fighting for peace – reflections on conflict and belonging

Lo, under the gentle Vine, O Christ,
The whole church plays in peace.
– Notker, the Monk from St. Gall

I had the incredible privilege last month of overhearing a conversation between Pádraig Ó Tuama and Peter Rollins about peacemaking – not just once, but twice, thanks to this glorious technology known as a podcast.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, Peter Rollins and his housemate Elliot Morgan are co-hosting a podcast called The Fundamentalists, and I binge-listened (is that a thing?) to the first 13 episodes in approximately two weeks (some of them twice).

The first time I heard Episode 12: The Alien from Inner Space, I was walking home from work thinking, “This is so good!  I wish I could take notes!”  But typing notes on your phone while walking through a park is not only slow going but also probably unwise.  So I put aside some time to listen to it again the next day (this time taking notes), and I’ve since spent a good deal of time mulling these things over.

According to Peter Rollins, there are four basic ways that people tend to cope with their differences:

• consummation – or forced conformity (“I’m right, you’re wrong – you have to stop being different and be like me to belong”)
• rejection – getting rid of the other by expelling them from community (“I’m right, you’re wrong; you don’t belong”)
• avoidance – refusing to talk about it (“I’m right, you’re wrong, but if we don’t talk about it, you can still belong (sort of)”)
• and acceptance – understanding that beneath all our differences, we are all the same (“we’re both right; let’s have tea and biscuits,” as Pete so eloquently put it)

When sketched out so plainly, it seems evident to me that the fourth way is certainly the most healthy way of approaching differences, but sadly, it is all too often the case within church communities that we choose one of the other three approaches.

If we truly want peace, we’re going to need to learn how to fight the right way.

“True conflict can only happen in the space of actual understanding.” (I think it was Pádraig Ó Tuama who said this.)

But the problem is that sometimes our conflicts aren’t actually based on truth.

“Doing conflict in the context of human encounter means that we have serious and good and fruitful argument,” Pádraig Ó Tuama said, going on to explain that the version of conflict that involves slamming doors, shouting at each other, and “repeating predictable scripts” will get us nowhere.  “It takes courage to say to each other, ‘We disagree, or I think we do’, or ‘This is what I think you’re thinking’ – which gives room for the other to respond and say, ‘No, you’re wrong; you’re disagreeing with a version of me that you’ve made up in order to disagree with me.'”

I’ve written before about the importance of leaning in to healthy conflict, but when your starting point is arguing with a version of someone that you’ve made up in your head by making assumptions and judging them, it’s already not going to go well.  Just as we have imagined the situation or the person at the heart of the conflict to be other than they actually are, imagination is also required to move into the kind of true and honest conflict that can lead to peace and reconciliation.  We need to begin by imagining that a positive relationship is possible on the far side of the conflict, and then seek to understand the truth of the other person’s perspective as objectively as possible.

Within many Christian circles, there can be a tendency to define and identify people by what they think, which can easily lead to one of those three less helpful ways of coping with differences – but as Peter Rollins and Pádraig Ó Tuama rightly point out, often what is at the heart of those behaviours is a fear that if we really take the time to understand the point of view of someone we see as being “other” than us, we will lose ourselves, because just as we try to categorize the other by what we perceive they think, we also identify who we are by what we think – and the possibility that we are wrong isn’t something we want to face when we have tied our identity so strongly to it. 

Too often we decide that someone does or does not “belong” based on what we perceive their thoughts to be – but we are more than what we think, and just as I would want someone on the opposing side of a conflict to see me as more than what they assume are the sum of my thoughts, so I need to learn to see others that way as well.  It is not without risk, but if we truly want to be more gracious, compassionate, kind, and loving to those on the other side of a divide of any kind, we need to find a way to create an atmosphere of acceptance in which we can lower our defenses enough to have actual conversations.

There’s a fascinating story in Matthew 15 about a Canaanite woman who came to Jesus seeking healing for her daughter.  With what to my knowledge cannot be understood as anything other than a derogatory racial slur, Jesus told her no – convinced that He was only meant to heal and deliver the children of Israel; this woman did not, in His frame of reference, belong.  But she stood up to Him, using His own derogatory metaphor to explain that she didn’t see it that way.  And He changed His mind, and healed her daughter.

If Jesus Himself could admit that He was wrong about something without fear of losing His identity, couldn’t we do the same?  And if a woman so convinced she was right could stand up to the King of Kings and argue her position, couldn’t we do the same with each other?

I’m not saying that there aren’t truths that matter – there are – but over the course of time, the Church has held views that it has since changed its mind about: slavery, for instance – and (at least in some places), patriarchy.  Surely we cannot be so vain as to think that we have it all figured out, and that everything we think is true.  There is nothing to fear in healthy debate.  And unity is not the same thing as uniformity.  (One of the things I love most about Trinity Grace is that in spite of the fact that the conversations are sometimes difficult, this church makes it clear that they are committed to accepting people where they are and leaning into conversations about the things that really matter.  They also celebrate diversity, which seems to me to line right up with the idea that the Canaanite woman brought to light for Jesus – that the kingdom of God is for more than just one group of people; it’s for everyone who chooses to embrace it.)

So what if we were to stop defining each other as “in” or “out” based on what we think others think, but rather started leaning into conversations with the courage to say to each other, “We disagree, or I think we do” – and listening to replies with open hearts?  What if our leaders, rather than trying to tell people what to think, instead began telling people what they think (and why), and invited conversation about it?

I don’t know – maybe that’s a bit like what turning swords into ploughshares looks like.  All I know is that I know I haven’t got it all figured out yet, but I sure do learn a lot when I take the time to truly listen to the beautifully diverse voices of my brothers and sisters, some of whom have a lot to teach me – even when we don’t agree about everything.

photo credit: Danielle MacInnes on Unsplash