On my team?
Something that caused me pause for a moment today was reading a comment to me on someone else’s blog. We’d been discussing the interpretation of a particular passage in Genesis, and he quoted Bishop Spong at me, apparently believing that (because I’m not conservative evangelical) I must be liberal. I responded that I didn’t take Spong seriously and that I wasn’t liberal in the slightest (because I’m not).
The interesting point was his response – “I just chose the guy I knew wasn’t on my team!” This idea of “teams” in theology (indeed, in the Christian faith in general) is, it seems to me, profoundly unhelpful. Not only does it cast all discussions in adversarial fashion (with its ideas of winning and of “me versus you”) but it also reduces all difference to a binary axis – “if you don’t agree with me then you must agree with this other person who also disagrees with me”. Actually, of course, this is totally wrong. Any point can have many different opinions, and many different justifications for those opinions. Disagreement with one approach doesn’t imply agreement with any particular other approach.
Better, it seems to me, to see debate as a unifying process where possible – as a helpful rather than a destructive force. The objective is to convey one’s ideas to the other person, to correct their errors and to allow your errors to be corrected, to clarify areas where both were unclear before. The point is for both to ‘win’, for both to gain greater understanding, for both to move forward. If the participants can only see each other in terms of right and wrong, instead of in terms of progress towards a common goal (albeit from different directions), debate becomes argument and argument becomes fighting.
pax et bonum
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I think you made too much of my word choice. I should have said, “A heretic”, since that what Spong is. I introduced him to the discussion to demonstrate that while I think I read many who do not hold my opinions, I don’t read some. Later, I used Spong’s agreement with my basic premise to demonstrate that my position was one not exclusive to evangelical Americans.
As far as I’m concerned, you’re on my team!
PS – I tried to send you an email to web-at-john.pettigrew (whatever is on the bottom of your home page) and it was bounced. Do you have an email address on your blog somewhere? Now that I think of it, the Mrs. mentioned that when I redesigned our blog I dropped off the email. I’ll go fix it now.
Hammertime () (URL)
6:05pm on 27 July 2006
It’s OK – it was something that piqued my interest as representative of what sometimes happens (to all of us).
As for email – just click the “email” link on any of my comments on this blog and it’ll come to me.
pax et bonum
[John] () (URL)
6:41pm on 27 July 2006