Truth, Debate, Unity, and The Elephant Room

Joe Thorn has a well written piece today on his blog in reference to the above title.

Because theology is so critical to the life of God’s people, dialog and debate are very necessary components in the life of the church. Most of the debating that happens in the church today seems to be between solid Christian apologists, like James White or William Lane Craig, and those outside of the protestant faith. Good stuff. But it would be good for us to have more of it going on in-house. Debate is good among friends who disagree, and between men on totally different teams. Debate and dialog force us hold up our theology or practice up against another man’s with the aim of truth winning out. It’s not just a testing of our positions, practices, ideas and arguments, but a public testing of such things that benefits the audience.

Public discourse is hard, and we seem to prefer to talk about one another, rather than to one another. Perhaps it takes too much humility and courage to put yourself out there for debate. Or, maybe it’s just too much work. Either way, the church needs to do better at conversing with one another from different families and theologies.

This doesn’t mean we should come together to hold hands, striving for unity apart from truth. In fact, it requires that we ask hard questions, confront error, admit where we are, and where we disagree.

Read the rest and read some of his suggestions for making the event better.

One thing I completely agree with Joe on is our need to have more public face to face discussion/debates between different people from different tribes/camps.  Let's talking around each other and more talking to each other, in public.

Think of how much ground could have been covered if Rob Bell and one of his most prominent and public critics of "Love Wins" would have got in a room and talked for two hours and then had that broadcast on the web.  I know this happened a little bit in last year but everyone could benefit from it happening way more.

On a different note, Joe has written a very helpful little book called Note To Self.  If you don't have it you'll want to pick it up.