Why I Hate the Phrase: Like Minded

For if you love those who love you, 

What reward do you have?

-Matthew 5: 46a

Mea Culpa: The other night I posted a comment on a facebook post, which was largely based on facts that are a few years out of date.  It was late, and I was tired and had just read an article that vented some venom on a group I don't particularly like, and I may have been half-way through a glass of the Glen Livet.  A couple pastors I know from the "other side" responded to the article and my comment, and indeed, I was wrong, or at least off, and it reminded me that one of my personal rules, right after never get into a land war in Asia, is never get into arguments on facebook, don't even participate, they're stupid and pointless and never change anyone's mind.  I have deleted the comment, rather than making apologies in that place and probably compounding my mistake, I will just quietly retreat to my blog and make this apology, which they may or may not read, I don't really care, I'm apologizing to myself as much as anything else.
As it turns out, I'm also dealing with some Presbyterian Post Traumatic Stress (PPTS), you heard it here first.  A few years ago, I was serving in rural Pennsylvania, in a fairly conservative congregation.  Which was not really a problem at the start, as I came out of Seminary full of what I believed to be orthodoxy and righteousness.  For the first few years I was perfectly happy proclaiming the standard evangelical interpretations of the Gospels and trying to keep my head down as far as what was going on in the PC(USA).  For the most part, I just didn't get involved, I had enough on my plate, what with having two kids and trying to grow into a functional pastor and become a part of a small community.  But then my brother's drug addiction started to kick in to full swing, and eventually he died of an overdose, and I got a big old kick in my self-righteousness and started to wrestle with the idea of grace and costly love, or love and costly grace, however you want to order those words.  It was the beginning of a big swing for me, but I suppose it was not very visible on the outside.
At some point, I got a call from the pastor of the largest church in the Presbytery.  For those of you not familiar with Presbytery dynamics: a young pastor from a <100 member congregation is pretty much like a member of the chess club and the "tall steeple" pastors are like the captains of the football team.  So I was pretty much happy to be noticed, and he said something like, "we're having a get together of 'like-minded' pastors to talk about strategies and responses to what might happen at General Assembly."  At that point, "like-minded," was a phrase that was being thrown around an awful lot in conservative circles.  It was circle the wagons time, and you needed to get the posse together.
I went, and it was a really heady experience, most of the power-players in the Presbytery were there, including the one person in the Presbytery that was truly a source of wisdom and encouragement for my entire tenure there.  We talked and we talked some more.  In hindsight, the one man I truly should have looked to for guidance, didn't say much, and I should have probably learned from that, and from the fact that later he said that I shouldn't get too wound up about that group.  I was too young and excited to really hear what he had to say, after all, wasn't he "like-minded" too?
Yes and no.  He was generally conservative, but he had been around way too long to think that good things were going to come from this sort of cabal.
To make a long story short, as my left-ward swing continued, eventually I stopped getting invited to these gatherings of the like-minded.  Now, I only knew about them because of my colleague, who was now becoming more like my mentor.  Now, I found myself at odds with a lot of what my colleagues from that gathering were saying and doing.  I wasn't getting lunch invites from the tall steeples any more.  And yeah, that kind of hurt, and yeah it brought back all sorts of "I'm a high school nerd," type of feelings, and it made me feel more and more at odds with everything that was going on in the larger church.
Fast forward a few years, and now I've been around long enough to become chair of a committee and thus sit on Presbytery Council, and then I get roped into being chair of a committee to deal with dismissing one of the Presbytery's congregations to the Evangelical Presbyterian Church.  Now I have to be in Captain Picard mode (which means diplomatic for you non-trek types).  Now I have to deal rationally and attempt to be compassionate for a congregation that is in full schism, which mistrusts the Presbytery and which is pretty angry and defensive from the get go.
Somehow or other, I have now become the most liberal guy in the room, and I have to put my money where my mouth is, in terms of compassion, and dialogue, and building trust, and being gracious.  And I did it, I think pretty well.  We accomplished the separation, complete with a worship service to hand things over to reps from the EPC, and we had coffee and cookies together afterwards.
But I will never again be able to hear the phrase: "like-minded" or "on the same page" without getting a little shiver of discomfort.  Because I no longer believe that segregating ourselves based on preferences or affinity is a desirable state of affairs for humanity, especially not for Christians.  Segregation allows us to maintain our stereotypes, prejudices and eventually leads to fear and hatred.  Whether you're talking about race relations or ecclesial disagreements, you need to hear from people who are different from you, and you need to listen to them and try to love them.  To do otherwise leads you down path to intolerance and fundamentalism.
Which is probably the main reason why Jesus repeatedly insisted that his disciples at least look at people who were outside their comfort zone, even going so far as to tell them to love their enemies.
Maybe that's not the only thing that he taught, but in such a time as this, it is perhaps the lesson that I am struggling with the most.