For and Against – on Identity and Conflict
Last Friday I got up early before work and wrote a response to Piper’s suggestion that Christianity has “a masculine feel.”
I worked on it during breakfast and while I sipped my first cup of coffee, but when it came time to hit “Post” I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Instead I shared this interview about the power of Story.
The same thing happened a few days before that, this time while I was drafting my thoughts on the controversy around Mars Hill, Driscoll’s marriage book, and some of his recent interviews. Again, I got part way through preparing my post and just stopped, unable to continue. Eventually I ended up posting something different that day as well.
Part of my hesitation is simply exhaustion. It is incredibly emotionally draining to sustain the continual outrage that sometimes feels like the only proper response to the damaging things I see being done in the name of the faith.
But it’s more than that; I’m tired in a different way, tired of defining myself by what I’m against.
There is a place for that I think, for a time. As I started to rethink the assumptions I had about of my faith – to question the theology, reconsider the social implications, reimagine what it might mean to take God and his Word seriously – it was unavoidable and perhaps even necessary that at the beginning of that journey I would find my identity in what I was against.
For a time that may be a necessary part of our stories, we have no alternative narrative yet, only the knowledge of what we have chosen to reject.
The danger is that it’s easy to get stuck there. It’s easy to go through life defining ourselves by what, or who, we are not.
I know it’s easy for me.
But I also know it isn’t healthy, not forever.
Eventually we must break away from the pull of finding our identity in conflict and opposition, and be for something.
There will be things that need to be spoken out against from time to time, but perhaps it is more important, and more effective, if we spend our energy creating something beautiful, powerful, and transformative.
We must start to tell another story, to articulate an alternative narrative that is shaped by what it affirms, what it creates, more than what it denies or destroys.
[I expanded this post this afternoon for Deeper Story - you can find it here]
I think you have an excellent point here. Although I do enjoy reading counterpoints to Piper and Driscoll (and some are necessary), often these serve more to make me feel angry or bitter and can lead to stagnation in my thinking — as you write defined by what I find offensive rather than what I find beautiful and true. This doesn’t leave much room for real growth.
I love this idea of articulating another story. Tomorrow I’m writing about another section of Christian Smith’s The Bible Made Impossible, and he cites to N.T. Wright’s argument that it’s the church’s job to live out and tell redemptive stories. This is why Jesus used so many parables. Although I would much rather write an analytical point-by-point rebuttal to the Driscolls and the Pipers, there’s a reason you grew weary of that – we’re meant to do something more effective…
So agree. This is why I so love the message of Synergy, articulated by Carolyn Custis James so well in her book Half the Church. It’s about who and how God wants us to be. A much better story.
I like to think that I start many conversations with the intention of learning and being stretched by another and simply enjoying the company of them – most of the time that is truly my intent. Although I’ve found when I am not in a healthy space in life often I start a conversation with the point leaving it with the feeling of ‘at least I’m not like…’ [which ironically, I am then more like what I oppose than I'd ever admit] or at worst ‘converting’ someone to my position – giving me that ultimate ego boost.
The reality has always crashed down on me that it is easier to know what I’m against, than to actually have to stand up and know what I am for. For at that moment, it’s not the other that is on the line – but myself.
Great post Mason!
I love this! I so rarely follow any of the “famous” pastors because I just don’t want to be caught up in and feel responsible for all the misguided ideas out there, or the ideas that I personally disagree with, but have no real bearing on the Kingdom. I want to work on the story I have right here in front of me with my students and our youth kids. I want to work on the story of the church I attend. That’s how I want to work on the story of the Church. Thank you for affirming what I have been feeling.
Reminds me of the great Anne Lamott quote: “You can be sure you’ve made God in your own image when he hates all the same people you do.”
Thanks for this. Wholehearted agreement. I want to seek common ground and be known by the things I love.
Plus, Sally Lloyd-Jones is way more awesome than the latest celebrity pastor controversy. Every time.
Thanks for this. You’re absolutely right about the need to articulate what we are for, rather than just what we oppose: “I have a dream,” and all that. I think I knew this once but have been in danger of forgetting, so this was a timely, and wise, reminder.
Amen… It’s easy to be against things, but hard to bring an alternative sometimes…We have to be light where there’s darkness, and that’s a lot more than just confronting injustice. But that step is needed too sometimes though… Sometimes protest, deconstruction and re-construction isn’t done by the same person, and it can be a slow process to build up something new…
amen. less outrage. more action. great post.
Yeah, I also really appreciated this. A friend emailed me last week asking how I ended up staying in the church while other cynical post-Bible college friends walked away. That’s where she’s at now, trying to figure out which direction she’s going. She asked for advice. One thing I said is that I really recommend trying define your faith not by everything your bothered by and campaigning against, but what you are FOR. What you do believe in.
Thank you all so much for your feedback! I’m quite encouraged to see that this struck such a cord with so many of you. I hope we can continue this conversation over the next few days as we work out what it means to tell a different sort of story.
Grace and peace.
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