Disagreeing and Staying Friends
LETTER BY GRACE POUCH
Laying down your life.
Laying down your opinions.
Which is harder?
How foolish to think we could do the first thing if we won’t even do the second.
One of the daily crosses of Christian discipleship is learning to hold perspectives loosely, even letting them die, if necessary, so that we’ll be won over by God’s truth. It’s a process. Like the man whose eyes Jesus healed in two stages, we move from not seeing at all, to blurry vision, to clearer and truer spiritual sight. We still get stuff wrong, even when we’re trying so hard to lay down our views and adopt the views of Jesus.
That’s why disciples sometimes disagree.
The tricky thing — in friendship, in Christian fellowship, in ministry — is discerning when to agree to disagree and when to push for a meeting of the minds.
I struggle with this.
For example, as I was editing this week’s Life with God podcast episode, I heard one of our guests advocate referring to God as “The Divine” as a way to bypass the barriers some people have with other names for God. This is an issue I feel pretty strongly about.
Here’s my perspective: Calling God “The Divine” isn’t inaccurate, but it’s about as relatable as saying “The Force” or “The Universe.”
I don’t want to reduce God’s vastness or transcendence with limited language. I understand that some words carry bad connotations. And I understand why some folks think “God” or “Father” have accumulated too much cultural baggage.
But the Trinity isn’t a buffet from which you choose your preferred Person. It is God’s choice to use parent-child language to explain the mysterious communion of the Three.
These words might be complicated for some people, but this isn’t anything new. People in the time of Jesus had messy relationships. They had experiences that shaded how they heard God-language. Even so, Jesus uses Father-Son language along with parables that clear away baggage and redeem the imagery.
While I’m a big fan of embracing the variety of images and names God offers us, you won’t find me swapping Father, Son, and Spirit for “The Divine” or capital‑L “Love”— not as a wholesale substitution, anyway.
So, as I edited the podcast, my first instinct was to cut the section. (We do that in the production phase for various reasons). But I left it in, because I affirm this key message from the podcast conversation:
We can disagree and still be friends, still be fellow disciples.
Disagreeing can even be productive. It can help us bring our perspectives under review. And we get to participate with Jesus in his ministry of reshaping warped ideas — our own, and those we care about.
Ill-formed perspectives are a kind of bondage. As Dallas Willard says, “Being mistaken about life and about the things of God and the human soul is a deadly serious matter.” But even when the stakes are high and we can’t reach agreement, we can preserve the bonds of love.
That’s where picturing God as a Dad comes back into play. We’re children of one Father. We don’t get to kick our brothers and sisters out of the family.
The practice of accepting one another is just as important as the concept behind it. The selections in “Let’s Dive In” below relate to navigating conflicts, bearing with one another in disagreement, and discerning when and how to hash out our theology.
May our sight grow clearer as we wrestle together toward the truth.
Grace Pouch
Content Manager
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LET’S DIVE IN...
CURATED BY GRACE POUCH
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1.
Friends and podcast co-hosts, Nick Page and Joe Davis, say that they’ve remained friends despite many disagreements. On this week’s episode of Life with God they share with Nathan how wrestling through theological issues has strengthened their friendship and their lives with God.
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2.
“No one can live without truth,” writes Dallas Willard. “Though we may disagree about which particular things are true or false, allegiance to truth — whatever the truth may be — permits us to stand alongside every person as honest fellow inquirers.”
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3.
What should we do when conflicts stir up unloving feelings? Amy Carmichael writes, “Tenderness in judgment, the habit of thinking the best of one another, unwillingness to believe evil… all this and much more is included in that wonderful word love.”
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4.
The Amy Carmichael excerpt shared above comes from a new Renovaré resource called In which contains classic readings on experiencing authentic community. In case you missed the announcement last week, this booklet is available as a free download here (and physical copies are available for purchase).
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5.
John Wesley did his fair share of theological disagreeing, but in this short excerpt on schism, he says disagreement should not lead to division or harsh judgment, “even if you are right.”
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6.
Kids have serious theological questions. And often their questions are also our questions. On her new podcast Curiously Kaitlyn, Kaitlyn Scheiss hosts leading theologians to discuss topics submitted by kids that tend to puzzle and divide Christians (like this one). As a parent, I’d say the show isn’t for kid listeners, although some children might be exceptions, but adult listeners will learn things that can inform conversations with children they love.
– Grace
WORTH QUOTING
Just because someone does not agree with everything you say does not mean that they are sinning.
– John Wesley
Christian Perfection
(source)
TO CONTEMPLATE
The Parable of the Mote and the Beam
Domenico Fetti c.1589–1624
(source)
TO PONDER
Dallas Willard writes, “However firm we may be in our convictions, we do not become overbearing, contemptuous, hostile or defensive. [Jesus] had no need of it, nor do we.”
Try this breath prayer the next time you’re tempted to use hostility, contempt, or other forms of defensiveness:
Inhale: Lord Jesus Christ,
Exhale: help me to be gentle.
Inhale: Lord Jesus Christ,
Exhale: free me of contempt.