FatherSpiritSon.com
"Unity Among Believers"
Throughout the years, even within groups of Christians, we've spent a great deal of time clashing on issues with one another and challenging each other's viewpoints on an array of stances. Many of us are aware of some major differences that exist in the theology of Protestant churches as opposed to that of the Catholic Church. Even if one were to consider the differences amongst members of one particular denomination, those of us that have done just a little discussion in any of the areas of potential contention, understand there to be many topics that could be grounds for discussion, disagreement, or even arguments amongst our brothers and sisters in Christ. Few if any of us have all together avoided getting animated in heated debate or at least somewhat emotionally charged when we find someone with conflicting viewpoints to our own. Thankfully many of us have also learned, through our share of experiences in these kinds of situations, that sometimes we might be better off not focusing so much on our differences. Instead we should try to build each other up, give constructive feedback and criticism, and pray for one another among other things. Even though there are times when discussion of these potentially contentious matters may bear some fruit and help to further the understanding of our varying points of view, for the most part I think that it may cause more headaches than solve problems.
This is not to say that there is no place for challenging theological viewpoints. There certainly will come times where employing sound judgment and mutually respectful discussion in order to determine whether or not we may agree or disagree on an issue at hand would be of benefit. With that said, I think far too often we place too much emphasis on these points of technical conflict, and instead of agreeing to disagree we continue to push the envelope further. Instead of investing this time spent in argument to further God's kingdom, we choose to beat a dead horse with each other and gain little ground in that time. These types of argument I would guess seldom build up one another, but instead tend to become a vehicle of dissension among believers. If I had to guess, after a certain threshold of mutual understanding, any continued discussion/argument may prove to be more counterproductive than helpful. Once we have understood each others points in ample detail and neither of us is convinced in one way or another, we should let the issue go amongst ourselves in order to avoid unintended conflict. Once that point has been reached we would be doing one another a favor to "agree to disagree", because it is clear that the discussion is not producing anything of value and furthermore may serve to frustrate those involved.
One of the issues that I think has gotten its fair share of attention is that of Calvinist or Arminianist views. As Christians some of us may be undecided as to which view we might prescribe to, while others of us may be quite firm in one direction or another. In either case, specifically when discussing these two distinct viewpoints, there seems to be a substantial number of verses to support each of them. This doesn't mean that the bible is contradicting itself or incoherent in any sense of the word, but it does mean that some of us may not agree on the interpretation of the specific scriptures that may relate to these two perspectives. To me, I lean a bit more towards an Arminian view, but I can understand why others might ascribe to the Calvinist side more adamantly. This article's purpose isn't to necessarily provide specifics on what each side entails, if you are curious in learning more about this there are a vast number of Christian websites that would go into great detail on each side of the coin here (ie: carm.org, godandscience,org, and many other apologetics inclined ministries and websites), but the main point I wanted to make in this example is that for those of us who choose one of these views - I don't think that we should allow this choice to steer us away from other brothers and sisters in Christ who think differently than us on this one particular matter among others. There will come a day when all of these sorts of issues will be answered, and whether one of us is wrong or the other is right isn't of vast importance on certain matters like this one. The most important thing is that we are grounded in the truth of scripture in terms of salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. (V*1).
It is important to note that the other matters are clearly not to be trivialized or deemed unimportant because there might be some contextual based disagreement at hand, it just means that our different interpretations will not make or break our eternity. Once we have realized that our family, friends, or anyone who might be at odds with us on a matter is cemented in a standpoint - we should try to focus on areas of common ground and mutual understanding instead of consistently bringing up that which may cause us to become opponents of one another rather than the support we need to be for each other. I think this basically applies across the board regardless of what relationship we have with the person, but clearly we need to be especially careful with closed loved ones that we interact with on a daily basis. Our significant others, close friends and co-workers that we associate with regularly based on circumstances, or our siblings would be pretty diverse examples. Yet they might share the common element that all of them should be treated with love and we should consider their best interests as well as what might benefit our particular relationship best.
A good thing to point is that in many of these intricate circumstances, depending on the item of argument/disagreement, there is clearly no "one size fits all" solution or particular way to handle them optimally. Sure we can come up with guidelines and consider their best interests. We could try our best not to offend them and make our best effort to offer our opinion without watering it down. The difficult thing about it is that these are very difficult to achieve simultaneously. Some matters will serve to really test the bounds of any relationship, but we need to prayer over these matters and try our best not to cause these things to push loved ones away from our company because of it. Clearly there are many areas that could set this kind of situation up, and while we can have countless issues that could arise where we are in mutual agreement.
With the exception of husbands and wives, and possibly parents and children, I would venture to say that if an issue does end up causing a severing of the relationship in many cases you should allow it to happen and let things run their course without going out of your way to keep them in your company. After a point when it becomes obvious that the issue is causing continual strain, it is probably of mutual best interests to just let yourselves part ways. Do not run after someone who has made it clear that they do not want association with you any longer. There are issues that no matter how hard we try to be in harmony, there is no middle ground and it may be a large enough issue that we should just allow them the space they need to reflect on what has been discussed. This is likely a rare occurrence I would imagine among believers, but I would not doubt that from time to time it could surely happen given the right (or should I say wrong) points of contention. Do not attempt to water down what you hold as true in order to maintain a friendship or even to make one of your family members feel better. I would value being genuine, authentic, and your actual self is more important than trying to be on good terms with everyone and pretending that everything is perfect when there is an obvious inherent problem with the interactions at hand. Granted issues of this caliber may be on a higher magnitude than being Arminian or Calvinist. By higher magnitude, I do not mean that they are necessarily more or less important, but I more-so mean that the issue seems to prop up more often than not in day to day relations with the person. A good area to illustrate this point might be something like a stance on curse words, where even believers seem to have different points of view on the matter. I am not the kind of person who goes out of my way to point out every time someone uses God's name in vain(even though I do believe it is a violation of one of the Ten Commandments and is extremely important to avoid for a Christian) or take offense to someone who uses vulgar language in my interactions with them. If it got to a point of excessiveness, and they happened to be a very close friend, I might ask them to try to tone down their language when they are around me (this hardly ever happens to be frank) or I might try to be less involves with the person. The word of God is clear that we are to avoid perverse speech. (V*2) I am not immune to letting something slip from time to time, but in general I do try to avoid offensive language as often as I can, as it is not an accurate representation of Christ or Christianity as a whole by any means.
Even if this premise is accepted there is a pretty broad range of "acceptable" and "unacceptable" words, and some people really butt heads when it comes to deciding which words fall in each of these categories. This reminds me of a verse (I think it's in Romans), which talks about everything being permissible but not everything being beneficial. It goes on to say that not everything builds up. I would say if the word is questionable and does not really serve a serious purpose, why get into a habit of using it in your every day vocabulary? It will not produce anything of value to go out of your way to incorporate them in your speech, let alone any actual profane language, so it's probably best for you to try to rid it from your habits. Anything that cannot be comfortable to say in terms of specific wording in front of young children, your parents, or a large group of people - is probably something that should be avoided in every conversation. If you make a habit of using vulgar language, you may even have to start drawing lines and thinking about what you can say in a classroom versus what you might say when you go out with a friend or two, and that might still be different from what you would say to your girlfriend or wife when it is just the two of you together. I am trying to say it really simplifies your life and causes you a great deal less effort to just be the same person in all these scenarios. Granted in certain cases we need to consider our audience for practical purposes, but common sense will typically dictate when such a scenario comes to pass.
Just to add a brief excerpt of my own life, personally I do believe I have great friends of various backgrounds and faith (several of whom are Christian, but others who are not Christian), and we have fabulous friendships. They know that I attempt to never compromise what I truly believe in order to become more agreeable, and I would expect no less from them. Even if someone is of a different faith, I would rather they be their true selves around me rather than falsely embracing the Christian faith. If they get called in their hearts to consider a relationship with Jesus, to God be the glory - that would be fantastic. I will not hold it against them that they have not had that calling, and although I will talk to them about how important it is from time to time - I do not consider them any less of a friend for not being on the same page as I am. God does not interfere with free will, how much less should I - yes exactly impossible. Forcing Christianity on to someone not only doesn't work, it causes more harm than good in terms of building God's kingdom. Once you have planted a seed by sharing your faith and the gospel message, let God do the rest in their hearts and minds. Hopefully they will realize the truth on their own accord through God's inspiration.
At the end of the day we should aim to respect that we aren't going to be on the same page on every single instance of Christian living. There are enough situations and scripture where there is a lot of room to be on the same page, but it is unrealistic to expect even our closest family and friends to be in perfect accordance on every detail. My friend Jim Sager and I both agree on a vast majority of Biblical related topics, that is why we chose to work together to form the FatherSpiritSon website and why we have had little to no major disagreements over the years. This is not to say we always agree on every little thing, but we do share a lot of common ground. For those areas that have come up in article topics, we make sure to approve of each other's work and do not post content that either of us might be firmly against. We also aim to be as Biblically accurate as possible without compromising it, and the minute we notice any questionable material in our own or each others work we immediately rectify it. Some articles that are based on our opinion that are not referenced in scripture, or that are not concretely stated by the word of God are made clear to be theoretical or speculative either in the content itself, the title of the article, or both. This is not to say that the site is 100% error free, but we try to make it so and aim to correct anything that is brought to our attention that might be erroneous. It is integral for us to ensure that if any error(s) are found or an individual has any questions or comments related to the material on our page that our e-mail is always open to site visitors (fatherspiritsonmail@yahoo.com).
*Last word - Although we haven't completely ruled out having comment sections and/or forums on our webpage for the future, we realize that these kinds of measures would take a lot of moderation and support
that we may not be equipped to provide at this time. We will consider these options in the future if it is viewed as something that would be appreciated, once we have the option to dedicate resources to getting this in motion in the future. We realize that many would like to have more interactive dialogue with other site visitors and with ourselves, and at a certain point it is not outside the scope of the FatherSpiritSon Ministry to consider these options in the future. With that said, the time is not present yet. We hope that you are inspired and challenged by our articles, and hope that they continue to help you understand Biblical topics as much as they serve to help me understand them in the process of researching and writing the materials presented. Thank you for your time spent browsing our website, and I will pray that God continues to bless you all! Please do the same for Jim and myself as we strive to make FatherSpiritSon a top priority in our ministry to share the gospel.
-Victor Nunez
V*1- NKJV Ephesians 2:8 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, (does not clash with James 2:24 ( Read http://www.carm.org/verses-showing-justification-by-faith for more details.) Sidenote- FatherSpiritSon is not affiliated with the linked site, but it does have a detailed reasoning on the matter and I think it is a good reference for those who want to read more detail on the topic of justification by faith.
V*2- NKJV Proverbs 4:24 24 Put away from you a deceitful mouth, And put perverse lips far from you.