Conversation

Closeted, Confronting, or Conversing?

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Small_group_conversation_at_a_Gurteen_Knowledge_Cafe

By Dgurteen, Photo of a Gurteen Knowledge Cafe. CC BY-SA3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=20737750

 

Over the last year, I’ve had three occasions to hear a speaker by the name of Terry Halliday, who holds appointments with the American Bar Foundation and Northwestern University in the fields of globalization and law. Working in the university context, he has developed a valuable model of engagement, that I think is quite valuable for the Christian community within which I work, and may equally be useful for other religious communities as well as any communities formed around ideas and deep commitments. The basic idea is conversation.

What is striking to me is that we often employ very different approaches to this. One is what I would call the closeted approach. We have very vigorous conversations, to be sure, regarding the things we care about, but we do this only within our own community. We may be involved in conversations outside our community as well, but in those contexts, we give no hint of how our deeply held beliefs inform our views. Likely, the reason is fear that we will be excluded from the conversation if we let people know who we are and the sources that shape our views. Sometimes it is simply a matter that we have never connected our faith or worldview with the discussion at hand. There is a disconnect between our deeply held beliefs and the important conversations that go on in a university, or in other public settings. We are effectively closeted, with our faith or other deep commitments not only personal but private. The question for any of us who take this approach is whether we can for long take this schizophrenic approach to life, whether we can for long hold to commitments that have no relevance outside our community of belief.

The second approach is what I would call the confrontational approach. On the campus I work there are preachers who show up in warm weather who basically tell people they are going to hell, who denounce passing students for what they wear and for their presumed activities. That is an extreme version of confronting but it illustrates what is at the heart of this approach. It is essentially a monologue. There is no discussion where others are seriously listened to and understood. Presumptions are made without personal knowledge of the other. While it has the advantage of being able to say you have been faithful to the core of your message, it is rare that this approach is appreciated.

What Dr. Halliday has advocated (most recently at a conference I’ve just returned from), is the model of conversing. He notes that a conversation is:

  • An exchange
  • An expression of inquisitiveness
  • An expression of wonder—inquiry
  • A relationship building experience
  • A prelude to action

Many of us are finding that there are in fact important conversations to be had in the university on everything from the high incidence of depression among grad students to issues around race and gender, to discussions of the values and ethics that inform the development and applications of various technologies to societal issues like sustainability, various forms of inequality, and more. And we are finding that people deeply appreciate real conversations, where respect and mutual learning occur (do we think we can also learn from others?). We are finding that many are interested in knowing how our faith perspective informs our thought about an issue, when we are also open and interested in the perspectives of others.

Perhaps the greatest challenge is whether we have thought about our beliefs in more than personal terms. Have we considered their relevance to the work we do, to the headlines in today’s paper, to the important issues of the day? Have we deeply mined the resources of our faith, or simply repeated the things we learned in our youth?

I like the last two points Dr. Halliday mentions. Conversing can lead to warm relationships, even with those with whom we many differ, and they may sometimes lead to shared beliefs and ideas on which we act together. That seems to be something we can use more of.

 

Review: Growing God’s Church

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Growing God's ChurchGrowing God’s Church, Gary L. McIntosh. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2016.

Summary: In light of the changing culture that has rendered classic approaches to evangelism less relevant, the author looks at how people in our contemporary culture are coming to faith while arguing for the continued priority of not only presence but proclamation and persuasion in our witness to the gospel.

There is no question that the church in America has faced a significant culture-shift in the past thirty years. This book represents a research project in which over 2000 people who had come to faith and joined churches were interviewed to understand how people are coming to faith today, and what has changed from earlier days.

The interesting thing is that the author spends the first half of this book, not on the study but rather what seemed to me a rather traditional restatement of the importance, indeed priority of proclamation evangelism in the life of the contemporary church. In five chapters, he argues for what is our mission, the priority of sharing the gospel of salvation, our roles of presence, proclamation and persuasion in calling people to faith, our focus on making disciples, not just converts, and the context of the church as the vehicle of mission.

The next five chapters turn to the study itself, and explore the questions of:

  • Who led you to faith?
  • What method most influenced your decision?
  • Why did you begin to attend church?
  • Why did you remain at your church?
  • What is the pastor’s role in evangelism?

For the first question, similar to earlier studies, family and friends were most significant, followed by church staff. Conversation outstripped any other method in influence a person’s decision to follow Christ. Family, friends and “no one” were most significant in beginning to attend a church. Friendliness followed by mission, worship styles, and teaching and beliefs were important to people remaining. Pastors play a key role in why people remain.

McIntosh concludes with principles of effective evangelism and the importance of conversation–“inviting people to dine with Jesus.” The book also includes the questionnaire used in his study as well as questions and practical suggestions at the conclusion of chapters.

I had several thoughts as I read this. One was that the book is a helpful corrective to the de-emphasis on proclamation and persuasion in many contexts. If churches are having ministry with significant numbers of people yet seeing few people coming to faith, it may be worth asking whether this corrective is needed. It particularly has helpful challenges to pastors to examine how well they are exemplifying a commitment to gospel witness.

The second was that this felt like it was addressing a fairly traditional suburban or smaller town church setting. I had a hard time imagining those in storefront churches, urban congregations, and intentional communities warming to the language of this book.

Finally, the author draws a distinction between holistic and atomistic views of the Missio Dei, and seems in the end to come down for a more atomistic view, one that does not neglect service and presence, but sees these as subordinate to the priority of the gospel. There is warranted criticism of ministries that never call people to faith, but I am also aware of ministries that combine robust care for both physical and spiritual needs of people under the rubric of “the gospel of the kingdom” in a way that both evidences conversions and compassionate care for people. These would probably find the formulation of this book unsatisfying.

In conclusion, this book felt to me a bit like the idea of putting new material on old wine skins and left me wondering whether what was needed were new wine skins for a time when the church is undergoing great ferment in a radically shifting culture. Nevertheless, the message of the unchanging gospel, our continuing call to gospel faithfulness, and the call to incarnational relationships through the medium of conversation seems timeless, and always worth heeding.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Happy Birthday Bob on Books!

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One of my TBR piles

One of my TBR piles

Bob on Books is two years old! The picture above is the one that adorned my very first post. Since then, I’ve read most of those books but some never managed to work their way to the top of the TBR pile, for reasons known only to my subconcious, if that. Looking back on that first post, I had no idea where this blog was going to lead! The one thing that has been true is lots of conversation on books, reading, and life.

Bob on Books by the numbers. This is my 689th post. One or another page on the blog has been viewed just under 100,000 times (I expect to hit this milestone later this week). The growth of the readership has been slow and steady–I write for a bit of a quirky audience–booklovers, university geeks, people of faith, and surprisingly, a loyal audience of people from my home town of Youngstown. In 2013, I averaged 23 views a day on the blog. Last year, this went up to 124, and this year so far, I’ve been averaging 227. Currently 2,229 “follow” the blog in some form, but the viewership is far wider because of posting in a number of groups and re-posting on other blogs. WordPress tells me that people have visited from 150 countries, the top five outside the U.S. being Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, Brazil (!), and India. Altogether, I don’t think this is too bad for a “toddler”!

Bob on Books — the conversation. I wrote early on that my hope for this blog was that it would be “a meeting place for anyone who cares about good literature, who loves books and reading, and wants to talk about ideas that matter.” It has been that and so much more. We’ve talked about what we liked and disliked about books, about what makes for a good society and a good life, and even a good pizza! We’ve explored this activity so many of us love and take for granted, the act of reading and what makes for good reading. We’ve talked about what we do with all those books once we’ve read them, and what we do about the ones we haven’t read.

A big surprise has been the continuing conversation with the unique tribe of people who, like me, grew up in Youngstown, Ohio. What began as a few posts to answer the question of what it was like to grow up in working class Youngstown has become a rich conversation about what made this such a good place. I’ll never forget a post from last fall in which I posted a picture of a cigar box, which many of us used for pencil boxes, only to get a flood of comments from others who did the same, and who, in some cases still had them. I’ve come to understand something I’d only dimly intuited–that growing up working class was an incredibly rich experience that has shaped my life more than I knew.

Bob on Books — On reviewing. I don’t think I anticipated when I started this blog that I would become far more reflective on the art and ethics of reviewing. One of the things I’ve discovered is that authors are engaging us in a conversation, and reviewing and discussing books via social media can be a wonderful way of turning monologue into real conversation, mostly with other readers, but sometimes with the authors. We don’t always agree, but what I hope for is that they can say, “you understood what I wrote and were fair in representing the book.”

I’ve come to realize that reviewers, and not just the ones in the New York Times, play an important role in connecting authors to readers and promoting a literate society. Fundamentally, we help people answer the basic question of “why should (or shouldn’t) I read this book when there are so many others?”

Bob on Books — The Vision. Years ago, a leader I respected said, “you may be a reading Christian without growing, but you cannot be a growing Christian without reading.” In an age of busyness and visual media saturation, I hope to encourage the rediscovery of ways the reading of good works may nourish our souls, deepen our intellects, and elevate our aspirations. There is more to life than reading, but I am firmly convinced that the best books point us to that “something more” and that the richest conversations in life are about that “something more.” I look forward to more of those as long as God grants me to write!