Rules of Engagement

College campuses are great places to find debates – some of them important and productive, many of them silly and distracting.

The Minister’s Association on campus here has decided to host a series of coffee-house style discussions over various issues. I’m glad for that – as long as the students play nice. If discussions like these are full of grace and mercy, if they allow people to grow and mature, if they allow people to make mistakes, if they encourage people to speak the truth in love, then they are GREAT. If discussions like these devolve into attempts to demonstrate who knows more than whom, if they become divisive by pitting some students against others, if anger and frustration abound, then they are TERRIBLE. If students go with a willingness to listen, learn, and change their own position when necessary, that’s one thing. If students go only with the intention of persuading others, then that’s quite another.

I’ve been reading a fascinating book by Roger Olson lately. If I mentioned the name of the book here, the whole point of this post might be lost. So I’ll tell you about the book another day.

But he provides some “rules of engagement” for Christians who disagree. He is primarily addressing Christians who have significant theological differences, but I think these rules may also apply to a wider range of situations. Christians disagree a lot: over new church policies and procedures, over styles of worship services, over methods and philosophies of communicating the gospel in relevant ways, over the best way to do missions, over church building programs, and over theological viewpoints. And if those things aren’t enough for us to worry about, we’ll make something else up to argue about.

I found these rules of engagement worthy of paraphrasing and posting here for all of us who find ourselves in disagreement with other Christians.

(1) Before speaking about a viewpoint different from our own, we must be sure we are able to describe it as its own best representatives describe it. Before saying “I disagree” we must first be able to truly say “I understand.”

(2) When speaking about a viewpoint different from our own, we must be sure we are not attacking a straw man. Setting up a straw man usually involves misrepresenting a position by deliberating overstating it in a way that is easy to refute.

(3) We should be openly acknowledge the weakness of our own positions and viewpoints and not pretend that the other side alone contains tensions, apparent inconsistencies, or mysteries. This is a matter of avoiding double standards. If we point out apparent inconsistencies in someone else’s perspective, we should not pretend our own is free of such flaws.

(4) We should strictly avoid attributing beliefs to adherents of the other side that those adherents explicitly reject. We may believe that a certain position will lead to a certain logical conclusion. But we must not claim opponents believe these “logical conclusions” if they explicitly reject them. We should learn to say, “This is the logical consequence of their belief,” and follow up with, “but they don’t follow the logic there.”

I’m interested in your thoughts. Is there anything else you’d add to the list to promote fair and productive dialogue in the midst of disagreement?