of the Father.
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