RULES, HIDDEN REASONS, AND GATE-KEEPERS OF THE STATUS QUO

Sound rules (guidelines) serve to bring good results. This principle pertains to many endeavors, even to conversations. I have attended many conversation groups here in NYC. It seems that, increasingly, those which draw more people have resorted to using conversational rules which tend to facilitate a more satisfying group experience and maximize the probability that participants will return. Here is one typical set of guidelines:

·       Encourage everyone to participate

·       Listen to understand

·       Value everyone’s contribution

·       Respect each other

·       Express views but keep an open heart and mind

·       Maintain a humble posture of learning

Sound principles for building bridges and unity, right? I am even amazed to see the degree of compliance to these rules. Perhaps I shouldn’t be. There is nothing the matter with “respect each other” and “listen to understand.” As a Christian, I have no problem with these principles. Since we are each created in the likeness of God, we must show respect and civility to all. One way to do this is to make sure that we understand before we address what people are saying.

I also believe in humility, openness to new ideas, and continual self-scrutiny. However, rules often fail to capture the subtleties of human dynamics. Even legal code-books can be expressed very simply and concisely, but their laws also require many refinements and qualifications for which multiple volumes are required. The Ten Commandments are the same way. They are simple and concise but require the rest of the Bible (and even more) to explain and to properly apply them.

Let’s take an example – “Thou shalt not kill.” Very simple and concise, but it leaves out a lot – self-defense, warfare, capital punishment, and even broader considerations of what it means to kill someone. Jesus revealed that we can even kill with our words and in our heart.

This same consideration applies to conversational rules, even sound ones. They too require extensive commentary. Without this, they can be used as tools of repression, censorship, group-think, conformity, and gate-keepers of the status quo.

How can such rules be co-opted into the service of repression? This largely depends upon the rationale for these rules. The very group which promotes the above rules prefaced them with, “As we grow together and learn from one another we hope to build bridges of unity…” This means that any disruption of the group unity becomes a violation. Consequently, one participant wrote me this warning:

·       If you are to attend the event I'm hosting tomorrow, I feel the need to communicate something beforehand as we've attended many of the same events and have heard firsthand a number of people discuss a frustration that had involved how you shared your opinions/the frequency of sharing what you shared. I've come to learn the importance and life-changingness that your believing in God/Jesus has had in your life in your lowest lows, and most definitely appreciate the vulnerability of your sharing this. Mind you, I too, firmly believe there is a God, BUT similar to my also being a vegan and firmly believing my diet when adopted by you or anyone else would have tremendous benefits to self/spirit/the environment that you and I share, I do not treat meetings I attend as opportunities to have people sign on with the diet I've personally found life-changing. I consciously choose not to introduce this into public conversations NOT because there is a law against my sharing it, but out of respect to the boundaries and invisible social contract that is always in play. I personally have heard multiple people…expressing a true discomfort with your repeating that God/God forgiving you is what liberated you, and you having a tendency to repeat the same point, which has made people uncomfortable because they feel you are trying to impose your belief onto others in the room, whether they will it or not. And to put it frankly, proselytizing this idea in meetings/events when there are other goals and items on an agenda is simply not respectful or sensitive to others in the room. So, with the knowledge that boundaries HAVE been crossed on numerous occasions with your religious shares in multiple domains, you are still welcome to attend events I host, but it is expected that you and others in the room acknowledge these boundaries and not impose their relative truth, directly OR indirectly, upon others.

While it is true that I have raised the topic of “God” and even “Jesus” on numerous occasions, I’ve always tried to place my comments within the flow of the conversation, which sometimes was even centered on God and spirituality. Did I violate any written rules? Was I proselytizing? Well, everyone proselytizes for their own ideas, even if it is only to show that they are likeable, intelligent, or well-read. Everyone has their agenda. However, the fact that my agenda differed from theirs was unacceptable. The gate-keepers deemed that Jesus didn’t fit into the group-think or status quo, and I was to be silenced.

I told my critic that his response reflected his own bias. Meanwhile, all of the other group members where expressing their commonly held biases – Spirituality is a matter of their feelings or efforts to become more virtuous, God is simply an impersonal form of energy, and the unity of all humanity is the goal of true spirituality. As a result, one woman in the group humbly apologized for using the term “God” in a traditional way, aware that she had violated the “invisible social contract.”

While it is acceptable (even to me) to repeatedly express spirituality of this form, according to their “invisible social contract,” it was not acceptable for me to offer my response. Perhaps they perceived that I was violating their goal of unity.

Am I complaining? Perhaps, but I was deeply offended. My wife reminds me that this is the fate of the Christian, and she is correct. Jesus warns us:

·       “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours.” (John 15:18-20)

Nevertheless, it still hurts. I say this to you so that you might be prepared and not lose heart. Don’t worry that you are not up-to-the-task. Neither am I. However, as our Lord had revealed:

·       “This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel: Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the LORD of hosts.” (Zechariah 4:6)

The battle belongs to the Lord.