"In the Bowels of Christ..." the Possibility of Being Wrong

What if I'm wrong?

Lately on this blog I've been asking about how Christians can and should deal with fundamental disagreements between themselves. I mean here not the minor (though sometimes heated) personal disputes over, say, the color the church's next carpet should be. No, fundamental disputes happen when one or more sides of a debated issue raise the stakes, arguing that their point of view isn't merely correct to have but essential to have.

Evangelicals may disagree, for example, about whether the rapture of Christians will occur premillennially or not and yet remain in fellowship with one another. The disagreement's shift to fundamental status occurs when one side (of sufficient size/influence) asserts that affirming the premillennial rapture functions as a sine qua non of Christianity itself. Those who deny the premillennial rapture, that side asserts, are not only wrong but apostate and in danger of the fires of hell.

The fundamental disagreement within Methodism of late has to do with the degree of inclusion and tolerance the church ought to extend toward GLBT members. A range of beliefs of course exist, but lately this range has polarized into two predominant tances. One side (my own) holds that non-heterosexual identity and behavior is not automatically incompatible with a faithful Christian life. GLBT people should enjoy a status equal to that of heterosexual people in the Methodist church, having the opportunity along with heterosexuals to be ordained as ministers, married as committed couples, and accepted without reservation as members. The other side would say that "self-avowed, practicing homosexuals" have by their behavior chosen to live a life contrary to Biblical Christianity and are therefore inappropriate for ordained ministry, recognized marriages, and (for some) even local church membership.

This disagreement has taken on fundamental dimensions in that some of the key spokespeople (mainly but not exclusively from the conservative side) have suggested that one's stance on the GLBT issue indicates one's stance on the inspiration and authority of scripture. Those not able to affirm the clear (i.e., plain-sense literalist) prohibitions against same-sex erotic behavior in the Bible, goes this line of thinking, have no business calling themselves Methodists. Or, at least, those who do hold fast to scripture need to separate themselves from a denomination now fatally compromised by disbelief in scriptural authority. (From the liberal side, the less-frequent argument for schism would be that a tolerant church cannot accept vehemently intolerant members. The Methodist church would not, for instance, accept pastors who preached that races ought not to mix or that women must remain silent in the church. On the whole, though, the move to separate tends to come from the conservative forces).

I have not yet spent time on this blog elaborating how and why I hold the position I do; it does not, let me say, grow naturally from the fact that I myself am gay. Rather than elaborating that position, though, I want to tackle a different but related issue: what if I'm wrong?

Fundamental disagreements rarely allow for the possibility of the two sides' finding common ground or compromising. Indeed, as political theorist Chantal Mouffe has argued (in her The Democratic Paradox), if two sides of a disagreement can find ground enough to compromise, the disagreement is by definition not fundamental. At the "fundamental disagreement" stage, shifts in opinion manifest not as giving ground but as wholesale conversions or defections.

It is therefore odd for me to think of the other side as having merit or of finding ways to compromise. That side tends to see mine as absolutist in terms of accepting nothing short than ecclesiastical approval of GLBT behaviors. Mine sees the conservative side as absolutist in that it resists even statements that officially acknowledge a diversity of opinion (though, as they point out, such an acknowledgment would undermine the legitimacy of hard-line prohibitions on GLBT people).

I feel, however, that I have a duty as an intellectual and (more importantly) as a Christian to consider the fact that they might be right.

Two quotes ground my thinking in this area. The first comes from Oliver Cromwell (not necessarily a Protestant to imitate, I realize), who in 1650 found himself addressing the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, members of whom had been allies in the war against King Charles I. At this point the Assembly had declared Charles II to be Charles I's son, essentially aligning against Cromwell's cause. "I beseech you," he pleaded, "in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken."

Of course, Cromwell meant for the other side (the Church of Scotland) to think it possible that they may be mistaken. I find the statement more powerful, though, when I apply it to myself and to my convictions. I first heard this quote, in fact, at a conference of, by, and for pro-GLBT inclusion Christians. A theology professor from a southern Methodist university (not the Southern Methodist University, though) held a workshop about the theology and ethics of our struggle.

"It's vital," he told us (and I'm paraphrasing from memory--perhaps this is what I think he should have said), "that we realize the magnitude of the transformation we're expecting from conservatives. We expect them to let go of beliefs they have held dear for some time. If we expect them to undergo a thorough process of soul-searching reflection, we must be willing to do the same. And that can't be done--we aren't really being soul-searching--unless we open ourselves the possibility that we in fact are the ones in the wrong here."

I have tried to take that counsel to heart, recalling it at moments of greatest pride or greatest desperation: What if I am mistaken?

More tomorrow,

JF