The Role of Experience in Shaping our Convictions
Three weeks from today voters all over the country will take to the polls to elect a new President and a host of other public officials. In Minnesota, along with close to another dozen states, we will also have the opportunity to vote in a public referendum to change the constitution of our state so that it defines marriage as an estate solely between one man and one woman.
Not surprisingly, this has occasioned impassioned rhetoric on both sides. This debate echoes, emulates, and informs similar conversations occurring in the church. I understand the passion in these conversations, knowing they stem from deep convictions about the Bible, authority, and human sexuality, and I have tried to facilitate them in several congregations in a way that invites honest and respectful dialogue. Toward this end I’ve tried to articulate a Lutheran understanding of Scripture and suggested various frames by which we may read the Bible on this issue.
All of this I’ve done from the conviction that this issue, while tremendously important, should nevertheless divide Christians against themselves. That is, whatever strong feels we may have, whatever convictions we may feel at stake, yet this issue – in my opinion – does not trump one’s confession of Christ as the hallmark of Christian fellowship. And in each congregation I’ve worked with I’ve therefore asked folks to take a moment and identify in their minds someone in their congregation that they respect and know to be a faithful disciple of Christ and yet who disagrees with them on this issue.
The result is usually powerful, moving participants from the rhetoric of “agreeing to disagree” to recognizing that we have significant relationships with people who see these matters differently. Most of us have ambivalence in these situations: we want people we respect and care for to agree with us with regard to our significant convictions. When this doesn’t happen, we must either write off the people with whom we disagree or find a new way to negotiate what our sense of faithfulness is. Given this choice between meaningful relationships and absolute certainty or ideological litmus tests for faithfulness, most people choose their relationships. This doesn’t, let me be clear, mean that people change their mind. Quite frankly, that’s rarely the case in the situations in which I’ve worked and actually not my goal. Rather, I want us to live into the tension of being faithful Christians in a complicated world with a modicum of grace and measure of trust in the Lord we all confess.
A second conviction I share is that our personal experience makes a difference. In fact, usually our personal experience – or lack thereof – makes the difference. Good experiences and bad ones shape our outlook. Numerous experiences or no experiences shape our convictions. And when people do change their minds on this or some similarly emotionally-charged conviction, it is rarely because of more information and almost always because of some additional experience.
And so as we approach the vote on marriage in a few weeks, and as our congregations continue to discuss and struggle with this issue, I very much hope that people on both sides of this issue can admit and own that their experiences have shaped their views and thereby find it easier to recognize that the distinct experiences of those on the other side of the fence have shaped those persons as well. Many of us would like to think that theology is above human experience and our convictions are for this reason “pure.” But when we imagine that we – and our theology – can escape the tussle of human experience unaffected, we tend to slide too quickly from discernment and conviction to judgment and condemnation. But if we can imagine that someone with very different experiences than we have had therefore may have good reason to frame things differently, we can engage them with respect. This doesn’t mean we’ll change our mind, but it does mean we’re more likely to honor them as children of God.
Toward this end, I’m posting a video today about one person’s experience and the difference it made in him. Produced by the travel-services company Expedia, it chronicles Artie Goldstein’s trip across the country to attend the wedding of his daughter to another woman. As he shares, it’s not a trip he wanted to make, but it’s one that affected him deeply and it serves as a good reminder that experience, as well as religious conviction, together inform our belief and practice. I don’t post it to change minds but rather to open hearts to recognize that we’re all on a journey and the past experiences we’ve had shape profoundly the future steps we may take.
Notes: 1) If you are receiving this post by email, you may need to click here to watch the video.
2) Thanks to Andrew Sullivan for pointing this video out to me.
Well, thanks, David. I was innocently reading your blog and then I watched the video and now I am getting tears all over my iPad.
But that is the power of story, and the power of the storyteller. It meant more because it came from the father.
Me too. 🙂
It tells me that God is love I may not agree with a specific perspective but God’s love conquers all
David, thank you for sharing this video and story of a parents love for their child.
I am forever grateful for your balanced perspectives on these difficult issues.
“Many of us would like to think that theology is above human experience and our convictions are for this reason “pure.” But when we imagine that we – and our theology – can escape the tussle of human experience unaffected, we tend to slide too quickly from discernment and conviction to judgment and condemnation.”
After reading this part, I immediately was tugged at- we have a God that didn’t want to remain above ‘human experience’ or this ‘purity’- we have a God that entered into the tussle of human experience and lived and loved and cried and died. What a wonderful reminder that you offer for us to live in tension, to live fully, and to live faithfully. Thanks as always sir!
“And when people do change their minds on this or some similarly emotionally-charged conviction, it is rarely because of more information and almost always because of some additional experience.”
in the last few years, as this specific “issue” has become very prominent in many conversations i’ve had, inside and outside the church, i have personally seen the way experience has shaped convictions. thank you for this post! just the other day i had some similar thoughts but wasn’t brave enough to post them as i find myself surrounded by those who are fighting tooth and nail to keep theology above experience. that, in itself, is a huge tension you have identified. i appreciate your call to live in the tension.
i could go on and on to say, “i love this post!”
Thank you for sharing this video within your article. You are 100% correct – personal experience changes people, and we need to accept and respect others’ opinion, even when it differs from ours. The video is exceptional in that it speaks of love and openness and acceptance of all of God’s people. Amen and praise be to God.
Although we need to open our hearts to different values than what the bible says, God still doesn’t want us to compromise or rewrite what His word says. I feel empathy for the tug of different ways that our hearts may pull us, but we can still love those with different ideas but not embrace them as God’s best way for us in trying to lead the Christian walk.