How to Disagree in an Agreeable Way
Pastors Tullian Tchividjian and Kevin DeYoung have been engaged in a passionate and gracious series of blog posts about the vital issue of growth in grace. For example, here’s Kevin’s latest post: Holiness Is Indicative and Imperative. And here’s Tullian’s latest post on this issue: An Open Letter to Mr. Grace-Loving Antinomian.
In the coming days, I plan to post my thoughts on growth in grace. However, today I want to focus on how Kevin and Tullian have related to one another…and contrast that with how some people, Christian bloggers in particular, at times relate to other bloggers.
See and Say the Strengths in Others
I read some blog posts, by Christians no less, where the blogger slices and dices another blogger mercilessly. They fail to indicate any strengths in the blogger they are criticizing. They act as if they are 100% right and the other blogger is 100% wrong. And they do it all in the supposed name of “speaking the truth in love.”
On the other hand, Tullian and Kevin showed great respect for one another. They saw and stated numerous places where they strengths in each other’s arguments. In doing so, they remind me of my friend David Powlison. In the book Psychology and Christianity: Five Views, I marvel at how David always starts with affirmation. He hunts to find and focus on areas of strengths even in views that overall he may disagree with.
Express Disagreement Respectfully and Fairly
You never heard Tullian or Kevin speak of the other person as “my distractor.” They never conveyed the arrogant, one-sided attitude that, “I’m speaking the truth in love, but the other person is simply being critical.”
No, the “us against them” mentality was nowhere to be seen. In fact, the whole “againstness” perspective was non-existent. Now, they are both passionate about the issue of the Gospel and sanctification. And, while there is much they agree upon, they have some significant differences in their emphasis. Still, they never used any pejoratives. They do not see the “other” as the “enemy.”
Learn from One Another
It was also clear that Tullian and Kevin were stretching each other, learning from one another. They were and are experiencing the iron-sharpens-iron process. They are better pastors and counselors and people because of their interactions.
Some Christian bloggers are like, “Go ahead and disagree, and I’ll show you where you are wrong!” That attitude is difficult to fathom. We all have so much to learn from others—even from those we disagree with.
Represent One Another Accurately
Again, Kevin, Tullian, and David (Powlison) are prime examples of accurately representing others. David, in the Five Views book, refuses to quote people out of context. He always allows others to use their definition of terms rather than defining their terms for them.
Part of this accurate representation, especially in a blog post, includes realizing that…it’s just a blog post! By that, I’m not demeaning blogging. Nor am I saying that just because it’s a blog you can be sub-standard in your writing.
Rather, I’m saying, “It’s not a book!” It’s 500 words or 1,000 words. That’s about two or three pages in a chapter, not a 252 page book. When someone writes a blog post, they are not trying to say everything they could possibly say about a topic. They are trying to provide a snippet of their views. It’s more like a newspaper article than an encyclopedia. It is only fair to take into consideration other posts they have written, other resources they make available, rather than railing on someone for not providing every possible scriptural quote and every possible biblical defense in one 500-word post.
Join the Conversation
What other biblical principles would you add related to blogging and disagreeing in an agreeable way?
Great post, Bob. One thing I might add is that we need to be generous in our dialogue with those who disagree with us. By “generous” I mean we should:
1) Seek clarity before offering rebuke. When we do refute their view, we should allow that we might have misunderstood them and offer an opportunity to explain further.
2) Assume the best of intentions (until the other person makes their ill intentions clear to see). It seldom helps the discussion to assign motives to what people are doing (e.g., “they’re just trying to sell books”), unless of course it’s obvious for everyone to see. And even then, assign motives softly and reticently.
3) Whenever possible use the other person’s definition of terms to make your point rather than talking past them with your own definitions. If we can’t use their definitions (or don’t want to), we should talk about how we’re using the terms differently before moving forward. Talking past each other is never productive.
4) Avoid, at all costs, assigning the other person into some “camp” they have not chosen for themselves or are trying to avoid. The worst thing for discussion is to refute someone by refuting some position they haven’t taken, or a position they may be close to but are trying to avoid.
I’m sure there is more to say on this!
Darrell, Those are excellent additional principles. Thank you. Bob