Dialogue V Debate
I guess its a post modernity issue again as they seem to be looking to engage and communicate in a way that we are not perhaps used to.
Someone buzzed me an e mail, and said that people tend to get very positional and defensive in their replies to him when he is looking to debate something.
I pointed out that the reason for this might be - that to engage in debate - we already have a position and are both offensive and defensive. So i might like to talk about something with you in a modern way - here is my position on something until you defend your point so well that my position changes - or it becomes re enforced.
Dialogue however is - we come with two differeing opinions, with a desire to learn from the other and perhaps even an openness to walk away with a different worldview or understanding on something - perhaps a point arrived at with a sharing of those two views.
I know this great theologian who is very approachable, he is also aware that theology on one level is still unfolding for us. When you ask 'what do you think about this or that - he says 'what do yuo think?'. So many of us cant wait to give our polished view on something - eager to give someone our developed view point, even if we are right, it is just a layering of our opinion onto another - its does not enable them to seek search learn for themselves.
Gosh - i meet so many people who believes stuff because theyw ere told it was truth. The trouble is, they beleive that until the next persons convincing defence of a position.
I wonder how we coudl communicate differently.
Post modernism ask why we do something a certain way......... modernism replies 'because you should'............. and rather wonderully that just doesnt work any more. Much of emerging church developments come from the post modern ability to question something - looking for what still stands the test of time substance and reality.
5 Comments:
Gaz,
First, just to let you know that many here in the states are lifting all of London (and the UK) in prayer. My heart goes out to all of you.
Good post on Dialogue vs Debate.
Debate, at one level, can be good. C.S. Lewis used it well. Others have too. Unfortunately, I've seen the foundation of debate turned into what I call hyper-criticism, which viciously attacks and is extremely poisonous.
I like dialogue because it requires relationship. In the realm of Christ, I believe it is even more important becausing we are talking about dialogue with our fellow brothers and sisters.
Dialogue says "Let's find some common ground here and start building a bridge of understanding. Let's start a book of rememberance, of translation, a dictionary that will help us understand each other."
I say this because I can see that if folks who are "emergent" rush in with all their revelations of what's emerging without first building that bridge, then some who are still in the old camp are going to get bashed, thrashed and trashed. They will limp away bleeding; there will be division and misunderstanding and the forerunners will find that they just may have shot an allie.
Example:
This is a story my senior pastor told me;
When he was an associate pastor, he and his senior pastor (along with a few others) went over to the UK to hear Martin Scott speak. This was back in the mid-90's, when revival was just starting to breakout. They came back fired-up and hungry for revival after listening to Martin. They were all "gung-ho" when they came back to their church and started gearing for revival.
BUT, they didn't take time to build a bridge, to build that dialogue to help those still in "the old camp" to understand. The result? They lost quite a few folks. The moral? There needs to be unity, which requires relationship, which requires communication. Dialogue.
That's not to say we run around trying to make sure that everyone is "warm & fuzzy". There will be some who will simply resist any change for a variety of reasons. To those we need to find a loving but firm way of saying "We love you and bless you, but it's apparent your not part of our DNA. There's a real good church down the street that you will fit nicely into." Maybe that sounds too harsh . . . i don't know. I just know that there comes a time when you can't waste energy on those that just don't want to move or grow. But then my heart of mercy doesn't want one brother or sister to miss out, either.
Kind of a tough path to walk.
But, dialogue is good. But walking this out is going to take time and the dreaded "P" word . . . Patience.
(ooch, ouch!)
So, anyone up for creating a syllabus/dictionary/thesaurus/book of rememberance?
4:55 pm
Cheers USA for the support.
Had a scheduled prayer meeting at the 24/7 boiler room in london the evening after the bombings. wasnt trying to be clever by going, but it was best summed up when we drove past the road with the blown up bus in it to get to the meeting down the road..... time stood still in the street....but elsewhere life carried on regardless.
Im not sure about the victriolic approach we have to stuff - I like our resilliance - but we have unhealthy pride too. Guys here used to where t shirts with 'smash argentina' when the falklands war was on. Argentina lost............ but as a result experience widespread revival....we got to keep out pride. So who won?
As the old song goes rule britannia, britannia rules the waves - britain never never never shall be slaves. Amen to that... as long as we are not saying..britain never never never will be like jesus...broke and poured out at the feet of the nations.
But bless you america for standing with us. Lets build kingdom together.
Some have observed we here have a gift of fathering nations - america a gift of leading them. We had better get it right.
9:03 pm
sorry - you cant edit comments, what i meant was - we kept our pride, it became more prideful, the church continues to die. Its strange what we consider 'winning' to be at times which is why we need to know the times and the seasons. The poor old muslims are getting a right hammering here, many students in my town have gone home - the town mosgue has had lots of death threats and has police posted outside. We had prayed outside the mosque just the week before - asking got to visit them in dreams.In london - we spent the evening mostly praying for muslims - we are a terribly vengeful nation, like a dog with a pain inside biting at its own flesh to reach it.
One of the intercessors was a teacher in a school backing onto the bus bomb - 90% of the kids are muslim - as traumatised as anyone else. Now they are probably in more fear than we are.
Cant believe they were all home grown brits - a teacher even amongst them. These are new days for the world - lets make our own mark upon them.
America and Uk do so well in war together - a real alliance - let us unite in the war in the hidden places and the in the commission with as much zeal. amen
9:23 pm
Diane said
" . . .and that is where this intercessor teacher can understand . . ."
And in regards to things getting disolving into debate and then into physical/emotional/spiritual violence, maybe that's where intercession comes in.
If their is anyone who can diffuse that, it's the Holy Spirit. This is to say that maybe there needs to be a call issued to the intercessors and ask
"Please pray for wholesome dialogue" or something like that. In the emergent scene I believe this is a must when dealing with those who are checking the whole thing out.
11:48 pm
Here's a further "blurb" I found while surfing. I had heard of Deborah Tannen before, via Dick Staub's website. I did a litte searching, and found this on the web. Very relevent to this blog thread.
An Excerpt from The Argument Culture: Stopping America's War of Words by Deborah Tannen
Deborah Tannen examines the prevalent tendency in Western culture to approach any and all interactions as if we were in a war. In this excerpt, she outlines the key characteristics of this barrier to hospitality.
"The argument culture urges us to approach the world — and the people in it — in an adversarial frame of mind. It rests on the assumption that opposition is the best way to get anything done. The best way to discuss an idea is to set up a debate; the best way to cover news is to find spokespeople who express the most extreme, polarized views and present them as 'both sides'; the best way to settle disputes is litigation that pits one party against the other; the best way to begin an essay is to attack someone; and the best way to show you're really thinking is to criticize."
4:31 pm
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