Circles

“I don’t move in Charismatic circles.”

“I can get you in contact with people who run in Presbyterian circles.”

“You’d need to ask him, he knows people in Baptist circles.”

Every denomination has its own culture. There are things you just won’t get until you’ve spent some time among that church crowd, or made a strong friendship with someone who has and can explain the finer nuances of it to you. This is a microcosm of what happens when the secular press tries to cover religious news. We end up saying that they truly don’t get Evangelicalism, or that a specific reporter obviously didn’t grow up Roman Catholic. But those two distinctions also break down into finer subgroups.

Last week someone asked me to recommend a book, but implicit in the request was that he was looking for a book which would appeal to him, even though it would be given away. I am blessed with both a vocation, and a personal church resumé which allows me to speak many denominational dialects, but that’s no guarantee I’m going to get it right each and every time. But without my recommendation, I know this person would have been searching in a relative vacuum. Online vendors are programmed to recommend either the latest hot thing, or the thing they’re overstocked on and need to get rid of.

So my recommendation might mean something except for the fact that each time I thought about this, I kept coming back to one particular author who it has become very fashionable to bash right now (for reasons that totally escape me.) To complicate matters, the person making the request identifies as one denomination, but has strong allegiances to another very different set of authors, musicians and conferences. He’s really moving in two very different circles which, trust me, do not overlap except for maybe him and six other people in the entire world.

Late yesterday I was looking at a six-week curriculum. I loved the topics. I trust the publisher. The price was reasonable… And then I noticed the author’s name. Hmmm. I’ve just never been comfortable with that person, but then again, I don’t move in those circles. He’s probably someone else’s favorite.

Frankly, I wish this person would just give me their full-out trust. I’d probably pick a newer author. Someone nobody has ever heard of. That way there would be less bias on both our parts.