lent day 43 - debates and arguments

I was most heartened yesterday when listening to a debate on radio 4 to hear an audience of young people ( mostly university students I think) talking extremely intelligently about the morals of citizenship.   The arguments went back and forth - is it more important to look after those known to you than strangers? - who is our neighbour? - what is society?  etc.  Each argument had its own inherent logic and was presented clearly and with passion.   It made for good listening and it cheered me to know that critical thinking and debating skills are still alive and kicking in our educational institutions.  And indeed in society at large - whatever you conceive ' society' to be.

It reminded me of my student days.  I was fortunate enough to be a student when we all got grants and there were no fees and nobody ended up with £40k debt.   I did learn lots of useful things from my two degree courses, but what I remember most about those days was sitting up till the wee small hours arguing heatedly with people who had radically different views from mine about all sorts of subjects.  Not only did those discussions help me to realise that not everyone thought like I did, and that some of them might be just as right in their views as I was in mine, but they provided me with some of the enduring friendships of my life.  Learning how to debate, and challenge and be challenged and disagree and yet remain friends is a vital life lesson.  Part of my concern about the increasing cost of a university education is that fewer people will opt to study this way.  And I have no doubt they can learn what they need to learn in better, less expensive and more productive ways in order to get jobs.  But there is something about the community of young thinkers which a university so often is, the space and time it provides for intense and meaningful relationships to develop which is valuable and quite possibly unique.

I remember going to tutorials where we were all supposed to be discussing some principles of economics ( yes I actually studied economics as part of my Management degree - bet you didn't know that eh?) and ending up talking about where the universe was expanding into and if that presupposed the existence of God!  Critical thinking was encouraged and expected and was normal.  Tangents were OK.  Give and take was the order of the day.

Jesus cultivated a community of disciples around Him and challenged their thinking in every conceivable way.  They must have debated and argued and talked and questioned late into the night on many many occasions.  We see in the gospels that the disciples quite often argued amongst themselves and fell out with each other over their differing interpretations of Jesus's teaching.  This is partly because Jesus called twelve people who would never normally have crossed paths, let alone lived in community together.    Somewhat like a cohort in college or uni, the disciples were a diverse bunch.   Mostly in life we tend to congregate round people who are very similar to ourselves.  I know that in higher education we are congregating with people with a similar academic ability to us, but in other ways we are getting to rub alongside people we would not get the chance to meet in any other setting.    Tax collectors and fishermen and doctors and carpenters and women. 

 The disciples theology was dismantled and reconstructed during their three years on the road with Jesus.  Their minds were blown time after time by miracles and parables.   And I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that they had many many laughs together because Jesus is the warmest, kindest, funniest , wittiest person ever to have lived.   He knew how to diffuse an argument.   But He seems to have allowed arguments to arise every now and again because theres nothing actually wrong with a bit of healthy debate. 

One of the things which concerns me about the technology generation to which my kids belong is that they might lose the ability to debate and argue and wrestle with ideas in community with others.  If you look to Google for all your answers..... well..... that's a bit depressing isnt it?  And if all your conversation is remotely conducted through screens....  ( says the woman who is talking to her friends via a blog  😉)  If Jesus thought it was important to gather a small, diverse group around Him and talk to them for three years then maybe that dynamic should be important to us too.  It's interesting to note that for all their differences in learning and culture and experience and for all the petty rivalries which had surfaced in the group over the course of three years, when it came to the crunch the disciples stuck together, defended each other, worked as a team and ultimately were prepared to die for their common understanding of who Jesus was.    Their love for Him was greater.  His death and resurrection put all their differences into perspective. 

The lesson for today - get round people who challenge you and make you think. Make sure those people arent all like you.   Embrace difference.   Put down your gadgets and take the time to talk face to face and think out loud.  Dont be afraid to debate and disagree and listen and modify and stand firm and be passionate.  Keep your love for Jesus as the main thing.  And you might just find that together we are all stronger than apart and that the gates of hell will not prevail against us.