On arguing

My wife commented the other day on how it seems like a required part of being a Christian is being able and willing to argue with other Christians about the validity of your beliefs. It sounds kind of silly when it is phrased like that, but in my experience, it’s generally true.

No matter what belief you may adhere to at any particular time, it seems a given that if you make it public in any sort of forum, there is bound to be at least one person who will take issue with it- and often you, as a result.

I have been both the “confronted” and the “confronter” in time gone by. When confronted- as in recent times regarding my blog posts-  I have found myself rolling my eyes at the urgency with which my confronters have “corrected” my wrong beliefs with the obviously clear truth of Scripture, which, in my stubbornness and carelessness, I have blasphemously set to the side. Like, come on- I’m an adult; I have the ability to critically think and read the Bible for myself. Give me some credit.

And then I find myself showing the exact same ignorance and insensitivity to another person.

How can this person believe such a thing when Scripture is so clear about this? 

This person is not reading the Bible for themselves.

And whether they or I brashly and openly disagree with the heretic and uncritical thinker in question and confront their heresy with the inerrant truth of Scripture, or simply gently communicate a certain concern for their eternal well-being, such confrontations are often unproductive, at least in my experience.

In response to one of my previous posts, “My gay agenda“, two different people confronted me about my position, and in each case, we went back and forth numerous times, refuting each others’ points and then refuting each others’ refutations. I felt that my points trumped theirs; I’m sure they felt the same about their own points. In the end, in each debate, neither of us budged an inch on our respective positions.

What was accomplished by engaging in debate with each other? Neither of us changed our perspective at all. It was probably safe to say we had our minds- for the most part- made up before we even read what the other person had to say. With both of us evidently being passionate enough on the subject to engage in lengthy debate with another, we had heard the others’ arguments many times before and we only rolled our eyes as we read each others’ responses and churned out our by-now automatic response to the popular criticisms of our perspective. Of course, I can only speak on behalf of myself- if my fellow combatants in Holy debate were not rolling their eyes, then they were better men than I.

I heard a great quote from Philip Yancy a while ago:

“No one ever converted to Christianity because they lost the argument.”

In this case, one might say, “no one ever changed their views on homosexuality because they lost an argument to an anonymous blogger/random commenter on the internet.”

One might argue- hehe- that this is too absolute of a statement, but I feel like it reflects some truth at least.

I left the aforementioned arguments not with a changed perspective but with an even tighter grip on the one I had had before. I left not feeling closer to this fellow human being on the other side of the internet, but more distant and at unavoidable odds with. We hadn’t connected, but only confronted. I left the argument only feeling annoyed, bitter, and exhausted. Nothing positive was gained out of this interaction, except for a temporary boost to my ego after I let fly another great set of refutations to the others’ arguments- a feeling which is really not that positive at all in the grand scheme of things anyways.

I guess I just wonder if engaging in debates about sensitive and humungous issues is really worthwhile. In my experience, bitterness, frustration, and tension are more likely  to result from such debates than one combatant conceding defeat and changing their perspective right there on the spot.

So why have them?

Getting frustrated with a fellow Christian’s supposed ignorance or misguided theology never makes me feel closer to God or to my fellow human (which come hand in hand for me).

Yet when I chat with a person near me in the lounge at school and we connect on even the most casual of levels, the fact that their theology is different than mine suddenly doesn’t matter anymore, because I have just connected with them as a fellow human being.

It’s not denial, it’s not like I am pretending that we don’t disagree on the issue of homosexuality or the interpretation of Scripture or whatever- it’s just realizing that really, in the big picture, there are more important things in life. Like viewing other people as human beings who want to be treated the same way as you- with love, compassion, and empathy.

Now what to do going forward..

here’s an idea: What if I never stated my opinion on something unless it was asked for? (Guess I’d have to stop blogging…)

Or what if I just lived my opinion- however cliche that may sound? After all, haven’t I said in previous posts that I believe the gospel centers on love? And haven’t I said that nothing reflects one’s true beliefs more than what they do? Maybe I should just start, you know, loving others instead of arguing with them.

I know- conversation about sticky issues is good, and it would seem foolish to do away with all of it. But I guess just in my experience, when I start “conversing” with people of a very different opinion on a hotly contested issue, I quickly lose my feelings of empathy and love for them, and just as quickly gain ones of bitterness and frustration. And then it’s not worth it.

I quoted these principles of effective argumentation in my first post:

1) Use the principles of argumentation with compassion.

2) Reaffirm your opponent’s sense of competence.

3) Emphasize equality.

4) Emphasize shared attitudes.

5) Show opponents you are interested in their views.

6) Allow your opponents to save face.

This is definitely my ideal for argumentation, but it has been very difficult to achieve. “Emphasizing equality” and “shared attitudes” would be a lot easier if we weren’t in a debate.

I think I’m at the point now where I just want out. I’m over it. I don’t want to argue for my particular position and I don’t want to cram my brain for refutations to your every point against it. I don’t want to feel bitter, I don’t want to feel frustrated, I don’t want to roll my eyes at you. I don’t want to feel at odds with you. I don’t want to identify you by your theology, but only by your humanity.

I don’t want to argue with you about God, I just want to see him in you.

Any thoughts? Am I overreacting? Is there a balance to be found? Let me know, and let’s see if we can talk together instead of at each other.

-j

All you need is love

My brilliant friend Garret Menges wrote a blog post a while ago entitled “The Functionality of Religion”, in which he stated the following:

“I have come to believe that how one’s beliefs function practically in day to day experience is more important than the beliefs themselves. In other words, right belief takes a back seat to believing in the right way…

I would stop short of identifying as a full blown relativist, however. I still believe that some beliefs are better than others. Not all worldviews are created equal. My criterion for deciding whether or not a particular worldview is good is how well the belief under consideration yields compassion in the believer.”

I am very much in the same boat, and I would like to further flesh out this particular conviction by advocating for my own religious mantra, “all you need is love”, in which the word “love” is simply a substitute for the word “compassion”, as found in Garret’s philosophy.

I believe the concept of love transcends any human constructs or divisions we have made in order to differentiate ourselves from one another- including that of religion.

In the same way that God transcends all of these things- even religion, for the latter is only a set of beliefs about the former- so does love, for God is love (1 John 4:8, 16), and love is God: 1 Corinthians 13 says love is greater than even faith and hope. The latter two can describe the relationship between humanity and the Divine; the former is the Divine. I believe this is why it is greater than the other two, and why it transcends all human constructs.

And if God is love, then Jesus surely was love too, for Jesus was God incarnate! And read what Paul says about this Jesus Christ, who was Love, first in his epistle to the Galatians-

“There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus[/love]” (Galatians 3:28)

– and again, here in his epistle to the Colossians:

“Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ[/love] is all, and is in all” (Colossians 3:11).

No Gentile or Jew? These were two opposing worldviews in many people’s eyes at the time. Circumcision distinguished those who practiced the Jewish religion from those who didn’t, and yet Jesus did away with it! Here we see Jesus not only abolishing the most cemented of the social constructs humanity divided itself with- male and female??- but abolishing the dividing line of religion as well- doing all of this in favour of the new religion he brought to earth- that of Love: “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another” (John 13:34).

And so we are given the principle of Love from Love himself to unify ourselves. Have followers of Jesus stuck with this one principle over the years? Our exclusivity based upon things like fear instead of upon love tells me we have not. Have we sought to unite humanity in the love that we all look for, or have we sought to divide humanity based upon whether we are “Gentile” or “Jew”, “circumcised” or “uncircumcised”…? Perhaps we could paraphrase Paul’s words as a reminder for us today:

“There is neither Christian nor non-Christian… for you are all one in Jesus, who is Love.”

In this way, as Menges puts it, “right beliefs takes a back seat to believing in the right way”. The action of love- not the belief in a particular set of doctrines- is what unites humanity under Christ, who is love.

But what about Jesus’ many calls to believe? What about Jesus’ claim that he was the “Way, Truth, and Life“? Doesn’t this exclude those people who hold to a Jesus-less doctrine? I think I have hinted at my answer to this already, but I’ll spell it out more clearly.

To answer this question regarding “belief in Jesus”, I think we need to think about what we mean when we talk about “belief” and about “Jesus”. If by belief you simply mean mental assent, and if by Jesus you mean an ancient Near-Eastern name or simply another god who demands our worship and sacrifice in exchange for our well-being- well then, I think you have a very strong case against my mantra, “all you need is love.”

But here’s what I think: I think nothing more truly reflects belief than action. And nothing more truly reflects Jesus, God incarnate, than love. So here is my logic: If what we do reflects what we truly believe, then if we actively love, we truly believe in Jesus, for Jesus is love. As a matter of fact, John says as much in his first epistle:

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love…No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us” (1 John 4:7-8, 11-12, emphasis added).

So when Jesus said he was “The Way, the Truth, and the Life”, I don’t think he was saying that a mental and verbal confession of himself as “The Way”, etc. was necessary to reach God. I think he was saying that the only way to reach God is to be like God… to be like Jesus, to love- in fact, the term “way” here implies acting/being instead of just “believing”. I think it is logical to say that to love– to put others before yourself, as Jesus did- this is to have Jesus as your Way, your Truth, and your Life, whether you call yourself a Christian or not.

We Christians are quick to point out the hypocrisy of those who “believe” in God but do not act like it: “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love” (1 John 4:8). Why are we not so quick to point out those who do act like they believe in God, who is love, even if they do not express as much in theological or biblical language? For “everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God” (1 John 4:7).

I went to a church service with my wife and my mother-in-law a couple weekends ago. The sermon was very good- it was preached by another brilliant blogging friend of mine, Jordan Shaw, who preached a sermon entitled “Patriotism to Yahweh“, a sermon which I will have to unfairly summarize in one sentence for the purpose of the story; essentially, it was about how we should be pledging allegiance ultimately not to a country, but to God, and showing love and hospitality to all of our neighbours is how we should do this. Anyways, I was very much engaged during the sermon, and being a Bible college student, I caught all of his biblical references and understood his Christian language.

Afterwards, however, my wife told me that during the sermon, a woman sitting in front of my mother-in-law had been coughing violently and consistently throughout. The woman had looked frantically through her purse, presumably for a cough drop or some water, when my mother-in-law immediately noticed her distress and quickly opened her own purse to look for something that could be of aid to her. She soon found a cough drop and gave it to the woman, who took it thankfully.

I found this to be terribly ironic- I had been so engaged in this sermon about loving your neighbour that I hadn’t even noticed this woman coughing, never mind done anything about it. I may have been able to give my enthusiastic mental assent to Jordan’s message about loving your neighbour, biblical references and all, but I hadn’t even noticed the neighbour in need of “love” nearby. My mother-in-law, however- a non-Christian who wouldn’t be able to catch a reference to Deuteronomy, never mind The Shema- she had noticed the neighbour, and she acted out the sermon, even if she didn’t mentally understand every part of it.

As an aside, Jordan also mentioned in his sermon how one specific way we could love our neighbours would be to pick up hitchhikers- Jordan’s dad had done so numerous times, and had even invited them over for dinner- and unsurprisingly, my wife informed after the sermon that my mother-in-law had also picked up a hitchhiker just last week!

However trivial the cough drop situation in particular may sound- and I can assure you, the love my mother-in-law shows for her neighbours is not limited to giving them cough drops- it is a good example of what I am trying to get across here. Who would Jesus be more pleased with in that instance? Myself, whom was able to give an enthusiastic and biblically-rooted assent- “Yes, I agree, Jordan, we should love our neighbour!”- or my mother-in-law, who actually did so?

And if you want to get all eschatological up in here, this is a scene that I am picturing:

My mother-in-law, Debie, after she passes away, is standing before Jesus at his throne.

Jesus says to her, “Debie, come here, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For when my throat was dry and I could find no relief, you gave me a cough drop. When I was stranded on the highway, you pulled over and gave me a ride.”

Debie, thoroughly overwhelmed and unfamiliar with Matthew 25:31-46, asks Jesus, “Jesus, when did I see you suffering from a dry throat and give you a cough drop? When did I see you stranded on the highway and give you a ride?”

And Jesus replies, “Truly, Debie, I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”

And then he opens his arms wide and welcomes her into the Kingdom of Love she had already been participating in during her time on earth.

-j

re: Christian defensiveness and playground apologetics

In one of my classes at Bible college a couple years ago, it was brought up by the teacher how a common criticism of Christians was that we are intolerant. Our teacher provided us with a good response to this criticism by saying that such critics are also intolerant- of our intolerance!

It was a clever bit of logic that I have seen and heard repeated in various facebook threads or conversations among Christians, but to me, it is immature, defensive, and even unnecessary.

It seems to reflect the sort of playground “eye for an eye” mentality that ultimately accomplishes nothing constructive in a conflict. It doesn’t negate or even acknowledge the critic’s point whatsoever but simply deflects it back to them, implicitly attempting to justify the noted criticism on account of the same fault being present in the critic. It is an attempt to save face- as all defensiveness is- even if it is at the expense of the other.

Defensiveness is common and even encouraged within Christian circles, however! The popular Christian discipline of apologetics is simply the practice of defending one’s faith, and it will actually be offered as a full credit class next semester at the bible college where I attend. There was also recently a large apologetics conference in the city which I live, which was attended by many of my schoolmates. And on the final exam of the aforementioned class, one question asked how we would respond to someone who criticized us for being intolerant, presumably expecting us to echo back the clever retort we had been given in class (in fairness to the teacher, I gave a much different answer- in the same vein as this blog post- and still received full marks and an echoed sentiment).

Admittedly, I too was greatly intrigued and inspired by apologetics at one point. In my Christian theology class, I remember getting super pumped on all the different arguments for the existence of God- the cosmological one, the moral one- authored by C.S. Lewis, no less!- etc. A couple years later, in one of my youth work classes, a cool-looking guy in his early 30s was a guest speaker for a day, and he wowed us with a fast-moving presentation that tackled each of what he said were the 5 biggest questions young people had about Christianity today- How does an all-loving God allow so many bad things to happen in the world, etc. He was smart, smooth, and he had great-sounding answers. I think most of us were pretty impressed. He even had free books up for grabs- “The Case for Christ” and “The Case for Faith”, both by Lee Strobel. Finally, I had ammunition for even the toughest, most scientific or rationalistic arguments against my faith which I held so dear! This need for ammunition, however, stemmed purely from insecurity and an unnecessary desire to prove my faith legtimate on every possible level.

What I can appreciate about apologetics- as much as I have been exposed to- is its willingness to tackle the tough questions. To respond to criticisms of Christianity is surely preferable to not responding at all. What I do not appreciate about apologetics, however, is its stubborn persistance upon giving answers and its unwillingness to say “I don’t know.” To me, that is obnoxious. To admit that one does not know the answer to a question- particularly to one as massive as “Why do bad things happen?”- or to at least to acknowledge the difficulty presented by such questions as well as the wide array of possible answers out there- this is humility, and it’s beautiful to me. While the openly unsure pastor may not be as flashy as the smooth-talking apologist, they connect on heart level and not just a mind one. While the words “I don’t know” may be much more unsettling in our brains than a rock-solid discourse from C.S. Lewis, they are much more freeing and much more relatable to anyone outside of Christian circles.

So here’s my proposal:

How about instead of resorting to playground apologetics in the face of every critic that confronts us, we listen to their criticism and consider their points, being “quick to listen” and “slow to speak”? (James 1:19).

How about instead of childishly criticizing those who accuse us of being intolerant, we change our attitudes accordingly and realize that the criticisms Jesus endured here on earth were those accusing him of being too tolerant rather than not enough?

How about instead of simply quoting John 14:6 in the face of growing pluralistic sentiments, we 1) seek to learn from other religions, 2) listen to other voices as we would want to be listened to, and 3) get our heads out of our asses and realize that nearly 70% of the world’s population (over 4 billion people) affliate themselves with other religions  (or no religion at all), and they are by-and-large perfectly reasonable people who have plenty of solid reasons for believing what they do, just as we do?

Taking a breath..

Let’s just stop being so defensive- I’ve been guilty of it many a time, particularly in theological conversations with my wife, and it never gets me anywhere. It only damages the relationship and makes me look like an idiot when my “defence” is revealed to be nothing more than spoon-fed Christianese that I really haven’t thought critically about. So call me out on that shit if I’ve ended up doing that here!

-j