Time and again people write to tell me that they are alone with their questions and their own development. They ask me for other contacts, and quite often I hear: “I’d like to be in touch with like-minded people.” That seems to me an excellent desire. Yet, it seems unreachable for many. Why is it so difficult to achieve?

Here is an attempt at an explanation: communities have a shared centre. This centre is the content of the faith and, over time, also the culture and ideas about how the world works. If someone departs from these ideas or questions the culture, others do not automatically respond with agreement. That is understandable, because people’s lives take different paths, questions arise at different times and the questions may not be the same either.

In this situation it would be good to be able to share your own questions with others. Those would be the “like-minded people” you miss so much. Exchange and community fall apart when people no longer share the same center. Someone who simply has “questions” does not necessarily think differently. For the others, however, that alone can feel threatening. This can lead you to stop asking your questions, because they are ignored or rejected. That is what experience does. You become increasingly isolated with your questions.

This is reality: people are different and develop differently. Some are invited to rethink by their circumstances, by particular challenges, by education, Bible study or many conversations with other people. Sometimes one may have to admit that rethinking is unavoidable, because everything is pushing towards change. Everyone has a unique story that deserves to be heard. This is your story, and it belongs entirely to you, including every stage so far or a sweeping renovation of the ideas you have internalized.

At the same time, you see that other people are happy to stay in the old situation that you are turning upside down for yourself. They seem unreachable for your questions and your vision. That creates dissonance. No wonder you ask for “like-minded people”. Two things help in coming to terms with this upheaval:

• Embrace all your experiences. They are yours. Be thankful for them.
• Affirm your own questions. They are yours as well. Be thankful for them.

What does that mean? It does not mean, for instance, that you have to judge “bad” experiences as being “good” against all odds. There are drastic experiences, serious wrongs and traumatic abuse. These experiences should be neither denied nor blotted out. To embrace them means to accept them as part of your own story. They have made you who you are today. That includes your understanding of faith, which has been shaped uniquely. Your story is yours alone, and what you make of it is your decision.

Upheaval is always a personal experience. Your feelings or experiences, your reflections and motives do not have to be shared by others. Many will not understand the experience, because each person can only stand in their own place. If you have never been through upheaval, it is challenging to relate to it. And that is not wrong. It is simply what is. Remember that your experience is not the experience of others. For someone else, the existing situation can be a perfect fit while you are already moving on.

Communities sometimes appear “resistant” to change. There can be many reasons for that. No one has to have your questions, even if it would be nice to find people to talk to. The resistance is not unwillingness. It is the current state of the community, which does not know your questions, perhaps does not even want to see them, or never gets around to them. Each person stands on their own. Accept the differences.

Some look backwards, others look forwards. Some see the future as part of the past; others see a future that should be different from the past. To some, “new” sounds “dangerous”, and to others “necessary”. These differences remain. Only you can decide what this means for you personally.

When people with questions disappear from the community, all you can do is bless them (Gk. eulogeo, to speak well) and let them go. And whoever leaves can likewise only bless the community and let it be. That would be the respectful way of dealing with differences. Exclusion, drawing lines, insults and the like merely confirm that people have not yet looked closely enough at themselves.

Everyone looks for like-minded people. What is often meant by that is this: you can be a little more yourself without being criticized for a question or a doubt. It would also be appealing to think in similar ways about the same topics. That makes conversations easier, because there is no need to quarrel (Gen 13:8). It also makes a sense of “belonging” easier. The psalmist writes: “Behold, how good and how lovely it is when brothers dwell together in unity!” (Psalm 133:1).

Here is the problem with that: too much “sameness” was the problem in the old place. How could a new “sameness” be more than treating the symptoms? It feels good and is comfortable, because you do not have to swim against the current all the time. Such places are important. Everyone needs a breather now and then. But healthy fish, as the saying goes, swim against the current. Or to put it another way: a little resistance does no harm; it keeps you healthy.

Applied to a community, this idea means it is genuinely useful to have people who think differently in its midst: people who do not get worked up but can get others thinking, who question what is familiar and know how to push the door open in new directions. That requires the same mindset or attitude but neither identical opinions nor comparable intentions.

Having the same thing in mind does not mean sharing the same views. So when someone says they are “looking for like-minded people”, what are they actually asking for? Is it the chance to talk, for once, in a relaxed way about “rejected ideas”? That would be understandable, but wouldn’t that be something like a self-help group? Authentic Christian community aims in a different direction. Everyone wants to be heard, but not everyone has to agree with me or think the way I do.

Paul regularly speaks about such challenges:

“I exhort you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined in the same mindset and in the same opinion.”
1 Cor 1:10

What does Paul mean by “opinion” here? Today the word often has negative overtones, at least in religious discussions. An “opinion” is personal, but also fundamentally “unreliable” and “subjective”. That, however, was not its meaning in New Testament times. The Greek word (Gk. gnome) is also rendered as “decision” (Acts 20:3) or “assessment/will” (Philem 1:14). It is personal reflection, one’s own concern, one’s own assessment and thus the “opinion” you have arrived at. You can take every opinion seriously as a personal expression without sharing the same assessment. Such an opinion may have formed “after careful consideration”. That is not negative but personal.

So when Paul writes “that you be perfectly joined in the same mindset and in the same opinion”, he does not mean an “enforced uniformity” of doctrinal or dogmatic ideas, but simply that each person is clear about their own thinking and their own stance. Combined with mindset, it describes the orientation of one’s thinking rather than agreement with particular fixed insights.

The emphasis in the passage, however, lies not so much on these words as on “the same … the same … the same”. That was meant to prevent divisions. Not enforced uniformity, but the same concerns, so that divisions do not arise. Later in the letter the apostle stresses to the community that “there should be no division in the body, but that the members should have the same care for one another” (1 Cor 12:25).

When I speak with other people about these things, I usually explain my position in terms of two things. The first is the description of the unity of all believers; the second is the practical shaping of community, which often takes place on several levels.

My personal concern for a Christian community is twofold:

• Community
  I deliberately seek community with other believers, looking for the same concern. It is less about church membership or whether someone has the same ideas as I do, and more about sharing the same calling and orientation. The calling comes from Christ, and just as in any family, you do not choose the family members; you live with them. That, I reckon, is also the essence of Christian community. Whoever sees community this way does not split off but seeks Christ together (Eph 4:13-16).
• Exchange
  My second concern is not the community but my own personal one: I want to be built up, and for that I expect critical and self-critical stimulation from the Bible. That is what I want. That is where I stand.

In concrete terms, this means I seek community where people cultivate the same mindset. These people, however, by no means have to believe the way I do. I also want a nuanced approach to the Bible. If that kind of engagement does not happen, or if dogmatic positions are preferred, I cannot thrive eventually. It took me several decades to become aware of this. Today I stand by it.

In addition, I now separate community from exchange. It is easier to find community than to sustain serious exchange. That is why the exchange increasingly takes place in personal conversations. I have also found that many people, whatever their persuasion or convictions, engage seriously with their lives and their ideas. This means you can engage deeply in many places and with many people without having to stay within religious ideas at every turn.

There was a time when I only exchanged theological and biblical ideas. I was not open to anything else. My intention was good, but it cut me off from many authentic encounters. It took a long time before I learned to differentiate, lowered my defenses, and opened myself to good human encounters. Back then, like-minded people were those who had similar ideas. Today I understand it differently. Today they are people who share a similar orientation.