Over the last week I have been a part of a rather interesting series of exchanges that spanned four different weblogs (unos, dos, tres, catorce... Turn it up loud, captain!). A joke: An Orthodox and an emergent drag a Baptist into a bar. Ba-da-boom!

The engagement started over the strong position that the Baptists took against the use of contemplative prayer at a church camp. The prayer as practiced apparently followed the book, Soul Shaper, by Emergent-U.S. National Coordinator, Tony Jones. Jared Moore, Jeff Wright, and others voiced an intense disapproval of contemplative prayer for a variety of reasons—the alleged association with transcendental meditation and/or the adoption of, as one writer put it, "pagan Catholic prayers" among others—and I started out by chiming in with a defense of contemplative prayer as practiced by the Catholics and Orthodox.

It turned into a sprawling debate about Sola Scriptura, Holy Tradition, homosexuality, ecclesiology, church history, heresy (as if that one was avoidable), the Regulative Principle, and someone's trip to the masseuse (which was interpreted as code for "man on man lust"). The comments flew around, the tempers flared, and the vitriol spewed. Several times I asked my friend Jamie just what we were trying to accomplish. At different times we both said we'd stop posting, and time would pass, and comments would heap up, and eventually we'd jump back into the fray. Why? What use was it?

I've had several different motivations carrying me through these exchanges. The most obvious, but actually least significant one is my desire to be a witness to the Tradition of the saints, and to provide whatever apologia I could. But I'm not a tremendous apologist, I'm not terrifically learned about Church history, theology, and practice.

A more personal reason is my desire to work off the resentment that I have had toward the churches of my upbringing. I've been very bitter about many different things—all ways in which I somehow ended up feeling repressed, or perhaps even to some extent rejected. My idea was that if I could engage these people without letting my bitterness take control that perhaps it would dissipate. And to some extent it has. More than anything, I guess, it settled in how remote that past is to me now. It's distant, and non-threatening. There's no more reason to feel claustrophobic, no more reason to feel like my toes are being stepped on. I can breathe. I can disagree. And I can try to deal with these people who think and believe so very differently from me.

There's a third reason, too. It has to do with my growing conviction that "inter-faith" or ecumenical dialog should be happening at the personal level much more than in any official way. There are a great many obstacles to true dialog at the... dare I say it... organizational level. But there's a difference between the necessary theological boundaries that have been drawn and must be respected and the boundaries between individual persons. This was to be my true topic for this post, but I see that it must be continued and taken up in full at a different time.

If I can leave you with one thought, though, a challenge, let it be that we stop cloistering ourselves among those with whom we have so much in common. Let's strive toward a personal catholicism, a universality of relationships. Befriend someone whom you find difficult and try hard to listen to them. Argue if need be, but respect them. Try first to listen. Speak later, and don't throw in the towel. Stretch a little. Who knows where it will lead us.