What a Heated Disagreement between Two Puritans Can Teach Us Today
When the Issue Isn’t the Issue
Recently, I found myself in a disagreement. In my work context, I have been setting a new direction. I discovered that a colleague I respect was worried it was the wrong direction, so we sat down to talk about it. After forty-five minutes of amicable and professional discussion, it was clear we still took a different view. And then something interesting happened: my colleague trusted me by opening up about her early life as the child of alcoholic parents. She explained how the changes I was proposing undermined the sense of her place in the world that she had built up over her adult years. Her honest reflection changed the whole complexion of our conversation.
I think that story illustrates an important dynamic in many conflicts: the issue may not be the issue. In other words, the concerns that we think are driving the disagreement are not the real issues at all, or at least may not be all of the issues or even the main issues. Beneath the surface or behind the immediate triggers of conflict lie other dynamics that remain out of sight to the combatants. In this case, the self-knowledge of my colleague was extremely helpful. At least she could recognize what was going on inside of her and had the courage to share that with me. But not everyone has that level of self-awareness. Sometimes we don’t know ourselves at all. As the Scriptures acknowledge, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jer. 17:9). So when disagreement breaks out, all sorts of issues may come into play that have little to do with the presenting concerns but have everything to do with hidden realities of the heart of which our opponent has no awareness, or even we have no awareness. If that happens, we are in trouble, for who can resolve what they cannot see?
When Christians Disagree
Tim Cooper
When Christians Disagree explores the lives of two opposing figures in church history, John Owen and Richard Baxter, to highlight the challenges Christians face in overcoming polarization and fostering unity and love for one another.
An Example from History
There’s another story that illustrates the same dynamic, but this one is nearly 400 years old. John Owen (1616-83) and Richard Baxter (1615-91) were two of the most significant figures within seventeenth-century English Puritanism. Both were dedicated, effective pastors; both were prolific authors and theologians; both were influential leaders of their respective streams within the Puritan tradition. So they shared an enormous amount of common ground. But they did not like each other, and the conflict between them, once it began, was lifelong. A while back I set out to understand why they came to such a deep and bitter animosity. I excavated the different layers of their relationship to identify the varied reasons why it went so badly wrong. I learned that the three most consequential reasons for their mutual dislike were all in place before they even met.
First, each one had a wildly different experience of the English Civil War that broke out in the mid-1640s. For Baxter, the war represented a personal trauma and a national disaster that perverted the gospel in England. In contrast, Owen sailed through the war largely unscathed and felt that it liberated and secured the gospel in England.
Second, these were two personalities that were never going to mesh easily. Baxter had no political tact and a determination to blurt out the truth as he saw it regardless of any personal offense that might be taken. Owen was a master political operator who bristled at any slight or criticism. Owen was easily exasperated; Baxter was simply exasperating.
Third, they formed their respective theologies in the face of contrasting threats and concerns. Baxter feared a theology that said we can live as we like and that our choices and actions play no part in our salvation. Owen feared a theology that said our salvation comes down to our own free will and choice. While they stood on shared theological ground, they looked out in opposite directions, each one fearing that the other was aiding and abetting the enemy. Acting out of those fears, they criticized each other in print.
It takes the effort to understand and to empathize—in an age of polarization when empathy seems to be in short supply.
When they finally met, they fell out over the issue of how to bring about church unity, and their relationship never recovered. But it is clear in hindsight just how much these other issues got in the way of any mutual understanding and only exacerbated their disagreement. Significantly predetermined by factors of experience, personality, and fear, this was a clash that had been years in the making.
The story of Owen and Baxter offers us several valuable lessons. Here’s one: at the outset of any conflict, we should try to stand back from the confronting issues and try to understand what other factors might be at work in our own hearts and in the hearts of those around us. Paul admonishes us: “if possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all” (Rom. 12:18). His meaning is obvious. We are not responsible for the actions of the other person, but for our part, we should do all we can to live in peace with those around us. I think that requires us to go as far as we can to understand the other person, to draw them out, to give them time, to listen with openness and honesty to the full texture of their concern, and to ask open-ended questions that give them the space to say what is really going on. Even then, we may disagree, but we’re much more likely to disagree amicably and peaceably.
This requires at least two qualities that can all too quickly evaporate in the burning heat of emerging conflict: trust and humility. Sadly, those qualities played little part in the acrimony between Owen and Baxter, but they served us well as my colleague and I spoke together. I am also a child of an alcoholic parent, so we found a deeply human affinity we did not know we had and the empathy that comes along with it. For most of our conversation, she did not say anything I had not heard or considered before. But as she opened up with courageous honesty about her underlying concerns, she helped me to see the situation in a new light. As a result, I adjusted my position and changed my proposal while she accepted the broad direction of what I was recommending. Rather than driving us further apart, carefully articulated disagreement brought us closer together.
There is no quick or easy route to that kind of understanding. It takes the effort to understand and to empathize—in an age of polarization when empathy seems to be in short supply. It takes time and mutual generosity. I know it will be harder to grant that generosity to some personalities than to others. Even so, it is worth the effort if we can recognize our common ground, truly understand what is animating the other’s concern, and, as far as it depends on us, do everything we can to live peaceably with all.
Tim Cooper is the author of When Christians Disagree: Lessons from the Fractured Relationship of John Owen and Richard Baxter.
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