I have a confession to make: I have an addiction. I am addicted to being right. If I feel like someone is saying that I’m wrong… I can get defensive in a hurry. I imagine I’m not completely alone in this struggle. In fact, a look at church history suggests that I am not alone in wanting to be right.
My need to be ‘right’ has sometimes caused me to say hurtful things. My need to be ‘right’ has sometimes left people around me feeling alienated. My need to be ‘right’ has often times left me completely ignorant of exploring all the different sides of an issue or debate. To sum up… my addiction to being ‘right’ has many times led me down a road of very wrong responses.
Sometimes I think of my life like a pendulum that is constantly swinging back and forth in reaction to my need to be right. If I find an idea to my liking… I immediately discredit the opinions of any people that are opposed to it, and often times, I take an even more conservative or liberal view of the issue… and the pendulum of my life swings further than I ever intended it to.
It’s happened in my life in various ways over my years in ministry: (These aren't all issues that I have gotten defensive over in any inappropriate way... these are only mentioned to illustrate how I tend to overcompensate in my opinions...)
• Pendulum swing 1: I read most of a book called ‘The Emerging Church’ and was fascinated by this postmodern culture that I read about. I wanted to embrace all things postmodern. Pendulum swing 2: Using some of the principles and ideas from ‘The Emerging Church’, my church started a postmodern service that ultimately wasn’t successful for various reasons. Realized that not all postmoderns look alike… and what works in California or the East Coast or wherever might not necessarily work in St. Louis. Pendulum swing 3: Grew concerned with some of the stories I’ve heard of ‘postmoderns’ wanted to leave the church and do faith in a more relational way… without accountability. Other things I’ve read and saw leave me less inclined to agree that all things in the emergent church are good.
• Pendulum swing 1: Grew up in a church that was very successful in training their people to share their faith. Church planting was never really part of the paradigm I grew up in. Pendulum swing 2: Went to school and learned a little about the success of church planting and in my first couple of years of ministry… personally saw how successful they can be in evangelism. Pendulum swing 3: Got hired at a church that is trying to mobilize towards a church plant and while I agree that this church plant needs to happen and while I will whole-heartedly support it when it does happen... I have come to this realization: I get much more excited about doing ministry inside an established local church than I ever will about doing ministry at a church plant.
• Pendulum swing 1: I liked ‘contemporary’ worship… so anybody that liked tradition worship must be narrow minded. Pendulum swing 2: I grew restless with the shallow, repetitive lyrics of the choruses from the 80’s and 90’s… and realized that the hymns were strong in heavy lyrics and theology.
Someday, I would like to be at a place where I am not so insecure in my opinions that I have to react so strongly to one that differs from it. I hope that I can eventually get to a place when I could respond with genuine openness to differing opinions without flying off the deep end, getting defensive, or saying hurtful things. Maybe someday I can get to a place where I can be ok with agreeing to disagree with someone… rather than trying to force them to see things my way. Someday, I would like to be able to live in the way that St. Augustine suggested when he said this:
“In Essentials, unity. In non-essentials, liberty. In all things, love.”
I am not there yet… but someday, perhaps…
6 comments:
Josh,
I completely relate to where you're coming from. While sometimes I find myself wanting to be right about important things, there are times when I catch myself (usully too late) wanting to be right about things that have absolutely no signifigance whatsoever. It can be extremely hard to stop yourself in the middle of a theological, political, moral, or any other kind of debate and say "you know what I never thought of it that way, maybe I'm wrong", but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. If I am wrong, I usually say that to myself long after the debate and after more thought. However, there are times where it is important to have the desire to be right and not backing down as long as it is for the right reason, which would not include simple pride issues. But on the same token, like you said we should avoid alienating people while striving to be right. Its a tough line to walk sometimes and you're not the only one that falls off occassionally.
Mr. Anthony,
I'm glad that you said this: "there are times where it is important to have the desire to be right and not backing down as long as it is for the right reason."
I certainly don't want to give the impression that we should back down from every issue...
And that leads me to another question: I threw out that quote from Augustine, which is pretty helpful... 'in essentials, unity... in non-essentials, liberty.' However, the question that's been running through my head since I posted this: How do we decide what is essential? How do we decide what's worth fighting for?
I mean, obviously, Christ crucified and resurrected is essential. And there are a handful of other things. But in the church, even within our little congregation in St. Peters, there's a whole host of differing opinions on theology and doctrine, what the nature of the church should be, what the work of the church should be, what ministries are most important, how church money should be spent, and on and on... And that's just OUR church. Imagine mixing 100 catholics, or 100 eastern orthodox, or 100 baptists with us Wesleyans...
And maybe there is no good answer: We even have different takes on the authority and infallibility of scriptures within the Christian church... so while I would say that most of my essentials are grounded within scripture... some Christian traditions would even disagree with where I got my essentials in the first place.
*Big Sigh* *Deep Breath*
*Nothing left to say... other than that my pendulum of life swung back and forth at least five times in just writing this comment.
I identify with this mindset too although somewhat differently. I mean, it's not something that effects how I think in general...but if I'm honest and think a bit, there are some specific things I like to be right about.
For instance, the right way to treat our children...what to say, how to discipline, you know...probably not essential but probably stemming from the fact that I spend the bulk of my time with these little people, I assume that makes me more of an expert than Jeff...but that also makes me loser in marital communication because it does alienate him if I don't support his differences in parenting style. I used to feel it meant we weren't on the same page if he didn't do things my way...now I see that our kids need Jeff to be dad and not mom.
Good post...know what you mean about swinging back and forth! My stomach gets queasy sometimes!
Josh,
You made me think of a quote, I'm not sure who said it but it has become like a mantra for me. It goes like this, "just because you believe something, doesn't make it true" I suppose the opposite is ture as well, "just because you don't believe something, doesn't make it untrue."
I think we all (okay I do at least) struggle with when to stand up and fight for what we believe in, and when to step back and listen.
Isn't the purpose of debate to swing others to your opinion. I can remember in college having to debate the issue of Capital Punishment. I was at the time very in favor of it, and did a lot of research on it. I had all the pros down and an arguement to squelch any contradition. Funning thing is, as I debated the points, I found that I swung my own opinion! I thought I was right, but after really digging into the subject and letting both sides, not just my opinions and data, but reall both sides sink in, I swung to the other side(the Dark side according to Anthouny ;))
My point is it's nice to be right and we all love to be right, but it's really more important to love people and keep an open mind about life.
That's just my opinion and of course I'm right. (just kidding)
Matt,
I've never called it the "Dark Side", but have agreed when you've called it that.
Anyway Josh, it is hard to determine what exactly is essential and it can be hard to reach an agreement on that issue as well. Its always tough when you consider how much some beliefs can affect all areas of life if you really apply that belief. The problem is that a lot of people say they believe certain things, but in reality they don't apply it across the board. I think sometimes, we want to say if you're not this then you're not a Christian or if you say this then you aren't a Christian, but in reality that is only our opinion and often times our opinion is less Christianlike than what that person was saying or doing. If this makes no sense then please disregard. I typed quickly while I was waiting for food. Anything written on an empty stomach should be taken lightly.
Yeah...well, I think you're all wrong.
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