Pause for Thought - BBC Radio 2 - Joel Edwards
DIFFERENCE AND DISAGREEMENT
Every year our entire staff of about 50 people shut up shop and goes off on a two-day conference. Usually, we have a theme of some sort which focuses our attention on our time together.
This year, our theme was Grace through Diversity. In other words, we were looking at ways in which being open to God enables us to celebrate and appreciate our differences.
And frankly, I needed a touch of grace to deal with colleagues during my first game of croquet! Croquet, I discovered, is genteel hostility!
But I digress.
Our attention wasn’t only focussed on our little band of Christian workers from the Evangelical Alliance. As a small but integral part of the global village, we’ve been caught up in this challenge of difference. So like everybody else, we have to grapple with living in a multi-choice society, whilst affirming things about our faith and moral values which we are unlikely to surrender.
For example, people like me don’t agree with the notion that practising a gay lifestyle squares up to what God intended for us. But I’m also really keen to respect and value all people because I believe all of us are made in the image of God.
And I’m up for tolerance, and equality. But what do I do when some people abuse other people in the name of ‘freedom of speech’? And how far can I expect people to sign up to my beliefs, or the way I behave, when they don’t agree with my views on the Bible? People down my street certainly don’t expect my house rules to apply to them. So who’s to say that everybody should dance to the moral tunes church leaders play?
It’s all very complicated. So I’m choosing the simpleton’s way!
I start by believing that, across our differences, God loves everybody and loves us enough to give us laws to live by. But I also think I have a kind of obligation to say when I believe some differences are wrong. And I have to hope that others won’t cross me off because I disagree with them.
I’m not intolerant just because I disagree, you know!
Much more than that though, I have to learn how to disagree – without being disagreeable.
After all, grace makes people gracious.
Rev. Joel Edwards
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