Few terms polarize a conversation between Christ-followers like the L-word and the C-word: Liberal & Conservative.
Both terms (liberal & conservative) have long and important histories in political and religious life; even if the terms have become one of the most effective ways to brand the other as “unclean” thus discounting that person’s perspective while raising doubt about that person’s character.
Like most followers of Christ – I suspect – I have felt the sting of both labels. At moments I’ve been branded “liberal,” at other moments “conservative” and sometimes both within the same conversation. My utopian hope would be that we could listen and engage the other without labeling; however, I have to be realistic that labels are important and necessary for any kind of mental indexing. The hope of interpersonal relations bid us to move beyond labels to listen to and receive the other; to hold all our mental indexing as subject to reform/transformation through encounter.
A couple of days ago I was in conversation exploring the artificial dichotomy between liberal & conservative, when I quipped, “If I’m going to be labeled, I’d prefer to be labeled as a Contextual.”
Until that moment I’d never thought of conextual in this way. I’m still sitting with how effective, or how meaningful it might be to add contextual as a third alternative to liberal & conservative.
Contextual theology has been around for some time. Theologians like Colin Greene, Douglas Hall, Graham Ward (chair of contextual theology @ Manchester), and many others have been helping us to see the particular. And the particular seems to give more specific meaning to terms like liberal & conservative.
I’m forever in search of new and better language to help move beyond divisive labels. I’m not sure Contextuals is it, but that’s where I’m at today.
One of my on going prayers is that by God’s grace, I will see a person and honor her/his unique jounery, calling, place, time and community before any label, (I need God).
Peace, dwight
As citizens Christians are given a responsibility to make our views known. I realize that most so called Christians are conservative, and in some ways I am conservative. However, I am also a strong believer of separation of church and state, which makes me liberal on many issues. I am for the pharmacist who doesn’t want to fill morning after prescriptions, but I am against the lies of President Bush in order to get us into the war in Iraq. This country is facing severe economic problems created by an overbuilding of houses in bubble areas. That is the fault of Bush and supply side economics which doesn’t always work, and of Greenspan who held interest rates too low for too long. I don’t see much understanding on the Christian right regarding the abuses of prisoners. This silence is evil, and is something I can no longer ignore.
D,
i thought about you today, as usual, only this time quite specifically, and at some length. i had lots of time to think, sitting behind the wheel of my busload of people, inching along in traffic in west seattle. you probably know about the accident. i heard it was three people killed, all young, a single car accident late at night. i heard they plowed straight into the abutment, like without even braking.
when my alram went off at the usual 5a.m, the accident was like the first thing i heard. i thought, “oh shit, this will really fuck up my route.” and it did. but i remembered how you take a moment when a siren goes by your house, how you redeem those moments by praying for the people. so later, sitting in traffic, i prayed for the families and friends.
your post made me think about my own struggles with music genres, how i am trying to train myself not to think in terms of rock, or jazz, or country, or hip hop, or whatever. like you said, labels are useful. you didn’t use the C-word, but i will: convenient. they are just a convenience i am no longer sure i wish to afford. the price is too high. music loses it’s mystery and magic, it becomes mere iterations of cliches. i decline that option. i would rather struggle futily, trying to experience music, both as a creator and an aidience, , as if for the first time every time. and maybe it’s like that with people too, like we turn one another into cliches, rather than hearing them as if for the first time. maybe by struggling to not hear them as a cliche, we might actually hear them for the first time.
Contextuals Unite! 🙂 Well, when you are in Malaysia, let’s have some fun with fellow contextuals … I mean Christ-followers. I felt you were talking about me today,
Let’s say the word contextual was picked up and used a great deal over the next few years in that way. Wouldn’t it pick up plenty of baggage and become a loaded and devisive word like these others?
It seems that Tony Jones and Doug Pagitt were wrestling with this a little bit with the latest podcast from the emergent site. They discussed how there was no way of getting the term emergent back from the connotations it has recieved. One of them brought up the idea of setting out to change the name of it every three years to keep the identity constantly shifting and adapting.
Is our role to keep finding more appropriate metaphors when they old ones have too much baggage?
Greetings from Manitoba! I just posted on labels myself. Great post.
Peace,
Jamie
interesting points dwight, let’s talk more about it in person. we’re coming up to seattle next weekend and we would love to see you all, if even for a bit (i know your schedules are crazy). i don’t have your number…call me, or e-mail me. hope to see you soon…much love
Thanks for this.
Here’s a one liner: “The only thing that conservatives have to conserve is liberalism.” Conservatives and liberals bicker like the siblings they are — children of the same whored Ecclesia mater.
It’s funny, I’ve always been defensive about people calling me a liberal in the Baptist church I’ve grown up in. But I didn’t really think of how I’m stereotyping them as well. I find myself feeling that they are ignorant because they are closed-minded, and therefore I disregard most of what they say as regurgitated information. How can I expect for them to be open-minded to my ideas when I’m not open-minded to them? Good stuff, from here on out I am a completely open-minded contextualist.
i like that dwight. there are contexts in which i feel it to be more christ-like to be liberal, and there are contexts where christ-likness would look like being conservative. and there are places, situations and relational dynamics where neither lable is helpful. that is the dilema of forcing ourselves into two opposing camps that arn’t necessarily mutally exclusive. contextuality definitly transcends that dichotomy. (i’ll vote for you)
after meeting you, brad, fyodor, etc … this particular post and some of the stuff my friend sherman wrote here The Postmodern Postmortem (An Asian Construction of a Generous Orthodoxy) has increased relevance