My Grandfather’s Column

Confrontation and Concord

In the Churches as in the secular world confrontation appears to be more highly esteemed than concord. Yet there are certainly signs that concord is still highly valued; as it should be, for concord means the uniting of heart with heart, the intention sincerely to agree together. Members of the Church of England, like other Christians throughout the world have different opinions on all sorts of matters, notably on how the Bible should be interpreted. This has in fact led to confrontation between those on the one hand who claim to hold that the Scriptures are literally the Word of God, dictated by Him and therefore always right and true; and on the other those who would claim that though God has spoken through the Scriptures and still does so, that cannot possibly imply that they are free of any kind of error.

There are two current issues about which swathes of the Church are all steamed up; the ministry of women, particularly the consecration of women as bishops and the acceptability of homosexuals, particularly in the ranks of the ordained ministry. On the first of these issues conservative theologians and Church leaders say that although the idea was never ruled out in the Bible, the fact is that Jesus only chose 12 men as his apostles. On the second issue, there are several passages of Scripture which plainly condemn some homosexual practices.

In both cases the counter argument is simply that there has been a vast cultural shift over the many centuries since the Scriptures were written; and many things that were once condemned are no longer so treated by anyone. Who for instance nowadays fights over whether or not women must wear hats in church? Furthermore the Bible tells us that the Holy Spirit will lead us into all truth – a very different thing from saying the Holy Spirit has already done that.

What concerns me, just as it concerns our Archbishop and many, many others, is that we should be able to disagree in love. Argument is good and necessary in order to get at the truth of any disputable claim to factual certainty. Absolute certainty is not obtainable about anything anyway. We ought to learn to tolerate anyone else’s outlook except intolerance.

The Good Friday agreement in Northern Ireland was a wonderful demonstration of the value of confronters becoming ready to listen to each other with a genuine longing for compromise and working together for the common good, for concord. We should never tire of listening to those with whom we disagree. In any confrontation the one party that is sure to be wrong is the one that is sure it is right.

–Peter Graham
e-mail peter.graham[at]bucklandnewton[dotcom]