22let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.23Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.
Our conscience is the ability to discern what is right and what is wrong - and it's important that these convictions are controlled by the Holy Spirit. As we are grounded in our beliefs and as our lives are rooted in Christ, then we will have the strength to carry out our conviction and the wisdom to know how to respond when our convictions are violated. When there is a temptation to compromise, we have to rely on His Spirit to give us the wisdom to speak and act on our convictions.
When we are faced with difficult decisions, including perhaps matters of conscience or the temptation to compromise, we recognize that God has given to us powerful resources in order to know how to respond. Here is what Psalm 37 says:
4Delight yourself also in the Lord, And He shall give you the desires of your heart.5Commit your way to the Lord, Trust also in Him, And He shall bring it to pass.Later in the Psalm, we read:
23The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, And He delights in his way.24Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down; For the Lord upholds him with His hand.
Liz Wahl, an on-screen reporter for RT, the state-owned Russian news agency, made a stunning announcement at the end of a news broadcast last Wednesday. She is quoted as saying, according to Yahoo! News, “As a reporter on this network, I face many ethical and moral challenges...Especially me personally, coming from a family whose grandparents...came here as refugees during the Hungarian revolution — ironically, to escape the Soviet forces."
She went on to say, “That is why personally I cannot be part of a network funded by the Russian government that whitewashes the actions of Putin...I’m proud to be an American and believe in disseminating the truth, and that is why, after this newscast, I’m resigning.”
RT responded with a statement, saying, "when someone makes a big public show of a personal decision, it is nothing more than a self-promotional stunt.”
The preceding day, another on-air anchor had criticized Russia's occupation of Crimea.
RT responded with a statement, saying, "when someone makes a big public show of a personal decision, it is nothing more than a self-promotional stunt.”
The preceding day, another on-air anchor had criticized Russia's occupation of Crimea.
It was the denouement of a drama that’s been played out among The Reporters Who Cover Television for some time, with Attkisson as the heroine. But while conservatives cast her as the gutsy reporter who stood up to her network’s liberal bias and its deep-sixing of her work on Benghazi and other Obama administration evasions and departs after acrimonious contract talks fell apart, liberals cast her as the mainstream investigative journalist who fell down the agenda-driven reporting rabbit hole.Attkisson was in the news last summer when CBS News confirmed her work computer had been hacked over a period of time.
On her Twitter feed, Attkisson has been prolific in highlighting the ways in which Obama administration officials have stymied her requests for information on the Benghazi attacks and other public matters.
According to a CBS News source, Attkisson felt that she was being kept off “The CBS Evening News” because of political considerations. In recent years, she has gone heavy on stories that cast the Obama administration in a bad light, including the failures of the Obamacare Web site, Benghazi and the “Operation Fast and Furious” gun interdiction program. Though much of Attkisson’s work on such stories failed to make the cut on “CBS Evening News,” it did surface on CBSNews.com...In these cases, you have 2 reporters who apparently decided that they had to take a stand on behalf of the credibility of their work. Wahl, after two years at RT, felt she needed to stand on principle and walk away. Attkisson, feeling frustrated by her investigative stories not making it to the air as the result of a perceived political agenda, decided to walk away as well.
Now, there have been no statements that I have read indicating that these are situations where faith is involved. But, for us as Christians, when it comes to taking a principled stand, there may be instances when we have to stand by our convictions and resist the tendency to compromise.
The Bible can give us principles upon which we can stand, that will shape our consciences so that we can know what we ought - and ought not - to do. When we are faced with compromise, we can rely on the Holy Spirit to show us how to respond and give us the strength to actually follow through.
It is important that we develop convictions, and that we choose our actions wisely. Liz Wahl felt that walking out in a public display was the best thing, Sharyl Attkisson took a more private approach. Sometimes there will be instances where the offense is so pronounced that we must walk away from a compromising situation. Other times, we may find that some other methods could be employed: one-on-one negotiation or group problem solving might be a more practical approach. Or, we may be called to wait on things to change in a potentially challenging situation.
That is why we certainly need the wisdom of God to operate in our lives, so that we can respond in the way that brings the maximum glory to God. Walking out may have its short-term satisfaction or relief, but it may not be the most prudent way when you consider the big picture. We can be challenged to allow the Word of God and the direction of the Spirit to shape our convictions and guide our choices when we are tempted to compromise.
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