:: In.a.Mirror.Dimly ::

I can still remember the moment when I realized that there are people who believe things that are quite different from my own views and who are not delusional idiots. It was kind of unsettling.

Our seventh grade teacher had divided our class into three camps in order to debate the 1996 presidential election. I think I was in the Bob Dole camp and my close friend was on the side of Ross Perot. He argued quite persuasively for Perot, while the girl I had a crush on argued in favor of Clinton and his pro-choice policies.

My head began to spin. How should I respond when someone dares to disagree with me? Didn’t they know that I was correct?

Know Where you Stand.

Yesterday I wrote about confronting our own insecurities and making sure we are standing on a firm foundation. For Christians this means that Jesus Christ himself is our one and only foundation. Everything we do and believe is built upon the person of Jesus.

We then begin to figure out what we believe in relation to him and evaluate its value based on whether it draws us closer or further from him—whether we are able to love God and one another better. I think it’s important to spend some time sorting through matters of Christian faith and practice in dialogue with fellow Christians and those who preceded us.

However, a sense of security about your beliefs does not necessarily need to lead to antagonism with others.

Seek to Understand

There is a false sense among some of us that certainty leads to combativeness and conflict. I can, in fact, be completely secure in my faith and beliefs about Jesus and still seek to understand other perspectives in redemptive conversations.

If we truly are secure in our beliefs, we actually have no reason to fight others. What do we personally stand to gain?

It is far more important to begin our interaction with other beliefs by seeking to understand them. How can we critique what we do not understand? I have seen this happen on both the right and the left, especially when we create broad characterizations of a group and stick those labels onto individuals who may well have more nuanced beliefs.

Conservative Christians are not necessarily judgmental or oppressive. Liberal Christians are not necessarily captive to relativism or anti-American. When we encounter beliefs different from our own, we need to move beyond caricatures created by those outside of complex groups.

Seek a Redemptive Outcome

We have nothing to gain by attacking someone with a different perspective and neither does that person. In fact, most of our fights and arguments are rooted in our pride. Most of the combative blog posts, tweets, and conversations that I witness on the right and left come from a desire to appear clever or smart.

Attacking or mocking another perspective is never a redemptive act. Attacks are usually acts of self-justification that bring no benefit to the body of Christ.

If we have taken the time to hear someone with another perspective, we have subjected ourselves to a conversation that may be unpleasant, but we have now gained two things. First of all, we can offer critique and counterpoints that will actually be relevant according to what that person actually believes. Secondly, we will earn the right to be heard since we listened first.

If we are secure in what we believe, we have not necessarily lost anything by listening to someone. And if we truly believe that person is somehow in danger based on his/her perspective, the most loving thing we can do is earn the right to be heard and to share our views in the most gentle manner possible.

Our goal in our conversations is the mutual building up of one another. We want healthier Christians who can seek God better. Seeking redemptive outcomes instead of publicly or personally blasting another perspective is not going soft. This is a choice between what is effective and what is not.

Attacks, whether public or private, do not work. They don’t build anyone up. They don’t illuminate anything. They just make us more prideful and angry, while further convincing those of an opposing viewpoint that they shouldn’t listen to us.

Redemptive conversations that seek the benefit of another person recognize the value of that person regardless of his/her perspective and put us in the best position to help someone take a positive step.

In addition, we just may find that someone with a different viewpoint has something to teach us. In fact, if we don’t believe that’s possible, then we have no business trying to engage in a conversation in the first place.