I think most people are skeptical of other people’s experiences. It’s only natural to be skeptical of experiences we have not had and do not share. When people have had experiences in common with or similar to us, we are much less skeptical. It’s also natural to assume the validity and legitimacy of experiences that we share in common or similar to the experience of others.
We have an affinity for people with whom we have shared experiences and for people whose experiences are similar to ours. Shared experiences bind us together. Those shared experiences affirm us and become part of our individual and common identities.
We let our guards down with people with whom we have shared experiences, and we can “be ourselves” with them. We want to affirm them because they affirm us.
These are all good things in and of themselves, but the affirmation is not always positive. Shared experiences can form the basis of co-dependency that is unhealthy and even destructive.
If we spend all our time with people with whom we share experiences, we can become insular and narrowminded. If we don’t venture beyond those circles of commonality, we may find ourselves in an echo chamber of conformation bias that blinds us to the false stories we tell ourselves and reinforces our narrowmindedness.
Common experiences can also have the opposite effect. People who spend significant time in other countries and with people not like them tend to be more openminded, more humble, and more accommodating of people who see the world differently.
As Christians, the common experience of being “in Christ” with people who are very different from us in ethnicity, native language, economic strata, age, etc. is mind and heart expanding. The usual commonalities that define us – like Jews and Gentiles, male and female, slave and free – give way to a greater identity that we find together in Christ.
Being in Christ should be a defining commonality for Christians, though we often default back to commonalities that are of lesser significance. We need to guard against that.
Jesus challenges every Christian to stretch ourselves in these things – to strive to make our shared experience in Christ the commonality that is preeminent in our lives. That commonality should be the one thing that unites us, though we may have little else in common.
Jesus also urges us to stretch back from that one commonality to engage a world that does not share that one common, all encompassing identity that unites Christians around the world. Jesus bids us to go out into the world to share the Gospel with people who do not yet share that common identity.
In doing that, we need to use other, lesser commonalities to bridge the gap, to make connection, to open doors to sharing the Gospel. Jesus is our ultimate example. In Jesus, God became flesh so that He could share in our humanness and, therefore, to connect with us so that he could share the good news with us.
We often become insular in our Christian community, however. It’s comfortable there, and the effort to connect with people who do not share the most important aspect of our lives is hard work.
We sometimes vacillate between the groups of people with whom share certain commonalities like chameleons, fitting in where we go. It’s hard to maintain our distinctiveness as Christ followers among people who do not know Jesus. Yet, this is our calling.
The religious community in the first Century was insular. The religious leaders criticized Jesus for making those human connections with the world – the tax collectors, prostitutes, and sinners of his day.
If Jesus was born today, I am convinced he would be criticized for hanging out with the LGBTQ community, Muslims, and atheists. The people in those communities would be just as critical of Christ followers as they were in the 1st Century, yet our commission is to bridge the gap to share the good news. I don’t think the dynamics were any different when Jesus walked the earth in the flesh than they are today.
We cannot let our experiences define how we operate in the world. They can be good and bad, positive and negative, helpful in living out the Christian life and unhelpful, depending on our perspective. They can define us and bind us in our closedmindedness, or they can be tools for making critical connections in furtherance of the plans and purposes of God.
My thoughts today are inspired by something Preston Sprinkle said in response to a questions posed by a listener to his podcast, Theology in the raw. Sprinkle gets much criticism from within the Christian community for his efforts to bridge gaps with the modern world – especially the LGBTQ community.
I appreciate his heart and his attempts to make connections with the “sinners” of the world. Of course, we are all sinners. We know that, but we have a hard time putting it all in perspective. It’s difficult and sometimes messy work trying to remain pure and undefiled in the world and to “go into” the world at the same time with the Gospel.
One thing that he said seemed important enough for me to write it down. He said:
“I don’t determine my theology from other peoples experiences. You can’t. Which experience are you going to choose to determine it? .. . But I do think listening deeply to other people’s experiences should shape how we think theologically, how we hold on to our theology. Listening well to other people helps us put our theology into the conversation with real people.”
If you will indulge me, I am going to try to break down what I think he is saying. I think it is critical to our role as ambassadors of Christ to get this right.
Continue reading “Putting Experience into Gospel Perspective”
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