Question as Rhetoric

Often strings of questions are rhetorical tools and tend be too uncharitable in debate. The nature of a question is that it requests and answers.

Usually strings of questions are rhetorical tools meant to trap and not question while providing little the debate oneself. You see questions contain assumptions within.

I am convinced the truth shines in the light. To obscure ones position behind a mound of questions forcing the person you are debating with to only speak and providing nothing to the debate is hiding in the shadows.

You see truth must be based on content. To try to undermine positions without content is uninteresting. You see to prick a position to point out an oddity is of little use.

You see worldviews are filled with many oddities and to point out this or that issue with a theology without positively presenting an appealing worldview oneself is uninteresting and unhelpful.

In theological debates I believe positions should be positively expounded. Too many debates now days tend to be point out errors in that or that without positively placing another system in place.

To point out an error or hole and offer of replacement view is of course interesting. The negative is also answered with a positive articulation. But the purely negative articulation against a theology or worldview is uninteresting.

At times journalism in Christianity suffers from offering negative without positive. Whatever is good and holy is what we should thing of.

Sometimes pastors or theologians will fail and make a careless comment or questionable but not terrible decision and there is much discussion of the issue without clear reason. Why are we focusing on the error of this person? It is often relatively small and yet much discussion happens.

But where is the positive take? You see we often become theological gossipers guilty of more law-breaking than the pastor in his small failure.

To me there is a need for charity. You see many of us in our own work make errors. Carelessness or say ill thought out ideas. And yet as a work tends to be private there is not much to do about our actions.

You see we should be treated as we want to be treated and not expound an unrealistic Hollywood gossip tendency onto high profile pastors and theologians.

Contending for Faith

The bible tells us to contend for the faith. There is a degree to which the Christian must be willing to fight at least intellectually for his beliefs.

But we are always to love. Love is the Christian virtue. To win without love is not Christian.

Many fields of thought teach charity in debate. Few of those fields practice charity in debate consistently.

As Christians we need to have charity in our debates. We need to love those we debate with and respect them.

You see many intelligent people believe errors. The world often does not act in this way. To disagree with me means you are not intelligent is the common perspective on the street and in the media.

We need to view others we disagree with in a respectful way. "You are wrong but I love you and know that you have many logical reasons for your beliefs" needs to be the way we live.

You see we live by faith. There is strong reason for our faith. But not absolute proof. If it was absolute we would not be living by faith.

The bible says for us to hold onto the faith. And that faith ends in the final day. You see we live by faith from the start to the end of the Christian life.

I believe Christianity is the most sensible belief system. It explains everything, but you see it requires faith.

There is no 100% proof. There is always reason one can doubt and reasonably so. We are not shown everything.

This is why charity is needed. You see every system has reason to have some doubt it in. No system is locked tight with a perfect logical proof.

This may exist but you see we are always so small. Ultimately the bible speaks truthfully about our smallness. It shows us that we are weak and feeble and that is why we cannot understand.

The true psychology of the bible is one of its most interesting proofs. It exposes who we are and that we are not as smart or good or logical as we thought.

Theological Charity

A certain lack of theological charity seems to exist in the modern church. A lot of theologians and pastors now days have a spotlight on them.

Often it seems that they are under intense criticism for their beliefs simply because they hold a few unpopular positions. You see other theologians of similar stature make mistakes of similar type and they are given a pass because the do not hold to unpopular positions.

Christian media actually intensifies this injustice. Really the Christian media organizations of the world need to do some soul searching at times to find out what speaking in love is.

You see we cannot speak in love without being charitable and the desire to pile on to theologians or pastors with certain views we do not agree with is a sinful tendency.

Love is wanting good for our enemies. Many of these pastors are not even considered enemies by the Christian media but you see the media pile onto them at every turn.

I suppose it is the nature of journalism of our age, but you see that this sort of journalism has not become subservient to the revealed will of God.