Theology in community

In his excellent book The Great Giveaway, David Fitch suggests that theology must be worked out in community:

The community of Christ therefore is necessarily the place out of which interpretations of the Spirit are worked out…When there is disagreement regarding an interpretation of Scripture, or something new to be discerned, here the pastor as interpretive leader must stand ready to submit and engage the church in the communal practice of seeking out God’s will for the church over this fork in the road. Out of this process, Christians in communities are not embattled over who is right or wrong, but rather are engaged in asking how shall we be faithful to Scripture, to go forward in Christ.

I love this approach, because it doesn’t sacrifice truth or relationship. We value truth, but truth is discerned in submission to the Spirit and in community as we look at Scripture.

I highly recommend Fitch’s book, by the way, even though I almost posted the following a couple of days ago:

Memo to David E. Fitch
Stop messing with my mind.

I’ll try to illustrate what Fitch writes about in my next post.