This is the first in a series of posts on facing the weaknesses of the church, with the hope of some constructive brainstorming on how to serve God better. See here for some background to the series.
Evangelicals are often afraid of debate. This might not seem true when you consider that many evangelicals are willing to trade proof-texts at fifty paces on everything from predestination to paedobaptism. But move beyond those topics deemed safe for discussion or keep asking questions a bit too persistently, and many Christians will quickly become afraid.
At Mack, we were recently studying 2 Peter, which talks about false teachers who exploit others and abuse them spiritually. I lead one of the home group Bible studies on the subject, and one of the questions I tried to encourage thought about was ways in which we can act in ways like those false teachers, and what can we do to avoid them. It seems to me that an atmosphere where questions are not welcomed, when conformity is the norm and where deviance from the party line is distrusted is a spiritually abusive atmosphere to be in. This isn’t just a problem among cults “out there”, but an insidious problem that can creep into our own churches and our attitudes, to our cost.
What does this immaturity look like? One example of immature thinking on the part of Christians is to label certain speakers, writers, books or organisations as “sound” or “unsound”, and to then either accept or reject what they say fairly uncritically. This goes right against the command to “Test everything. Hold on to the good”.
Dan Edelen posted recently on his blog Cerulean Sanctum about this very issue:
It bothers me sometimes that we treat great Christians as if they could never, ever, in a billion years have a mistaken position on an important piece of doctrine…The Bible teaches us to be discerning about ALL things, not just what troubles us. Truthfully, the greatest errors arise when we cast our discernment aside because “Hey, I’m reading my favorite Christian great who I’ve enshrined on my altar of godliness.”
The reverse is also true. Too often we play a game of guilt-by-association – because, say, Steve Chalke is “unsound” on his views of the atonement, Christians decide he can safely be ignored on whatever he has to say, even though he may have any number of useful suggestions or true insights on another subject. Such an attitude is not only intellectually lazy, but unloving and damaging to whoever is deemed a heretic.
What’s more, we need to appreciate that even the expression of wrong views can be helpful if the challenge of that provokes a clearer articulation and understanding of the truth. To take Steve Chalke as an example again, I agree with those who say he is mistaken in his understanding of penal substitutionary atonement as “cosmic child abuse”. But it appears to me that he is reacting against a distorted presentation of that doctrine within the church as “God punishes Jesus so we get let off”. Although I believe Chalke is wrong in rejecting the doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement rather than returning to an understanding of that doctrine that is properly Biblical, we should be glad that Chalke has provoked a debate in this area that will hopefully strengthen our theology.
Sadly, Christians, who above all should be characterised by our love, often end up demonising and vilifying those outside our neat little boxes marked “safe”. We end up trying to do others down with rhetorical posturing: my interpretation of the Bible is “accepting the plain truths of scripture” while we accuse our opponents of “distorting God’s word to fit your prejudices”.
I know how easy it is to get carried away in debate, to end up arguing destructively rather than constructively and lovingly. Part of becoming mature as Christians is being able to engage in debate and discussion lovingly, listeningly, and carefully, and to be able to value discussion and diversity. I do not mean a pluralism that accepts every view as equally true, but a valuing of debate and discussion as a useful way of refining our views to bring us closer to what’s true.
The fear of debate is a weakness I see at times in the Christian Union. Various issues, both theological and practical, aren’t discussed for fear of rocking the boat, for fear of divisiveness. One example is the issue of women speakers. Rather than having a thought-out theological position on the role of women and how that relates to a CU situation, there is a de facto policy of no woman speakers for the talks, except when we do, in which case it’s a seminar! Someone even suggested to me that is better that the CU avoid tricky debates and discussion, because it would prove divisive and destructive. I see their point, but I really don’t want them to be right.
If we really have confidence in the truth of the Gospel, then we need not be afraid of examining it, asking questions, working through different issues and so on. A fear of debate is a lack of trust in the Gospel; it’s also often a lack of trust in other Christians to allow them to think things through properly, especially when leaders and leadership structures don’t allow for open and constructive discussion.
I do see that to try and move immediately into a more open conversation on tough issues is potentially destructive if those within the group are not mature enough to cope with that. However, I strongly disagree that it is better to keep going in immature ways because maturity is difficult. The question is – how can we strive to become mature enough as individuals and as Christian communities to be able to weigh everything up, to test everything, holding on to the good, to seek to come closer to the truth through discussion and diversity?
I’ll return to that question later, with particular consideration of some of Paul’s writing on the subject of divisions in the church in 1 Corinthians. Next time, however, I’m going to look at evangelical thinking more broadly, and how the evangelical scene caters for people of a certain psychology while being potentially hostile to people of other ways of thinking.
