This questioner asked about theological differences:
How do you handle differences of theological views in a healthy way?
In recent years, my understanding of Christ’s death and sacrifice have changed somewhat. My husband, who came from a non-Mennonite background also sees this differently than what our church teaches.
For example, our church is very anti penalty. They do not believe that Christ took our sins upon himself and died in our place. In fact, you don’t ever say the phrase that Christ died in our place.
This can be very difficult if we are asked to teach certain Sunday school lessons….. to be able to teach what we really believe.
Our intent is not for everyone else to see things just as we do. There will always be differences in opinion. But it is very frustrating when we are afraid to voice what we believe. It just feels very lonely. How does one thrive in a church community like this?
This question hits home with me because our church has been processing a lot of theological differences over the last year.
We haven’t been processing penal substitution, but we have been processing the authoritative nature of the scriptures, whether scripture has any authority aside from Jesus, and much more.
I think the heartbeat of this question is not so much what is right or wrong about our theology, but how do we relate with people who hold to theological viewpoints that are different from our own?
Obviously, this is something I have so much to learn and grow in! So, what I say is where I’m at, today. In twenty years, I’ll probably say it differently. But let me answer this question today by making three observations and then drawing three conclusions.
Observation #1 – Western thinking has a hard time holding two competing concepts in tension with each other.
If A directly contradicts B, and we conclude A is true, then in our way of thinking, B cannot be true. We throw it away. It’s a matter of logic. They cannot exist in the same space together.
If white is a light color (A) and we are looking at a dark garage door (B), then the garage door cannot be white.
But when we take this mindset into issues of spirituality and faith, where we talk about things that mirror philosophy more closely than they mirror physical realities, we set ourselves up for all kinds of tension.
Can love not ever hurt? Can doubt and faith exist at the same time? Is it faith without some level of doubt?
You see how spirituality isn’t always logical and when it comes to understanding the work of God in the world around us, there is so much we don’t know. So we must learn how to enter into conversations where two seemingly competing truths do not squelch the other, but cause their adherers to move forward with reverence and gentleness.
Observation #2 – There is a deep-rooted posture in conservative Anabaptism to disassociate yourself from those who disagree with you.
This isn’t exclusive to Anabaptists—fundamentalists share this same bane. But since the questioner specifically addressed “Mennonites,” I’m going to keep it focused on Anabaptists.
If someone disagrees with us about a theological or doctrinal interpretation, we tend to stop interacting with them. In doing so, we are not forced to learn ways of listening to and majoring on points of agreement.
And this isn’t only true for people who don’t want to change their position; it’s true of those who changes, as well.
People who leave the conservative Anabaptist church have a hard time interacting with people who are still a part of the conservative Anabaptist church, and I tend to think it’s because of this deep-rooted posture of disassociation. We have a hard time relating with people we don’t see eye-to-eye with.
Observation #3 – Most people live with a sense of connectivity between their amount of agreement with a person and their level of trust for that person.
I tend to trust people I agree with. In fact, if I know I already agree with them on major points of view, I’ll more easily swallow hook-line-and-sinker everything they have to say.
However, if I know I disagree with someone on significant issues, I tend to hold everything they say with suspicion. This is true for all of us.
In light of these observations, here are a few conclusions I have about how to handle theological differences…
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