Forum Thread
Disagreeing Christianly: Unity, Humility and Prophecy

Graham, thanks for your article. I understand (and agree with) the points you raise, they are enormously important and take a lot of maturity to live according to. But, you deal mainly with what we say and how we say it. I would be most interested in what you, and others, think Christian actions look like in relationships which are conflicted - especially ones in which a group with perceived / actual hegemony deeply offends another. In such a situation, words alone can leave the offended group feeling betrayed and humiliated and may lead, in part, to something akin to the ghastly hostility that is spreading throughout the Anglican communion between those who truly love the Lord Jesus and the Scriptures.

Forgive me if I have left a hole in your fence.

'There once was a little boy who had a bad temper. His Father gave him a bag of nails and told him that every time he lost his temper, he must hammer a nail into the back of the fence.

The first day the boy had driven 37 nails into the fence. Over the next few weeks, as he learned to control his anger, the number of nails hammered daily gradually dwindled down.

He discovered it was easier to hold his temper than to drive those nails into the fence....

Finally the day came when the boy didn't lose his temper at all. He told his father about it and the father suggested that the boy now pull out one nail for each day that he was able to hold his temper. The day passed and the young boy was finally able to tell his father that all the nails were gone..

The father took his son by the hand and led him to the fence. He said, "You have done well, my son, but look at the holes in the fence.

The fence will never be the same. When you say things in anger, they leave a scar just like this one. You can put a knife in a man and draw it out. It won't matter how many times you say I'm sorry, the wound is still there."

Forgive me if I have left a hole in your Fence.'

Thank you, Graham  -  it really does matter how we do things.....but we must not let false teaching prosper because we are being so gentle and kind that we dare not confront it.....and that might mean refusing communion with certain people because of what they teach or practise.

I am afraid that the CofE has got into its current mess because it has swept disagreement under the carpet for years and decades.....issues have just beein avoided....nothing to do with doing things in a Christian way...just cowardice and apathy, I think.

While it is very important that we do it in the right way, it is crucial that we do disagree and sometimes separate from people when false teaching infects the church.....I very much doubt St Paul would have been having an "indaba" with Schori, Bruno and Chane 5 years after their actions confirmed their rejection of biblical authority or real fellowship in the Communion....not when they are completely unrepentant and have a clear strategy of keeping everyone talking until apathy once again allows them to do whatever they want but stay in the club which gives them a global reach despite being small . They are doing very well.....they have got agreement and disagreement totally off the Lambeth agenda. I wonder why......

Thanks for your point about Scripture, Fidelis. That is why the majority of my newsletter is based on the words of Jesus and of Paul. It is also encouraging that each day of the Lambeth Conference begins with the study of the Scriptures in small groups.

A timely article at Lambeth time;  if I could add a suggested extra dot point.

* What does Scripture tell us about this?

My prayer is that those attending Lambeth put the Word front and centre in all their deliberations.  This will require real humility and repentance.

I am confident this is exactly what happened at GAFCON.

I agree with Graham’s bullet points on Disagreeing Christianly.

I hope it is not straying too far from the theme of this thread to ask a related question: how can various groups and individuals who consider themselves to be Christians and who believe that Christianity is in some sense true disagree effectively? Or, to put it more precisely, how can such groups and individuals explore frankly and earnestly and carefully the extent to which they agree and the extent to which they disagree on disputed points?

And just to say again: it is clear from the debates on Fulcrum that the importance of these disputed points cannot be exaggerated. ‘We’ disagree strongly about who God is, what he is like, what he has said, is saying and will say, what he has done is doing and will do, and about what human beings need saving from, if they need saving at all, and how Jesus Christ can save them and how that salvation can become theirs.

In these debates we are looking for the strongest arguments for all points of view. As I have said before, such debate is perilous. If we enter it seriously it forces us all to face views we disagree with at their best and exposes our own convictions to the strongest possible challenges. Our convictions may survive those challenges, or we may, in self-critical honesty, be forced to change them. We all know how traumatic and humbling that is.

As I have also said before on various threads, I think that debate on the internet is the best way. Even when such points have been explored and are being explored in books and journals it would be very helpful if the best arguments could be recapitulated on the web. This would allow everyone to challenge, support, give a view. For this to work it is essential that recognised scholars, theologians and pastors participate fully and it is also essential that all who want to participate seriously may do so.

I would like to see internet debate play a much more central and serious role in the process of becoming clearer about where we disagree and where we agree.

Phil Almond

Thank you Graham - your piece is timely and helpful. Kevin

We have just published my Fulcrum Newsletter for July 2008, 'Disagreeing Christianly: Unity, Humility and Prophecy'.

This is an edited version of an address given to the Diocese of Lichfield World Mission Conference at Swanwick, Derbyshire, on 8 July 2000 and is pre-published from the Church of England Newspaper, 18 July 2008.

Looking forward to some Christian agreements and disagreements concerning it...