So, again it's been a while since the last post. Why do we have to earn money to live...?

Anyway, time for some further thoughts on belonging, believing and behaving, and whether that is helpful language in the post-modern world.

In the good old days of modernity believing was always the place to start. It was assumed that the basis for conversation between people was essentially apologetic - arguing, in both the best and worst possible ways, about logical, philosophical, spiritual, theological and ethical issues until one party or another was intellectually convinced of the 'way the world is.'

I've certainly experienced this approach in my life in many spaces and places. It was and still is used extensively by the Church in the west, but was/is also used in many other quarters - in universities, in the media (I personally love listening to the Today programme on BBC Radio 4, which frequently degenerates into a good old ding-dong of logic or political philosophy between John 'Tiger' Humphries and whichever poor politician has been clumsy enough to stumble into the Today studio), and so on.

Challenge and response in questions about beliefs has a long and glorious pedigree, and, by way of an aside, I think being aware our history is both important and instructive for those of us struggling to walk a path in life conscious of faith and in harmony with God.

During the turbulence of the Reformation events called 'disputations' were frequently held in which the developing theological perspective of the Reformers could be argued over and honed into something useable. Of course the disputations were often more akin to heresy trials for those on the margins of mainstream Reformation. One of my heroes is a sixteenth century Anabaptist called Balthasar Hubmaier who entered into disputations with Ulrich Zwingli, the Zurich reformer. The Anabaptists knew that entering into a disputation was potentially dangerous for them, but they believed wholeheartedly in the possiblity of 'winning your brother (sic) over' and so joined the debate anyway.

I do believe that intellectual challenge and response is still utterly central to who we are as human beings. If we fail to think about things, if we neglect to stimulate eachother to think about why things are the way they are and about how things could be, if we overlook the importance of reflection and marginalise debate and discussion then we will struggle to survive. I know is say that as someone who loves to think, discuss and debate - cards on the table. BUT, when we think about the way things are we are made to respond to other views of the world, we are stimulated to assess our values and perceptions in the light of those alternative views, and therein is the possibility of transformation. We must decide whether our world view still describes 'the way things are' the best way, or else adopt an alternative perspective. It is for this reason that we have table talk, our frequent meal-and-discussion-on-a-big-subject, at the centre of our community life.

Having said all that …

The world is a different place now. The certainty with which Christians once held their beliefs was supported in part by the dominance of society in the era of Christendom. But the Church is no longer at the centre of national, cultural or social life. Whilst religious right may have a powerful voice in North America, there is no longer even a tacit religious or cultural hegemony in the West. This is post-Christendom. What was is now gone. Though we remember it, we do not necessarily grieve for it.

As a consequence, often our differences are more marked than our similarities. Where once most people's beliefs were variations on a theme and enough similarity could be assumed to facilitate a lively apologetic debate, there are now so many themes for belief in the world that we live in that there is little scope for 'arguing someone into the kingdom,' as it once was. Certainly the era of arrogant superiority is long gone. So much of the once-upon-a-time certainty of Christian apologetics is undermined by its habitual consequences in domination: of women, of children, of the poor, of non-Westerners or non-Westernised people, and so on and on.

Instead we are beginning and must continue to hold our beliefs more tenatatively and pardoxically more courageously, with both humiltity and confidence. In fact according to Stanley Fish, I cannot do anything else. I hold the beliefs that I do, and so I cannot help but act and behave as a direct consequence of those beliefs. I will hold on to them with utter confidence until I am shown that they do not work. Then I will be convinced of the validity of another perspective and hold those newly shaped beliefs with utter confidence.

I cannot help being the person that I am. In my relationships and interactions with people everyday, I am who I am. I cannot respond or react in any other way than the way I react and respond. But by being conscious of the person that I am and by reflecting on the way that I am responding and reacting to the beliefs of the people I meet I am able to be transformed and to encourage others in their transformation. If I am willing to risk being convinced by my friend's beliefs, then my friend may also be willing to risk being conviced by mine. And in that interaction we may even find that neither of us had it all right, but together we have something more beautiful then either of us had by ourselves.

In conclusion, then, is belief a good place to start?

Well, no. And yes. Maybe.

Weird, eh?

No, because by demanding that someone signs up to the same set of beliefs as me before we can associate together is insular, naive, arrogant and leading potentially to cultural imperialism.

Yes, because if we neglect to understand that we are people who hold beliefs - a way of understanding and interpeting the world - then we are just stupid. Every interaction is an interplay between differing sets of beliefs.

Maybe, belief is a good place to start. Maybe it isn't. It all depends on the encounter, I would say.