From: crawford@ben.dev.upenn.edu (Lauren L. Crawford)
Newsgroups: rec.music.christian
Subject: Re: What do you do when your child thinks Metallica is cool?
Date: 16 Nov 92 21:31:21 GMT
Organization: University of Pennsylvania

In article <1992Nov16.200434.26131@cbnews.cb.att.com> ajw@cbnews.cb.att.com (andrew.j.whitman) writes:
>In article <nestabro.721935285@nova> nestabro@nova.gmi.edu (Noel Estabrook) writes:
>And I don't think it's proper to fall back on the old, "Well,
>they heard the truth and they rejected it" line that I hear many
>Christians using in that situation.  They *didn't* hear the truth.
>They didn't hear it because the truth wasn't presented in such a 
>way that it addressed them as individuals.   

What was it Paul said -- something about becoming all things so that all
people would come to Christ?  I think that what you're saying is what he
meant.  

>But more importantly, they
>talked to me about what *I* believed rather than what *they* believed.
>People tend to hold on to their basic beliefs pretty tenaciously.  
>And they don't abandon them just because someone tells them that
>they're wrong.  I had to be shown in very specific, detailed ways
>how what I believed was an inadequate foundation upon which to build
>a life.  

I had an interesting discussion a couple of years ago with some
colleagues.  We were sitting around a table at a diner, and one of them
started talking about the anti-abortion "fanatics" -- she said she'd tried
to talk to them but it was impossible, they were incapable of listening,
etc.  Others agreed.  Normally, the coward in me would've won, but for
some reason I wasn't able to stay silent, so I told her I was opposed to
abortion and would be happy to talk about it with her.  

After an initial period of uncomfortable silence, she started in.  And the
others joined her (I was the only one opposed to abortion at the table). 
I listened a lot, and prayed (silently) a lot, and found that all I did
was ask questions.  My brother informed me after the fact that I used the
Socratic method to expose faulty thinking; I wasn't aware of it at the
time.  I just listened and then asked questions.  I couldn't even tell you
what all transpired, except that I remember something I asked one woman, who
had said she thought abortion was fine but shouldn't be used for birth
control.  I asked her why, if abortion was fine, shouldn't it be used for
birth control?  Why shouldn't it be used for gender selection?  No answer.

The upshot was, at the end of the discussion the woman who had started it
admitted:  "I guess I do think that abortion is taking human life.  I just
think that women should have the right to do that."  We all just sat
silently after that statement, and nobody looked very happy.  What could
they say?  She had just made my point for me, and in doing so it was far
more powerful than if I had made it myself.

I'm _not_ sharing this to get an abortion discussion going; I just wanted
to illustrate the point I think Andy is making.  Sometimes the best thing
to do is help a person dismantle her own beliefs, and that usually
isn't done by just pointing out how wrong she is.



-- 
The trick of reason is to get the imagination to seize the actual world --
if only from time to time.     -- Annie Dillard, "An American Childhood"
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Lauren Crawford  //  crawford@ben.dev.upenn.edu
Newsgroups: rec.music.christian