When We’re Too Good at Fighting

Last week, Answers in Genesis (AiG) opened their 510 foot replica of Noah’s Ark.

That same day, my Facebook feed filled with other Christian organizations criticizing AiG. Many of my friends, too, posted their own scathings.

I couldn’t help but think: wait, we’re all Christians here…why are we shooting at each other? Because we disagree with something we can’t prove? In case you’re not familiar, AiG believes God created the earth about 6,000 years ago. Others believe he did along the 4.5 billion year timeline. (And there’s a whole smattering that believes something in-between.)

But we still can’t prove it either way, because it’s a question of historic investigation. We can’t recreate any of that. All we can do is deduce or abduce based on the evidence. And even that’s based on our judgement.

We can take a vote. And we can all agree on the exact same everything. But even that won’t prove that it’s right. That only proves we know how to agree. Which we don’t.

And that’s okay.

Removing disagreement is not the end-all.

But it’s how we handle that disagreement—that’s what makes Christians stand out.

In John 17, Jesus prays that all of his followers will exist in unity just like he and the father do.

That’s a pretty air-tight simile.

I think it would be a bit naive to think Jesus prayed that believing we wouldn’t be a group of dissenters. Of course not. He knew us. Yet he still prayed for us to have that rock-solid unity.

I think instead of focusing our efforts on showing why we’re wrong, we should be focusing on showing where we’re right. Like: we’ve all been rescued. And, good news for all, there’s still lots of room on this boat.