Charitableness

a Biblical thought...
The Jews received Paul's message with enthusiasm and met with him daily, examining the Scriptures to see if they supported what he said. A lot of them became believers, including many Greeks who were prominent in the community, women and men of influence. (Acts 17:11-12)

a Book thought...
While ever we keep Christ in the manger, we limit the impact the adult Jesus had on those he encountered. For it was an adult that Jesus modelled for us the sweet, naive, innocent lifestyle of a man who steadfastly refused to be drawn into the conflict and divisions of his time. (p103 Frost)

a Dave thought...
"Charitableness" (the postmodern substitute for charity) is something altogether different. It's a broad-minded, insouciantly tolerant, unrelenting goodwill toward practically every conceivable opinion. Its twin virtue—often labeled "epistemic humility'—is a cool refusal to hold any firm and settled convictions. These cardinal postmodern moral values are both seasoned with blithe indifference to the dangers of heresy.In other words, if you want to be "charitable" by the postmodern definition, you must always leave open the possibility that someone else's truth is equal to if not better than yours. You must never write off other people's beliefs completely. Above all, you must seek to be conciliatory, not confrontive. Bottom line: you pretty much take the position that nothing we believe is ultimately anything more than a personal opinion.Naturally, then, building bridges to non-Christian worldviews is deemed a better tactic than challenging error head on. Winning the admiration of unbelievers becomes vastly more important than demolishing the false ideologies that bind them. As a matter of fact, one of the best ways to gain non-Christians' respect and appreciation is by looking for common ground and then stressing those areas of agreement, rather than pointing out differences between what the non-Christian believes and what the Bible teaches. The more compliments and congratulations you can give to other points of view, the better. And the more your ideological adversaries like you at the end of the dialogue, the more gratified you are entitled to feel.

I have been in several conversations of late regarding diversity in theology. As in all movements
there are many varied opinions and beliefs, but how we accept and listen to one another is always the challenge. We seem to hang out or go and hear certain speakers we see eye to eye with and dismiss others we don't agree with. My personal belief is that that we grow and learn through many varied experiences. Last year I went and heard many speakers from Bishop Spong to Brian Houston, some struggle with this, but I believe as we work out our theology as a movement and as individuals we need to read and listen more to a variety of theologians.

Just a thought.