Openness to Reason
Openness to Reason: One more virtue in our conversation around the topic of identity, gender and sexuality
Today I got to sit down with a sister who took time to spend a couple of hours discussing gender dysphoria, roles of man and woman, sexuality and gender, and our church’s response to those relevant topics. I walked away from the meeting feeling broadened in my perspectives and also sharpened in my thoughts. And I hope she also walked away from the meeting feeling similar.
I recently came across a quote: “If you are unwilling to offend others, you are not fit for ministry. If you are eager to offend others, you are not fit for ministry.”
The first statement is a good reminder that we shouldn’t be cowards if we want to love people. We need to have courage to speak the truth and not compromise—not necessarily to win arguments, but to love others well. When we are faithful to God’s truth in this broken world, our stance and our conviction may sometimes come across offensive. It may make some people very uncomfortable. And we need to be willing to be uncomfortable in causing people to feel uncomfortable with God’s truth. We need to be willing to enter into uncomfortable spaces in our conversation with others out of love for them.
At the same time, however, we need to make sure that we are not eager to offend people. That is, we need to be careful not to be bravados, and snobs. In our attempt to convey the truth we believe or defend the truth we hold, we must be careful to not become unlovingly offensive. We must stay humble and have our ears wide open to people whose ideas and perspectives differ from ours. We must be quick to listen and slow to speak. We must hear their stories. We must pray for godly insight into the groanings and the pains of the people. We need to have spiritual wisdom—one that is “pure, peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy, and good fruits, impartial, and sincere.” (James 3:17).
In my pastoral column a couple of weeks ago I emphasized how we need three virtues of clarity, compassion and courage as Christians in our day and age. I would like to add a fourth one: openness to reason. It is one of the marks of spiritual wisdom in James 3 quoted above. Just as compassion and courage must be held in tension for faithful life in this world, I think the virtue of openness to reason must be held in tension with our pursuit of clarity.
Last year, Anglican Church in North America shared a pastoral statement on the topic of sexuality and identity. There the church leadership models for us what it looks like to hold the truth with both compassion and courage as well as pursuit of clarity and openness to reason. I found it to be a helpful resource as to how we as a church are to minister to people with sexual brokenness in our day and age.
We live in confusing times; clarity is much needed in the midst of the contemporary confusion about identity, sexuality, transgenderism and a host of other things. So we should pursue clarity in our mind. Clarity from Scripture. Clarity from critical engagement with cultural issues of our day from multiple different angles. But I come to realize that however hard I attempt to pursue clarity, there is a limitation. We will never come to full knowledge about everything. We will always have limited knowledge and limited perspective.
Paul’s confession is our present experience this way: “For now I see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.” (1 Corinthians 13:12). We see things dimly. We have to squint through glasses. We know in part. We will always grow in our knowledge of truth.
Given our limitations, I think it is very important to be open to reason. Open to hearing other’s perspectives and convictions. Open to hearing other’s experiences and stories. And even willing to change your own perspectives based on newly found and realized truth. That’s how we grow and mature. That’s how we grow deep and wide.
If we hold the two together—pursuit of clarity and openness to reason—we will grow in wisdom together as a church family. And we will be people who stand firm in our faith while having our hearts wide open to people of different perspectives, convictions, theologies and experiences. And in so doing, hopefully we will have grown to be more like Jesus, full of truth and full of grace.