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======Advent 18: Conflicts Among Christians ...======
Wendnesday, Dec 18, 2013. How do we deal with different opinions among Christians?
Of course, there are many different ideas among Christians about how a church should
be run, how the service should be organized. There are different ideas on many
other parts of life ...
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**Christians working or living together ...**
There are many conflicts in life. There are conflicts about ressources. There
are conflicts about decisions. There are conflicts about style, about communication,
about almost everything which we have or do. Different people have different
opinions, and where they depend on each other or where they have to share
ressources, there will be conflicts arising.
How do we deal with conflicts. There are various levels. Modern societies are using
procedures, to deal with conflicts. There are processes, how to come to decisions
with a group. When the group members accept the process, they can accept a decision
even if they have a different idea of what should be done. Democracy with elections
and parties and government is such a procedure. We accept some government, since
it has gained its legitimity by a procedure, not necessarily because we like it.
Usually one would expect that the community of Christians is different from those
who do not believe in Christ. The reason here is Christ himself. He is the peace
of God for us. In him, we have given up ourselves anyway. So there should be no
reason for us to fight about ressources or about preference, since in Christ we give
preference to the other person anyway - is it?
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**Not that easy! ...**
**
You might laugh out loudly! Indeed, the daily experience with others is not like
that. We do not live in a community, where everyone adapts to the needs and ideas
of the others all the time. We do not experience that - not in the church, and not
anywhere else. But why do we not experience it when we are in community with other
Christians? First, we need to note that this glass is not completely empty:
I think we DO experience it to some extent. When we are together with friends, they
will try to help us, will listen to what we want and need, and give it quite some
weight when it comes to decisions. The same happens when we are together with
brothers and sisters in the Lord. As friends, we act like this - and our friends do
as well.
But second, we do experience difficulties with peace. It is not that easy. It is not
that clear what is the right way in many different questions, and it is not possible
just to give up your own preferences completely all the time. When we generate a
community where some less perceptive people control the group, just because their
ability to listen is weak, that cannot be the solution to the community. When you
start to balance their opinion, you run into a conflict right away.
So in the advent time, where the word peace is used exessively, we need to be aware
that the peace we talk about is first one, which comes from God himself through Jesus.
It is a peace for our heart, to be forgiven and to be accepted by the Lord - completely.
It is not a superficial peace, which would wipe out all conflicts which naturally
arise from our different path, our preferences, our personal history, our skills etc etc. Peace is more a work task to us, than it is a fact which is already there with
all its details. But the beginning has been made in Jesus.
(Roland Potthast)
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