Photini and the Pharisees

Jesus says to (not-yet-Saint) Photini at the well -- "Go get your husband." She answers, "I have no husband." Jesus says, "What you say is true. You have had five husbands and the man you have now is not your husband."

Pause the video here. Pretend you don't know the rest of the story. What would a normal person reply to Jesus?

• "Whoever told you that was lying."
• "Well, we're getting married next spring. Probably."
• "Somehow I have to feed my kids and myself."
• "Do you often hang around wells at mid day harrassing unaccompanied women?"

Instead she says, "I see that you are a prophet." In contrast to the self-full, partially true replies I made up, hers is a self-empty reply that states a simple truth and addresses the real thing that is happening here. She is quite self-assured, being willing to banter with a Jewish rabbi, but not arrogant or defensive. Her lack of fear allows her to recognize and respond to the truth.

Another time, the scribes and pharisees ask Jesus what his authority is, where it comes from. He agrees to answer if they first answer his question to them: Was the baptism of John from God or from man? They debate among themselves -- if we say "from God" he will ask why we didn't follow John; if we say "from man" the crowd may riot at us.

Pause the video here. What is entirely missing from their discussion? The truth! They don't ask themselves whether or not John's baptism was indeed from God or from man. Their deliberation and their answer ("We don't know.") are self-full and entirely ignore the substance of the question. Their fears and self-concern govern their response and make truth invisible to them.

The first lesson I suggest is that we ourselves have to put on the truth-focused self-confidence and self-forgetfulness of St. Photini. By "put on" I don't mean "fake it" but rather as one might put on winter clothing or armor. Put on Christ. I will return to this idea another day.

The other lesson is we need to recognize the degree to which our interlocutor is subordinating truth to fear or self-interest, and we need to adapt our approach and our love accordingly.

How can we adapt?

Love: If we see the other not as a willful, obdurate, insincere sophist, but rather as a fellow soul that is wearing chains and blinders, we can feel compassion (com-passion) rather than irritation and fear. This does not mean our behavior becomes all lovey-dovey; but we can avoid treating the person as an inconvenient, frustrating, misbehaving object.

Approach: We can focus less on the interlocutor and instead focus on reaching the audience; or we can try to reduce the role fear and self-interest are playing in the interlocutor. The most important lesson is not to become like the blinded interlocutor, not to become fearful or self-concerned ourselves. And usually (but not always) it does no good to hammer on the truth if fear or self-concern is in charge.

There is always an audience

A long time ago I read a book by Erving Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. One image has stayed with me -- someone cuts in front of a person standing in a checkout line. The wronged-against one turns to the people behind him and makes a whole-body "Whatcha gonna do?" gesture -- hands outstretched, palms upward, shoulders shrugged, eyes rolled upward. Goffman's point was that in public spaces we are always in front of an audience, to which we play.

Even if only two are present, there will still be audiences. Afterwards, one of the two may relate the conversation to others. And conversations rattle around inside the head of each participant afterwards -- there is the participant "me" who was part of the real-time conversational drama, but there is also the reflective "me" who replays the conversation later. The latter is a real audience.

In an online discussion group, an exchange of messages between two disputants may have readers for months or years afterwards. Perhaps search engines bring readers there based on terms used during the exchange.

So although people's behavior and much apologetics literature focuses on the two disputants, the real scope of action is much different, including at a minimum the immediate onlookers and probably also people as yet unknown.

Indeed, if we are trying to create space for the Holy Spirit to work in, the audience may well be a more fruitful target than the visible opponent. If the opponent is rude or argues mechanically or appears to value victory more than charity or truth, then our words and behaviors are likely to have zero effect on him or her but may have significant effect on the present and future audience. If we are generous and careful and make limited points we may succeed in planting itches among the onlookers and providing many openings to the Holy Spirit.

Don't swing for the bleachers

When I was growing up in Philadelphia, the lead-off batter for the Phillies was Richie Ashburn, uniform #1. His job, and his skill, was to get on base, somehow - walk, get a solid hit, dribble a ball between the shortstop and third baseman, bunt, whatever. Wikipedia says, "Ashburn was a singles hitter rather than a slugger, accumulating over 2,500 hits in 15 years against only 29 home runs." After he was on base, other players would advance him. Of course in general the fourth batter in a line-up was a power hitter, the clean-up batter, whose job was to get a multi-base hit, sending previous batters across home plate.

When I went on a short-term mission to Tanzania, one of the catch phrases I grabbed onto was, "You don't convert people, the Holy Spirit converts people."

That slogan, using "convert" in a wider sense, is the starting point for this rhetoric. The Richie Ashburn version of the slogan is: "Don't try for the home run. Get on base, somehow. Leave further progress to the batters following you, especially the clean-up batter, the Holy Spirit."

Your job is to create space for the Holy Spirit to work in.

How do the Fremen on Dune control the huge "worms" that live in the desert there? They pull back the protective edge on a worm's segment ring, which creates a kind of itch or vulnerability, and the worm rotates itself or changes direction to protect that vulnerability.

You want to put a burr under your opponent's saddle. (Yes, I know, it's the poor horse that actually feels the irritation. But in Plato's chariot analogy, the horses represent part of the person's own soul.)

You want to avoid provoking your opponent into buttoning up, clamping down, walling up.

What response does normal online discussion behavior provoke?

A rhetoric for some Orthodox Christians some of the time

Sometimes we plain ol' Orthodox get involved in open-ended verbal disputes or differences. It might be on Facebook or Twitter, it might be in a classroom discussion, it might be around the proverbial water cooler.

The kinds of disputes or differences I'm talking about are open-ended because they aren't about a decision that has to be made or a formal debate with a time limit and vote. And the disputants, being plain ol' folk of various kinds, do not have the obligations, constraints, and power of someone in authority.

Here under the heading of "a rhetoric for some Orthodox Christians some of the time" I'm going to describe patterns of speech and behavior that benefit (or at least do not harm) disputants and that are, for the lack of a better immediate term, saint-like. I will not be claiming that this rhetoric is the only or best set of patterns, only that it is useful and good for some people in some circumstances.

Folks who are not Orthodox Christians are welcome to read and comment, but I will be speaking to Orthodox as Orthodox using Orthodox examples and practices. My own church is the Orthodox Church in America ( www.oca.org ).

These posts are more exploration than exposition; their texts are fluid, not fixed.

I don't have clear ideas about how the comments section fits in but I do plan to moderate it closely. I may arbitrarily exclude or remove a comment as a gardener might a weed -- and in a tulip garden a rose is a weed.