Contentious, and often angry, debate, ever pursues the Church. Faithful follower of Jesus hound one another over the issue of drinking alcohol, the theology of Calvin vs. Arminius and the more recent debate over things like where the church should meet (viz.. “the church should only meet in homes”). Todd Benkert over at SBC Voices has put together a great list of “Things to avoid in our disagreements with others”. This list is worth repeating and honoring in our own disagreements, dialogue and debate.
- A willful ignorance in which we choose to embrace a caricature of someone’s view rather than truly seek to understand it – or worse, an intentional dishonesty in advancing such a caricature we know to be misleading or untrue.
- An unwillingness to allow persons to speak in their own words and argue against the actual content of their position.
- Rejection of a view “out of hand” without having considered the merits of the argument.
- An unwillingness to engage in real discussion, either talking past each other by ignoring the honest questions of others or engaging in debate/rhetorical techniques that are designed to win an argument rather than actually seek the truth.
- Taking offense or rejecting an argument because of a perceived practical implication or application of someone’s view rather than the view itself.
- Ascribing a perceived logical outcome of an opponents view and attacking that outcome rather than the view itself.
- A willful blindness to our own presuppositions and or a failure to acknowledge those presuppositions of which we are aware.
- Parsing words to the point of ascribing hidden agendas or extracting meanings never intended by the person.
- Failure to give one’s opponent the benefit of the doubt in terms of personal motives.
- A blindness to our own motives and personal agendas.
- Attacking the character of the person rather than the argument made.
- Responses that are reactionary not thoughtful – i.e., responding to something which we have neither read, sought to understand, reflected, nor considered the merits yet on which we have a strong, unwavering opinion that must be heard.
- Responding to critics from a defensive posture rather than engaging in real discussion in a common desire for truth.
- Name-calling or lumping a person into a particular camp in order to dismiss one’s argument without engaging it.
- A dogmatic approach to issues which are tertiary in nature, on which persons of good conscience disagree, and which are more unclear in Scripture than we are willing to admit.
- A failure to do theological triage resulting in an elevation of tertiary issues to secondary or even first order status.
- A failure to have an irenic spirit and treat our opponents with respect.
- A lack of humility.
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Man, I think #16 is hard for me, and it is because I am invested more into issues than I am Christ, I always say, but hardly obey my position of “if Christ has received someone who am I to reject them”. I think I will post on this.
Thanks for your honesty brother. I look forward to reading it