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    • Progressives and conservatives need each other
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    Progressives and conservatives need each other

    Harry Posted on

    Jeff Gill
    | guest columnist

    Last week I opened with the statement, “To be clear, this article was written before Election Day.”

    To be clear, this was written after the results were well and truly known. And I came across an uneducational image on my social media of Christians interacting about the outcome.

    This column is intended for a broad general audience of people “interested in the faith,” not just Protestants (who, to be fair, are the people I know them best) or even just Christians. However, in Licking County and more broadly, if I am to speak as an ordained minister, I will need to quote some Scripture. Then stand back!

    In chapter 12 of Paul’s first letter to the fellowship in Corinth, he says in verse 21, “The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you,’ nor the head to the foot, ‘I am.’ I don’t need you.’”

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    Just before this, Paul was expressing his general view: “For the body does not consist of one member, but of many members. If the foot says, ‘I do not belong to the body because I am not a hand,’ this does not cease it from being a part of the body. And if the ear says, ‘I do not belong to the body because I am not an eye,’ this does not cease it from being a part of the body.”

    Are we with me and Paul so far? Feet may be stinky, but they are a necessary part of the whole. The ear may be higher up and smell of cologne, but unless the feet deceive us, it won’t come within earshot of anything worth listening to. You have to get along, feet, toes, eyes and tear ducts…

    To put the matter in the marketplace dust, Paul continues: “If the whole body were one eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were ears, where would the sense of smell be? But as it is, God has arranged the limbs within the body… So much so that there are many parts, but the body is one.” 1 Corinthians 12:14-20.

    It’s a vivid metaphor, one of many in the Bible (it’s worth a read, you know?), and a very useful one for our current cultural moment. You can summarize it this way: “We need each other, perhaps even because of our differences.” But human nature (note the need for a discussion of sin here sometime) means we may need something more surprising, something more intense, to help us. get the point.

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    As Flannery O’Connor said, “You shout for the hard of hearing, and you draw large and surprising shapes for the nearly blind.” He was talking about writing about faith and life, and he knew his Paul.

    We need each other, progressives and conservatives, yes, but we also need old people and young people; rave music folk and pipe organ fans; sensitive and compassionate types and more objective and mathematical people; Not either/or, but both/and. You don’t usually want English experts preparing your books, and as a Purdue graduate, I hope the engineers there don’t mind me saying that, as a rule, they are not the obvious choice to chair the Hospitality Committee.

    I have contacts and connections across a wide swath of my own religious tradition, and several adjacent to us, so I’m not just talking to my village, district or region. But I am talking to you, dear friends. We need each other, and to say that we have nothing to do with “these people” after a harrowing election campaign is nothing more than throwing a fit from the high and mighty place.

    We need each other. And we probably all need to read 1 Corinthians 12 in full, maybe twice.

    Jeff Gill is an author, storyteller, and preacher living in central Ohio; It’s probably more like an appendix or maybe a spleen. Tell him where he fits [email protected]or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads.

    Harry
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