made about 9/11. Barbara Walters quickly told her audience that what they had just seen should not have happened. As she said, people should be able to discuss their differences without shouting and using profanity, and they certainly should not walk away rather than defend their positions.Today a similar thing happened when NPR fired one of their senior correspondents, Juan Williams
, because of statements he made on O'Reilly's program, The O'Reilly Factor. This action of NPR was especially interesting because NPR is a very liberal organization, and Williams is certainly left of center on many of his views. However, because he made a statement with which the management of NPR disagreed he was terminated. I always assumed that since NPR receives much of their money from the Federal government that it would welcome a wide variety of opinions and provide opportunities for those opinions to be discussed. Obviously, I was wrong.We are nearing the end of perhaps the nastiest campaigns I have ever witnessed, and it can't end too soon for me. At least in our part of the country there is little discussion about policies or solutions to the problems facing the country. We are bombarded with some of the meanest attack ads I can ever remember seeing. Candidates from both political parties seem to have decided that we won't talk about our differences; we'll just attack each other and see who ends up with the least amount of mud covering them on election day.
These political examples wouldn't really have any reason to be in a blog about bivocational ministry except that we see the same thing happening in many of our churches and denominations. In too many churches there is little discussion about the different views people may have. Instead we go to the parking lots and try to find supporters for our position. If we can round up enough supporters and get loud enough to drown out the opposition we can win. We don't have to debate the merits of our positions; we only have to threaten our opponents. "If this change goes through we'll leave the church!" "If this gets approved you won't see any more money in the offering plate from our family." "Pastor, if you oppose me on this I'll see that you aren't here much longer!" And the threats go on....
The same thing is happening in denominational life. The denomination in which I serve has seen a number of churches vote to leave over one issue or another. In most cases the churches are uninformed when they make their decision, but that doesn't matter. Someone from the church read an article on the Internet so it must be true. I was once asked to meet with a congregation to discuss a particular issue that was causing them to vote on leaving our denomination. The person who was leading the fight to leave presented one half-truth after another, and some of his statements were just completely wrong. When I asked him for his sources he could only point to some sites on the Internet that he had found. Despite my giving the church the facts about the issue, they still voted to leave. I've often said that too many Christians read the headlines without reading the story or checking the facts.
Somehow, we have to learn how to discuss our differences without attacking those with whom we disagree. If you're right, getting loud or nasty won't make you any more right, and the same thing holds true if you're wrong about an issue. Maybe this country could turn things around if our leaders would actually spend some time discussing their differences, trying to understand the viewpoints of those who disagree with them, and then committing to working together for the benefit of the nation and not their political allies. And...maybe the church could once again start acting like the church if it would stop fighting with one another, discuss their differences, find places where they can work together, and become more committed to advancing the Kingdom of God than to advancing their own agendas.
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