Wisdom from N. T. Wright

Reason is in short supply right now, and that is always dangerous. When everybody feels strongly that they know what to do, but nobody stops to think, you will sometimes find that common sense is prevailing; but you may also get lynchings, racist attacks and the cheerful abolition of ancient rights.

Reason is on the side of the angels. When someone says in a debate, What I feel is […]," the chair ought to intervene. What people feel is neither here nor there in a debate. If someone says "I like salt" and someone else says "I like pepper", they are not having a debate.

What matters is what they think. Sadly, it is possible for many people to feel strongly something which comes to be recognized as dangerous nonsense. The 20th century should have taught us that, if nothing else. Feelings are hugely important, but if we rely on them as our guid, we might as well take a compass bearing on a wild goat. When feelings rule, debaters become demagogues.

Much of our contemporary discourse – I sat through two days of general synod a week ago – had degenerated into a competition between the relative woundedness of people's feelings. I am not saying that wounded feelings do not matter, only that saying "I'm more hurt than you are" cannot settle and argument on a point of principle. Unfortunately, since victimhood is the only high moral ground left after the collapse of reasoned discourse, speeches become harangues, nae-calling replaces respectful engagement and party spirit trumps public wisdom. […]

There is a lot about postmodernism I like, but when it comes to the law of the land, I want words that say what they mean and mean what they say. This is necessary in order to build a society – or, indeed, a church – of trust, the precondition of genuine debate. You have to trust your opponents to say what they mean and mean what they say, and you have to earn their trust by doing the same.

Here again, contemporary culture lets us down. The hermeneutic of suspicion has become our default mode, encouraging us to lump issues into bundles and people into camps. It is much easier that way: it stops you have to think, or engage in real debate.

The Church desperately needs to learn once more the gentle art of reasoned discourse, of respectful engagement, of real debate. It is a better way to be Christian; it is a better way to be human. As Snoopy might have said, clarity ain't everything, but unclarity ain't anything.

--N. T. Wright