Question of the Day: Listening
My blogging friend and co-conspirator Joel, who hails from the other side of the pond, has posed his question of the day and it revolves around the theme of listening to one another.
Recently there has been much conflict within the Anglican church and today the Vernacular Curate commented thusly:
I don’t want to hear any more ‘no‘ factions fighting with other ‘no‘ factions.
He laments the “no, no, no” attitude and goes on:
don’t yell ‘no‘, yell ‘not that but this‘
[.....]
Don’t be another group of people who want to prohibit or remove something; be a group of people who want to put something exciting, pragmatic and workable in place. Shout ‘yes‘ to something; make your fame and blog fortunes on a ‘yes‘ not a ‘no‘ – ‘no‘ is killing us all.
And so in light of this my question is the same as Joel’s, namely:
…….listening to one another, and working with one another? Can we? Should we?
And, to what point is compromise a viable option? Not just in politics and the culture wars, but so too in our congregations and theological squabbles…
Do we ever seek to understand one another, to compromise where we can?
Good question indeed.
Tags: Christian Life
November 6th, 2010 at 6:17 pm
@ webmaster: Thinking back to recent debates on homosexuality, I considered the idea of compromise and it made me smile…. It’s no secret that I’m a passionate believer in human rights. What would compromise on this mean? I find the idea that both sides might come to an agreement about what level of persecution and discrimination would be an acceptable compromise quite amusing.
Same with Creationism: I can’t see a workable compromise – unless the Creationists would agree to stay out of science classes and restrict themselves to RE. But that’s not really a compromise.
Perhaps as a woman I could accept that rather than receive equal pay to male colleagues (which I want) or half male wages (which is what my opponents want) – I would compromise and accept three-quarters….
Oh. Hang on a minute. British women are, on average, already on 77% of male wages – a compromise I certainly never came to!