Charity in disagreement

Stub. A rule of speech, not a full ethic. If the page you came from tempts you to score a point at a person’s expense, come back here.

The rule

Peter’s sentence is the house rule: be ready to give a reason for the hope you have, and do it with gentleness and respect (1 Peter 3:15). Colossians 4:6 adds that the words should be gracious, seasoned, and able to answer a particular person. The reason matters. So does the temperature.

What charity is not

Charity is not pretending the disagreement is small. Christians really do think the Trinity, the cross, and the resurrection are true, and that some honored teachings in other communities are not. Saying “we all believe in God, so the rest is details” is not kind to a Muslim who has just explained tawhid, or to a Latter-day Saint who has just explained the Godhead, or to an atheist who has just said they do not believe in God at all. It erases them.

Charity is also not a soft voice in front of a slur. Do not use names they do not use for themselves as weapons. Do not call a neighbor a project. Do not tell a story about “those people” that you would not tell if they were at the table. If your clearest sentence only works as a joke, it is not ready.

What to do in the room

1. Ask what they think, and wait.
2. Say it back until they agree you have heard it. The “fair statement” section of an article is practice for this, not a script to read over them.
3. Then say where you differ, with one text both of you can see.
4. Leave them the last five minutes. A person who has been lectured does not owe you a conversion scene.

If you are writing for this wiki, the same steps are the outline of a good article: their view in words they would recognize, your starting point, the passages, the sources. Mockery does not survive review, even when the conclusion is one this wiki shares.

Scripture to open together

• 1 Peter 3:15–16.
• Colossians 4:5–6.
• James 1:19 — quick to hear, slow to speak. It applies to the Christian in the argument, not only to the person they are correcting.

Keep reading

• How to use this wiki
• The Trinity