Lessons from a strange conference

[anglomedved]

It was a strange conference. The title was innocent enough ‘If nature has an intelligence, why not draw inspiration from it?’. The name of the organization ‘Philosophy and Management’ told me that would be free-thinking rather than Christian. But the subject interested me, the organization is part-sponsored by my largest customer, and with a dearth of Christian intellectual life in Brussels, why not, I thought.

Once there, I looked around at the others. Their dress and smiling manner told me that this typical Brussels bourgeoise, with a heavy sprinkling of the ‘alternative consciousness’, NLP and other parts of the ‘religion light’ brigade. Grin and bear it, I thought.

It was not really a conference – most of the time we developed our own ideas in small groups (very ‘religion-light’ style).  I instinctively disliked the leaders, it was not well run, and I will not attend the rest of the series. But it did confirm a few things about my own approach to religion. I’ll share the first now, the next two are for subsequent postings.

1)      Theologian, keep your mouth shut.

At one stage I was asked ‘What do you think of this as a Christian theologian?’. I refused to comment. I can see many well-meaning Christians saying ‘You should have taken your chance to witness – in season and out of season’. The more I think back, the more I feel I was right. The other men at the table had been more open about themselves than usual. Importantly they were using their own and not borrowed language. OK, it was still a bit shallow, but no matter. If I had spoken as a theologian at that stage, in standard Christian religious language, they would have closed up, gone into argument mode, and we would have got nowhere. I am convinced that if we say that the image of God is already in people, then our role as theologians and pastors is to enable them to find their way back to this, in their own time and using their own language. The language of their truth.

More on this in my next posting.