Barnabas File

Our society provides numerous examples of people not listening to and respecting each other.   We let prejudices and preconceived ideas get in the way of respectful discourse.   Unfortunately, we often find the same practice in the church. When we consider the change process, the second step is “honor the other.”  Honest differences of opinion must not only be respected but honored.  We all have our points of view.  As we talk and reason with one another, uniformity is not the goal.  Writer Walter Lippman was reported to have said, "When everyone thinks alike, no one thinks very much."  The challenge is to present one’s opinion in such a way that we do not cut off effective dialogue and discussion.  We want to generate light rather than heat. A mistake often made in the process of change is to jump to conclusions and to try to resolve a contested issue without adequate discourse.  There are ways to avoid this....

How believers talk about the faith to unbelievers, those of faith who have differing interpretations of the faith, or those estranged from the faith has always been a challenge for the Christians.   Does one pursue persuasion and reason or attack and ridicule? Unfortunately, the aggressive approach seems to win out more often in contemporary society.   Apologetics (defense of the faith) very easily becomes polemics (disputation about the faith) in the marketplace of ideas. Much of this is motivated by fear.   We fear that which is different from ourselves.   We fear that which calls into question our established habits and norms.   We also may be afraid that we will be proven wrong or made to look foolish. We see this when a “prayer breakfast” becomes an occasion to attack those who are different from ourselves.   A speaker finds it is much easier to stand on a platform and pontificate than to acknowledge the “other” as a real person who ...

Earlier this week, I visited with a friend who has publicly declared that he is no longer a part of his Southern Baptist-related state convention.   After many disappointing experiences, he has come to see that the denomination is no longer relevant in a world with significant spiritual and physical needs.   It has forsaken the sacred trust given to it by devoted Christians over the years. My friend is going through period of grief and a sense of loss.  He will always be a Baptist in his heart but he feels estranged from the faith tradition that literally gave him birth.  His experience certainly reflects my own.  Twenty years ago I was struggling with my own role within a denomination that had invested much in me and which I had attempted to serve and support for all of my life as a minster.  I had been faithful to that faith community but found it going in a direction I perceived as destructive and irrelevant. During that time I shared my con...

Steve Inskeep interviewed Professor Shankar Vedantam on NPR this morning on the topic of compromise.  Studies show that Americans have ambivalent feelings about compromise in politics.  They vote for people who say they won’t compromise their values, but they are disappointed when those they elect fail to compromise in order to pass legislation.  If one reads the Constitution of the United States it will become readily apparent that compromise runs throughout the document.  We have survived as a nation by practicing give and take in governance. No politician runs on a platform of compromise but, once elected, he or she soon finds out that negotiation is necessary in order to make any impact as a legislator.  Perhaps I should say that this has been the name of the game, but both parties seem to have settled into ideological trench warfare on many issues.  As a result, movement is often lacking in the legislative process. Compromise simply recogniz...