James K. A. Smith - All Things Hold Together in Christ: A Conversation on Faith, Science, and Virtue

Talk to anyone who tracks how the church engages our culture today and youll likely hear that the church in America has a brand problem . This problem is seen most readily in the shrinking of the church, its declining positive contribution to the wider culture, and millennials flight from organized religion. One crucial part of our brand problem is that the church so often fails to engage divisive issues like origins, sexuality, immigration, or race in ways that smell like Jesus. For a people claiming to follow the Prince of Peace, the polarization, fragmentation, and endless infighting seem especially problematic. Its tempting to think the nones and dones exiting the church may just be right.

Against this temptation, The Colossian Forum exists as witness to the belief that God has given us everything we need to be faithful. This is especially true in the midst of conflict. Whether one begins, as we do, with the cosmic hymn of Colossians 1:17In him all things hold togetheror with Jesuss prayer for unity in John 17, Pauls declaration that the dividing wall has been broken down in Ephesians, or 1 Corinthians 12 on unity amid difference, Christians have enormous theological warrant for believing that in times of conflict and polarization we, as the body of Christ, offer something to the world that can be found nowhere else. In the practices, confessions, worship, and traditions of the church, God in Christ has provided his church with all that we need to be faithful if only we would be faithful to what weve been given.

Thus, The Colossian Forum was launched to remind the body of Christ that how we seek the truth is integral to our witness. Called to pursue the truth in love, Christians must learn to engage controversial cultural issues in ways that are rooted in the gifts God has given us in Christ, mindful of the fact that in him all things hold together (Col. 1:17).

In order to grapple with difficult questions that can often divide the body of Christ, it is crucial that we first clothe ourselves with those virtues that will enable us to have such conversations well : compassion, humility, patience, forgiveness, and above all, love (Col. 3:1215). The Colossian Forum equips churches and other Christian communities such as Christian colleges, universities, and high schools to create the productive, formative spaces in which to put on these virtues.

Attending to the formation of virtue creates the platform and hospitable space we need to then deal with difference and disagreement. And, as Jamie Smith has argued in Desiring the Kingdom , putting on the virtues takes practice. Most important, it requires being immersed in the practices of Christian worship (Col. 3:16).

For this reason, The Colossian Forum has sought to create spaces to practice the faith in the face of conflict as one way to faithfully receive these gifts, thereby equipping Christian leaders to transform messy cultural conflicts into opportunities for discipleship and witness. The goal: that the church become a place people run to rather than from in the face of conflict.

By situating cultural conflicts where they belongin the presence of God and amid the worship practices of his churchwe find that conflicts, like those between faith and science, can become gifts, a crucible by which Christ is formed in us. After all, what better way to cultivate the fruit of the Spirit like patience and forbearance than by spending time with another believer who tests your patience, whom you think may very well be leading the church off a cliff!

For the past five years, The Colossian Forum has had the privilege of spending time with such believerssaints holding vastly different theological perspectives while at the same time demonstrating deep patience and forbearance with one another in the midst of those differences. Saints who willingly place those differences at the foot of the cross to see what the Spirit might do with themarguing vigorously yet doing so with the explicit goal of building up the church.

Weve engaged believers of different ages and ideologies, on a variety of divisive topics. Weve worked with high school and college students, faculty, administrators, college trustees and presidents, pastors, elders and youth, public intellectuals both famous and infamous. While there have been plenty of bumps and bruises along the way, weve repeatedly encountered stunning surprisesfriendship where there was animosity; delight where there was anger; light where there had been only heat; and new avenues for exploration and investigation where there had been only deadlocks.