lunchbreak musings: seekers' solidarity

Before the internet

All this online pugilism between Christians of different stripes!  All these forum fencing-matches about free will and predestination and law and grace and evolution and intelligent design and miracles!  All these arguments that might never have arisen if the Good Lord had produced for us a clearer bible, one that really spelled things out!  A catechism, rather than a collection of stories, poems, genealogies, aphorisms...

Why are we so often angry at each other and so seldom irked at God?

Here's something to think about next time you see an online argument between a Christian who believes in miracles and one who believes that miracles belonged to the time of the apostles (ie a cessationist):

The cessationist has at some point prayed really, really hard for a miracle - and got diddly squat.  The cessationist is some guy whose cancer didn't go away, or whose daughter died, or whose wife left, you name it.  And instead of hating God, our cessationist friend has changed theological positions to make room for a God who didn't come through for him in any clear way.

Want to tell him to believe in miracles?  Good luck!  But don't rant hatefully at him - he may not be the dogmatist you think he is.

In every theological argument, you'll find at least two people who are trying so damned hard to be charitable towards God that they sometimes forget to be charitable towards each other.  But God is sturdy enough to take human anger on the chin.  Humans, on the other hand, break.

That person who believes in election?  The person who believes in free will?  Scrapping like hoods on some internet discussion board?  God could have spoken decisively on this issue, and God didn't.  Or maybe God did speak, through the Church of Rome - in which case, God should have done a whole lot more to preserve the unity of the church.  And don't tell me that the bible is clear on these issues.  There are very brainy and very holy people on both sides of every controversy.

By all means adopt the atheist solution to the problem and deny that God exists.  But if you're averse to that move, let's not despise each other over issues on which God has not spoken loudly enough.  We're in the same boat.

One thing binds us all together: we live in a more or less silent universe.  Let's admit it!  It's probably more silent than religious people say it is, and less silent than atheists say it is: but it is a universe in which someone can cry out to an invisible God and not receive any reply.  It's a universe in which someone else always seems to be experiencing the miracles, and in which cries of 'It's a miracle!' sometimes seem obscene in the face of so many unanswered prayers.  As Sheri put it recently on her blog, 'Do you really believe the Sudanese don't pray?' 

In the face of this divine silence, we can never be anything more than co-seekers, and this should give us solidarity.

This seekers' solidarity should be the basis of every discussion about doctrine.  Moreover, it should be the basis of our communion with each other.  We should always be willing to at least imagine what might crouch behind the arras of a person's theological position, the stories behind the convictions.  We should declare at the beginning of each exchange: We are on the same side.  Let's end this exchange having gained an even greater sense of solidarity, irrespective of whether we move closer to an actual agreement.  It's worth a try, isn't it?

Maybe if we achieved real solidarity in the face of God's silence, we'd discover that the possiblity of creating solidarity is why God opted to refuse to arbitrate on so many issues in the first place. 

Maybe God's silence is a necessary condition of human solidarity.  Maybe the compassion we might feel towards our fellow seekers is the thing that we, as seekers, are supposed to find.