[*AQuietPlace*]

more from the blog post:


"Benefits of Irenic Method

Your beliefs will be more real: No longer will you believe something simply out of a subjective emotional conviction that can be shared by all people of all world religions, but because of an honest wrestling with the issues. God gave us our minds and He expects us to use them. He has no favor for the naive (read the Proverbs). His desire is for us to see the truth and be convinced of it.

You will have degrees of conviction: Without an irenic method, all beliefs carry the same degree of conviction. They are black and white. You either believe them or you don’t. There is no in-between. While the irenic method will give you greater conviction on many things, it will also demand less assurance with other things. You will see that often, because of the strengths of the arguments for alternative truth claims (such as in eschatology), the evidence demands that we be very timid about setting them up as tests for orthodoxy or holding to some things too strongly. If God’s revelation is clear, then we speak with the same clarity. If God’s revelation is not so clear, we represent it as such. Being Christian does not mean that we know it all or have a secret decoder ring when it comes to difficult issues. We have to look to the evidence and take a stand, even if that stand says “I’m not sure” or “I don’t know.”

You will have a hierarchy of beliefs: As Roger Olson puts it, “Beliefs matter, but not all beliefs matter equally.”[1] The irenic method demands that we see that some beliefs are more important than others. In other words, all doctrines are not worth dying for on a hill. Once we begin to see this, we will have gained an audience because Christians will all be speaking the same language. While disagreements may still exist, people will see that there is a center of peaceful unity upon which we all agree. The list on Google suddenly gets much smaller. The person and work of Christ is the center of our theology and must be spoken of by all Christians with unity and conviction.

You will have disarmed all skeptics: No longer will you or others see our faith and other Christians in the likeness of a used car salesman, but as those who truly care about the truth. People will see that we have entrusted them with the ability and confidence to make their own decisions. All talk of knowledge being manipulative will necessarily cease for it will find no basis in reality.

Our world is confused. They feel betrayed and manipulated, but this does not mean that they are not seeking for answers. Don’t underestimate people’s ability to spot a fake. Ask yourself continually if you are a fake. Don’t be afraid to learn. Christ has not given us such a faith that demands blind adherence. Pursue truth will all your being. Trust that God is not afraid of questions and doubt. He is pretty big. I think He can handle honest doubt better than naïve commitment. Pursue theology irenically."