Author Archive for: respectfulconversation

 To invite someone to have respectful conversation with you about your disagreements while stipulating what the results of your conversation must be eliminates the possibility of a genuine conversation. As I never tire of saying, “one cannot predict beforehand the results of a respectful conversation.”

As I heard recently on national news, that charade has happened once again relative to the current bipartisan conference committee negotiations regarding immigration. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi laid down a pre-condition for negotiations: “No wall money in government funding legislation.” If the conference committee negotiations, which have barely begun, are to be genuine, Speaker Pelosi should not stipulate up-front what must come out of those negotiations.

As also reported in the media, Speaker Pelosi did appear to cut the committee some slack by expressing openness to some type of “physical barrier.” Is the disagreement then semantic; hinging on a possible distinction between a “wall” and some other type of “physical barrier?” If so, the conference committee should be given the opportunity to sort out that apparent distinction.

A good friend of mine from Massachusetts shared with me the following reflections on what she called the “summer of shame” within the Catholic Church where she worships relative to widespread sexual abuse problems: “while our bishops continue to fail to act and do the right things, the laity is shifting around like crazy,” possibly leading to a “smaller and more faithful church.”

A failure to “do the right thing” on the part of those in power is not limited to the Catholic Church. Without seeking to generalize from my experience, I will report on some painful experiences I have had with those “in power” within Protestantism.

All too often. I have found that a number of Protestant leaders are strongly motivated by a desire to maintain their power and they maintain their power by ensuring that they are in control. This motivation leads to a command-and-control view of leadership where the important decisions are made by those “at the top,” without adequate consultation with those who report to them who will be significantly affected by their decisions.

Although a focus on orchestrating “respectful conversations” has permeated my website since its inception, my understanding of the nature of such conversations has evolved in the process of my hosting multiple eCircles and writing books intended to capture the highlights of these eCircles. What follows is my summary, as of early November 2018, of the essential elements of “respectful conversations” among those who have strong disagreements. 

A friend posed this question to me at a recent meeting. I gave a very inadequate response. I am typically not very good at thinking quickly on-my-feet in responding to unexpected questions. I need a lot of time to think about appropriate responses. So, I hope this written response will prove to be better.

The context for this question was a presentation I made at this meeting in which I proposed that since Christians do not have a “God’s-eye view of the “truth” on human sexuality issues, those holding to a “traditional” view of marriage (reserved for a man and woman) as well as those holding to a “non-traditional” view of marriage (God will bless a monogamous, life-long marriage commitment of same-sex partners) need to be open to the possibility that they are “wrong” at the same time that they present their respective positions with clarity and deep conviction.

Even the seating arrangement pointed to tribalism; with Republicans sitting at one end of the dais and Democrats seated at the other end as the U. S. Senate Judiciary Committee debated the results of the preceding day’s interviews of Christine Blasey Ford and Judge Brett Kavanaugh.

The tribalistic us-versus-them mentality that is the scourge of contemporary politics became painfully obvious as Democrats and Republicans threw verbal grenades at one another.