What's the role of conflict and controversy in Christian conversation? Steve Hall, a friend and local pastor, wrestles with the dark side of internet debate for local pastors. I hope you appreciate his balanced piece as much as I do. -Paul Pastor
In his autobiography, Cellist, Gregor Piatigorsky recalls meeting his hero, Pablo Casals, hailed as perhaps the greatest cellist of the twentieth century. Piatigorsky hoped to hear Casals play a piece, but was instead chagrined to find himself being enjoined to play for the master.
A wreck of nerves, Piatigorsky acknowledges he had never played worse than in that moment. He wrecked first Beethoven, then Schumann, then Bach. To his surprise, Casals cheered on each disastrous performance more than the last, clapping him on the back with cries of "Splendid! Magnifique!" Piatigorsky left, unable to understand why his hero should persist in such insincerity.
Years later, Piatigorsky and Casals met again. Over dinner they played for each other until Piatigorsky worked up the courage to ask Casals how he could have cheered on such poor performing at their last encounter. Of Casals, he tells us,
He reacted with sudden anger. He rushed to the cello. "Listen!" He played a phrase from the Beethoven sonata. "Didn't you play this fingering? Ah, you did! It was novel to me … it was good … and here, didn't you attack that passage with up-bow, like this?" He demonstrated. He went through Schumann and Bach, always emphasizing all he liked that I had done. "And for the rest," he said passionately, "leave it to the ignorant and stupid who judge by counting only the faults. I can be grateful, and so must you be, for even one note, one wonderful phrase." I left with the feeling of having been with a great artist and a friend.
There are many Casals in my life, people that do things I try to do, only they do them better. These are heroes that call me deeper into my own calling. I've not had the chance to meet many of them and embarrass myself as Piatigorsky did, though I did once share a drink with Nicholas Wolterstorff.
Thankful for thought leaders
I am a pastor at a small church whose only claim on coolness comes from our residence in the city of Portland, Ore. A generalist pastor, I find myself scrambling amidst sermon prep, leadership development, pastoral calls, website maintenance, community groups, Bible studies, gender-specific breakfasts.
As such I am deeply indebted to those heroes I'll dub simply as "Christian Thought Leaders," those women and men who funnel their energies into helping ministers like myself to think well about other disciplines: philosophy, sociology, and ecology. Through their work in racial reconciliation, economic and community development, and making some semblance of sense of particle physics, my ministry efforts get refocused and reformed in my attempt to let the gospel of Jesus break into the cultural landscape of my city like so many tree roots erupting the sidewalks of my neighborhood.
So to all you Christian Thought Leaders, for your incalculable service to the people of Jesus, thank you. For your years of toil in weird-smelling libraries, the hours in which you locked yourself away from your friends and family (thanks to them, too) in order to offer up your thoughts as a gift to the Church, thank you. For steeling your nerves against the process known as blog-based-book-reviews in which every man, woman, child, or iguana with an internet connection and access to your paperback or kindlebound blood, sweat, and tears can misunderstand, misrepresent, or just plain muddle your ideas, thank you. I am (I hope) a more thoughtful, circumspect person as a result of your work.
Many of you have put in the time and work requisite to hold your ideas with tenacity. For that, too, I honestly am grateful. Many of you disagree with each other deeply on issues that are not unimportant, and when you disagree with each other well, it actually helps me clarify my own thinking.
The knife's edge
But, as is true for so many of us, our greatest strengths can be the knife's edge of our greatest weaknesses. When you nitpick each other, read each other uncharitably, misrepresent each other, pile on each other over things that frankly could only seem important in a twitter-based world, it makes my job incredibly difficult.
See, the people I'm trying to introduce to the God-Man who died and then came back to life actually expect the church to act in such ways. "We shall know his followers by the way they claw each other in the face." When your spats become public enough for these folks to hear about them, it takes me that much more time to cut through the periphery to the core of Christian weirdness: that I actually believe a guy rose from the dead, and not just to prove it could be done, but because they, I, we needed him to. But it's not just that. In fact, it's not even mostly that.
It's mostly that in your posturing, name-calling, and fault-finding, you're teaching me, my fellow pastors, and the people in our congregations that this is how the body of Jesus works: never backing down, never assuming the best, and never holding your tongue (or tweet). As a result, our relationships and churches are being ripped apart by things that are far from center, not because we can't agree on issues that are important, but because we can't see clearly which things are important, let alone know how to disagree on those things and still love each other and work together.
I guess I wonder what it would be like if all our interactions, or at least all our public interactions were reminiscent of the warmth captured by Piatigorsky and Casals. I don't know about you, but I think I can be grateful for even one note, one wonderful phrase.
Steve Hall is a pastor in Portland, Oregon.
