Walking The Tightrope of Biblical Position and Missional Posture
Over the past several weeks, it feels as if the volume was turned up on my social media feed with Christians I respect and care about taking sides. There’s nothing new about this, of course. If you’re not interested in this month’s Christian social media debate, come back in another week or two and we’ll argue about something else.
As innocent Christian bystanders and a lost world watch, it seems there’s no limit to our appetite to beat each other up. What’s worse, the debates come from all angles with anyone and everyone free to post their hot takes…with the most radical views and snarky memes getting the most attention. To the observer who digs a little deeper to listen to what someone actually said in the sermon/interview or wrote in the article/book, it oftentimes feels like people are just talking around each other while engaging with strawmen they’ve set up for the sake of calling someone out on social media.
While driving to church this week, I wondered how to help a church member or friend interpret these conversations. I think the majority of these social media wars revolve around two words: position and posture. As I sort through the social media noise on my timeline trying to determine the main issue of the debate of the day, what I’ve discovered is most of the noise revolves around one group arguing about a position and the other group arguing about a posture.
Let me explain. I’m going to define a position as a theological stance or principle someone has drawn from his or her study of the Bible. I’ll define posture as the follower of Christ’s application of a position as he or she engages with the world.
What happens in most of these social media debates (which often spill into conversations in our small groups, text threads, and church parking lots) is a position is pitted against a posture. For example, someone on the World Wide Web holds a biblical position on the role of women in the church or a biblical position on marriage being between one man and one woman for life. (Of course, these are random examples [sarcasm].) Oftentimes, the debate is not concerning the position, but rather the assumed posture this position demands.
Let’s assume, someone hears a position like the ones I’ve just listed and says, “If you hold that position, then you have to hold a certain posture.” So, if you hold to a biblical position that the office of pastor is reserved for biblically qualified and called men or that marriage should only be between one man and one woman, THEN you must have a posture that doesn’t appreciate the value and gifts of a sister in Christ or you must have a posture that is unloving and unwelcoming to the lost deceived by sexual sin. The opposite assumption is also true. It is assumed if you have a posture that appreciates the value and gifts of a sister in Christ or you are loving and welcoming to the lost deceived by sexual sin, then you must have abandoned the biblical positions concerning women’s roles in the church and traditional marriage between one man and one woman.
For the bystander reading the latest Christian social media feeding frenzy, let me encourage you to ask yourself, “Is the issue at hand, one of position or posture?” I would submit that questions about position are of the greatest importance. Sometimes, these positions may even cause us to decide the degrees by which we can partner together in ministry. Churches that hold different views on who can be a pastor or what the Bible teaches on marriage will have difficulty partnering in significant ways with one another. But, differences in posture may not demand a break in fellowship as long as the posture doesn’t lean into a sinful response. I think it is possible for churches with shared biblical positions to remain in fellowship and partnership even if their postures may differ due to their context or some other reason as long as the posture doesn’t compromise a biblical position.
The use of these two words may also help us to understand our disagreements in a way that allows us to improve how we frame our debates…and dare I say…maintain fellowship and partnership with each other.
As the world watches our debates (online and at the coffee shop), my prayer is that the world would see us humbly, yet unashamedly, stand on our biblical positions, while also maintaining a missional posture that invites and welcomes the watching world to know our Savior without compromising our biblical positions. Hope can be found in the ministry modeled by Jesus as He perfectly maintained both biblical position and missional posture. The inability to maintain fidelity to biblical positions and missional posture was what condemned the Pharisees. For us today, the stakes are high. Will we follow in the example of Christ, or will we fall for the trap of the Pharisees? Let’s not forget, the world is watching.
