COMMENTARY: When in Doubt, Love

c. 2007 Religion News Service (UNDATED) I’ve been getting some complaints lately about a podcast interview I did with Sara Miles, author of an amazing new book, “Take This Bread.” Miles describes her story as an unexpected and terribly inconvenient Christian conversion. She describes herself as a blue-state, secular-intellectual, left-wing journalist with a habit of […]

c. 2007 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) I’ve been getting some complaints lately about a podcast interview I did with Sara Miles, author of an amazing new book, “Take This Bread.”

Miles describes her story as an unexpected and terribly inconvenient Christian conversion. She describes herself as a blue-state, secular-intellectual, left-wing journalist with a habit of skepticism.


She describes her conversion this way: “Early one morning, for no earthly reason, I wandered into a church. I was certainly not interested in becoming a Christian, or, as I thought of it rather less politely, a religious nut. But I ate a piece of bread, took a sip of wine, and found myself radically transformed.”

Her encounter with Jesus and concern for the poor morphed into a food distribution ministry where hungry neighbors gather around the Communion table to receive a week’s worth of groceries. So what’s not to like about this story?

Did I mention Miles is also a lesbian?

One listener asked me: “How do you determine who your guest is going to be on your show? While I’m sure Sara is doing a great thing through helping the poor in (San Francisco), she is also a practicing gay and `married.’ This seems to me the equivalent of being an open porn addict and justifying it by saying that I enjoy the beauty of woman without recognizing it as a sin, while still claiming to be serving and loving God.”

Another wrote: “I’m sure Sara is a very nice person and I admire her work with the food pantry. I wish her well. But it needs to be made clear that her lifestyle is not consistent with what the Bible teaches. I enjoy the variety of guests and topics on your program. But if this woman is living such a life and then claiming to be a follower of Christ and it is not made clear that this is inconsistent, then people who listen to the program who are also not followers of Christ will also think homosexuality is compatible with what Scripture teaches. It is not.”

I’m the first to acknowledge that the issue of homosexuality is a divisive one in our culture and the Christian church. Setting aside the issue of whether I agree or disagree with these letters, as a veteran talk show host and follower of Jesus I’ve developed some informal communications guidelines to help me facilitate conversations between people who disagree.

1. My policy is to talk to people, not about them. Nothing is to be gained by breaking into our little subculture gossip groups. Conversely, we’ve a lot to gain by talking with those whose ideas are radically different from our own. Today, we are served poorly by a media that specializes in ad hominem, inflammatory hostile talk, but is disinterested in finding common ground.

I’m reminded of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson who, while forging their fledgling democracy, found their disagreements so severe they broke off what was once a close friendship. After years of silence, a mutual friend persuaded them to write each other. Adams’ letter began with this touching sentence. “You and I ought not to die, before we have explained ourselves to each other.”


2. There are times when we need to listen and not talk. Not every conversation requires the insertion of my personal views. When someone describes his or her spiritual journey in an interview, I feel compelled to act as a scribe, making sure I capture it accurately, and as a facilitator, making sure I draw out the nuance and richness of the story. I do not feel the need to challenge the legitimacy of personal experience. I find the late Mike Yaconelli’s book title “Messy Spirituality” descriptive of most of our lives.

3. We should rediscover hospitality as an essential element of every religious tradition. Jesus understood the intrinsic value of each human being and treated everyone with respect. In so doing, he scandalized religious people by talking to hookers, touching lepers and eating with publicans and tax collectors. In my experience, there is nothing like eating a meal together to remind disputants of their common ground as the hope for building a bridge and not a wall.

4. When in doubt _ love. Jesus did confront people _ and such encounters have their time and place _ but I take the Apostle Paul seriously when he said, “If I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have faith enough to move mountains, and if I give away all my possessions, but do not have love _ I am nothing.”

(Dick Staub is the author of “The Culturally Savvy Christian” and the host of The Kindlings Muse (http://www.thekindlings.com). His blog can be read at http://www.dickstaub.com)

KRE/PH END STAUB

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