a time to be silent and a time to speak,
Ecclesiastes 3:7b
But knowing which is which is the tricky bit. Anyone reading threads may have noticed that I don't feel like now is the time to be silent. A huge part of me is saying; walk away let them have the last word, its not worth it. The conversation is so predictable in its tone and direction it's been had a thousand times is this really going anywhere?
The other part of me however for whatever reason is not going to let go of this one. Partly because while I began with some critiques and questions about the original post I now feel like I'm defending its main point.
During the discussion women collectively or individually have been labeled as boring, lacking in humor, aggressive, arrogant and of course feminist. Feminist I do not consider an insult so go ahead. I will dispute that women in general are boring or lacking in humor but I possibly am but I never read anywhere that that was a sin or that the point of threads was to make people laugh.
While the phrase 'you sexist, patriarchal, misogynistic, fart stop mansplaining things to me' has gone through my head many times, I have not written it and have repented of thinking it because these are all human beings I am interacting with and because I am determined in my commitment to non-violence in thought word and dead (it's gonna be a long journey).
But its so difficult to move the conversation about gender forwards. 90% of the time we are discussing each others motivations, experiences and emotional responses rather than answering each others points.
At the end of the day is there any point me discussing this with a complimentarian? If we fundamentally disagree with each others reading of scripture can the dialogue move forward? Are either of us actually even replying to each other or are we writing for the audience in our head still deciding on their theology? How do we get away from the trap of throwing passive aggressive insults at each other, concentrating on each others emotions rather than answering each others points? How do we get good at this discussion?
Am I really going to trall through 'why men don't listen and women can't read maps' so I can say yes I did read it and here's what I think. Would it be a productive use of time?
What ground rules do we need for productive conversation? Would love to hear others thoughts and experiences.
It depends on a whole host of factors...like what we see as 'forwards'. If you think 'forwards' is changing complementarians into egalitarians then we might run into trouble. If on the other side the notion of 'forwards' is to show how your reading of scripture is inherently liberal then we're going to meet some stiff resistance.
ReplyDeleteSo what is forwards? Working our how the two sides can work together across differences? Or simply the fact that that despite the differences we can honour one another and listen to each other (even if that means going over the same old ground one more time).
I'm enjoying reading your blog, glad Hannah Mudge sent me your way