Check The Fineprint



Use a magnifying glass if needed!



Have you ever found yourself skipping over the fine print in a contract? I have, many times (especially with Apple updates). Sometimes it can have uninttended consequences. For example, if your lease on a new home doesn't allow pets, but your profession happens to be training bassett hounds to be attack dogs (they are vicious), and you run your business out of your home your unintended consequence would be needing to find a new profession, that includes less furry clients.

Now what if you didn't read the fine print on finding a new place of worship, or even in picking a faith? That could be disastrous. So what are some things that should when examining the "fine print"?


• Don't Take People At Their Word Sometimes people from other faiths only reveal the extremely palatable parts of their faith system, and wait until you are neck deep in the system before they reveal the more frankly quirky and weird parts of their faith. For example, many Christians in an initial conversation with a Mormon would believe that we hold the exact same beliefs. On the surface level, that is fairly accurate, but once you dig into their faith, especially in the teachings of Joseph Smith, the LDS church and the Book of Mormon, you see that they don't quite match up. In fact, they have almost completely deviated from many foundational  teachings of Christianity. Make sure you examine the actual scriptures, not be spoon fed answers. Search intently for whether what someone believes is true.
• Names Aren't Everything- I know people who are Ford people. And Apple people. And some people are Baptists, Presbyterians, or Methodists, and staunchly so. This can lead to disastrous consequences if you take a congregations denominational name as a means for measuring credibility. Just like assuming that the Gamecube was a good system because Nintendo made it is a fatal flaw (an extremely fatal flaw actually), assuming a church is credible because it has Church of Christ, Presbyterian, or Nazarene on the sign can have disastrous consquences. An obvious example is Westboro Baptist Church. I am a Baptist myself and when considering their beliefs (notably that God delights in the deaths of people because their sins like homosexuality) I cannot say they would truly be Baptist, or even really a church. Some churches can be just as extreme and deviant in their views but without as much press. Not digging to find if they are accurate and right in their views can lead to unwanted problems.
• Cross Examine Faiths-  One of the best ways to understand what a group believes compared to others is by comparing them to other faiths. Now in this you do have to know what are non negoitables when understanding a faith. For example, in historic orthodox Christianity the view of Jesus as fully God and fully man (a paradigm known as the hypostatic union) is a non negoitable foundational belief because its impact on our understanding of how Jesus' death provided atonement for sins. If you look at a belief system like that of Jehovah's Witnesses, who reject the divinity of Christ, we can see that many non negoitables, in  particular Jesus' divine nature are rejected by the people of this faith. This practice can show you how two faith systems are or are not logically and theologically consistent.

Whenever we fail to understand things ourselves we fall into the trap of agreeing to something that doesn't particularly jive with us. In leasing apartments, it can be costly. In gaming consoles, it can be infuritating. And in faiths the consequences are eternal. Always be sure to understand ever term of the fine print before agreeing.