Body Politics - quote summary

“In Sum: To be human is to be in conflict, to offend and to be offended. To be human in the light of the gospel is to face conflict is redemptive dialogue. When we do that, it is God who does it. When we do that, we demonstrate that to process conflict is not merely a palliative strategy for tolerable survival or psychic hygiene, but a mode of truth-finding and community building. That is true in the gospel it is also true, mutatis mutandis ("things being changed that have to be changed”), in the world.” (pg. 13 Body Politics)

Author John Howard Yoder’s concludes the first chapter of Body Politics (“Binding and Loosing”) with a wonderful summary statement that is obvious to me after 10 years of church ministry, yet is a wonderful reminder. The timely reminder simply states that as people of faith we will disagree or have conflict with one another. Yoder’s statement has a lot of credence when we look at the early church and its various faith/social disagreements that occurred with regularity. Much of the New Testament – Gospels, Acts, Epistles -are dealing with conflict between people of faith. In addition, a broader view of scripture including the Old & New Testament it is easy to see the continual conflict between God and humankind as well as continual conflict between the people of God amongst themselves along with its enemies.

In addition to scripture, our church history is also a witness to conflict – The Great Schism 1054, 16th Century Reformation, 17th Century Age of Reason/Enlightenment and today's Postmodernism to name a few. This isn’t meant to imply that all denominational or congregational disagreements are of the same merit, some disagreements are indeed frivolous. But the fact remains as Yoder indicates, conflict amongst the people belonging to God is to be expected and seen as a complimentary necessity in maturing and growing the body (and individually) into becoming more like our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Our Lord speaks clearly of the model in Mathew 18.

One could argue that if people of faith within the church are predominately “agreeing” amongst one another (or in our church relationships) we are most likely avoiding mature conversations of substances in the name of so called “peace”. In his famous Letter from a Birmingham Jail, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. embraced a two-tiered definition of peace, arguing that negative peace is the false assumption that where there is no outright conflict, struggle or war that there is peace and unity. However Dr. King correctly noted that having no war doesn’t mean you’re not a prisoner of fear or a prisoner of hate. Such tension or unspoken secrets remain though silenced (often with the threat of force). Far too often this is how we function in church and in this life. Dr. King challenged that our goal or our desire should be towards positive peace that constitutes justice, truthfulness and honesty that will result in conflict but over time will produce true unity as Jesus prayed in John 17 within the brotherhood and sisterhood of Christ.