It’s Both / And; Not Either / Or

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I have summarized my hope for exchanges between conversation partners for all of my eCircles as follows: They will start by identifying areas of agreement; followed by identifying areas of disagreement with grace and conviction in a manner that illuminates the basis for the disagreements so clearly that a foundation is laid for ongoing conversation about those disagreements. That hope was realized to a great extent in Greg’s second posting, for which I am deeply appreciative.

I agree wholeheartedly with Greg’s assertions that our reflections to date are “deeply complimentary” and that “Christian love requires more” than I am proposing (italics mine). The main point I now wish to make is that the way forward is not to posit an either/or between the aspect of Christian love on which I have focused and the aspect of Christian love on which Greg has focused. It must be both/and. I will attempt to explain. 

I start by clarifying the distinction, as I understand it, between the two differing, yet complimentary, aspects of Christian love on which Greg and I have focused. I have focused on what I call the “conversational” expression of Christian love (the question of “how” we talk to those with whom we disagree), proposing that our conversations should exemplify the Christian virtues of humility, hope and that aspect of Christian love that creates a safe and welcoming space for an expression of disagreement that places a premium on first listening well.

Based on his initial postings, it appears to me that Greg is focusing on that expression of Christian love that I think can reasonably be called “doing justice,” with particular emphasis on seeking justice for the marginalized, powerless and voiceless among us. It appears to me that Greg is not excluding my conversational focus. But he is asserting, correctly, that Christian love “demands something more”: we must “stand on the side of the exploited and the oppressed against their exploiters and oppressors.” I agree. The Old Testament of the Bible contains numerous exhortations to address the needs of the poor, powerless and marginalized (e.g., Isaiah 58: 6-7; Amos 5: 21-24). And Jesus continues that theme in his call to those who claim to be his followers to address the needs of the “least among us” (the hungry, thirsty, naked, sick, and prisoners and “strangers” in our midst), as recorded in Matthew 25. 

So, my main point in this posting is that it should be both/and, not either/or. Christians need to create a synergy between exhibiting humility, courage and love in talking to those who disagree with them about political issues and they need to demonstrate a deep commitment to “doing justice.”. A possible place to start is to recognize that a commitment to include those who have been marginalized in the conversation is one aspect of “doing justice.” 

Given my argument for a both/and approach, it is fair to ask why my eCircle seems to deal almost exclusively with the conversational aspect to the relative neglect of the “doing justice” aspect.

My primary reason for this “partial” view of expressing Christian love in politics is hinted at in the very title of my eCircle: “Reforming Political Discourse.” One dictionary definition of “discourse” is the “formal and orderly expression of thought on a subject,” which is a narrower view of the meaning of “discourse” then the one Greg is using (what Greg calls “political discourse” I would call “political engagement”).

So, it is the “conversational” aspect of doing politics that I dream of reforming, fully recognizing that this is only a portion of the challenge that Christians face in doing politics. I now realize, based on Greg’s prodding, that this dream, as grandiose as it is, is too small. Possibly I should have chosen a broader theme, “Reforming American Politics,” which could have addressed BOTH the “conversational” mode for expressing Christian love AND the overlapping mode of “doing justice.”

Well, it appears that I (or we) have opened up a Pandora’s box (the toothpaste is out of the tube). That pleases me. As I said in my initial posting, a favorite mantra of mine is that “one cannot predict beforehand the results of a respectful conversation.” My two brief electronic conversations with Greg have illustrated that in a splendid manner. Our conversations are also richly suggestive of topics for discussion in future ongoing conversations for all readers of this eCircle. But before I elaborate on that claim, I will reflect on how Greg has helped me to expand my view of the very meaning of “doing politics.” 

In my initial posting, I shared my view that “politics, at its best, is the search for common ground that seeks the common good.” I now see that this is too narrow a view of the scope of politics. As Greg correctly points out, it makes it sound like that politics is solely about “persuasion,” trying to convince my political opponent, by means of conversation, that my perspective on the political issue at hand is more adequate than her perspective. I believe that if we have the courage to engage those who disagree with us with humility and love, respectful attempts at persuasion, in contrast to coercion, may uncover more common ground than we had originally anticipated. But what do you do if such attempts at “friendly persuasion” hit a dead end? How do you live well together when you cannot find common ground by means of conversation? Greg’s proposal that you then proceed to other forms of political engagement (e.g, the use of strikes, boycotts, occupations. etc. when dealing with the relationships between “workers and their bosses”) flows from his expanded view of what it means to do politics.

In brief, Greg is proposing that a more adequate view of the purpose of  politics is the broader view that “doing politics” is our collective attempt to find ways for persons who don’t share the same views as to a “common good” to, nevertheless, “come together to make a common life.” What Greg says about this ideal in his second posting is important enough for me to repeat here.

…the goal of political life is not to make everyone else look, think, and act like oneself, but to negotiate the terms of a common life with people who are meaningfully different. Politics happens because people disagree on how to go about achieving basic goods. How are we going to raise our kids? How are we going to take care of our elders? How should we work to avert the coming of a climate catastrophe that is already here for the poorest and the most vulnerable? What should education look like? What should our food system look like? The goal of politics is not to get everyone to give the same, pre-prescribed answers to these questions but to enable people who have radically different answers to those questions to live together in such a way that every person is able to participate in that common life and, in that context, to flourish.

In summary, Greg notes the following contrast between his thinking and my original view of the meaning of politics, drawing on the work of one of his professors at Duke Divinity School, Luke Bretherton  (who I should report, in the interest of full disclosure, was extremely helpful to me as a consultant as I was shaping the agenda for this eCircle, and who recommended Greg as a conversation partner for this present subtopic, which has proven to be an excellent recommendation): “While Dr. Heie speaks of political opponents coming together to discover a common good, I prefer, together with Luke Bretherton, to speak of diverse communities coming together to make a common life.”

I now embrace Greg’s broader view of the meaning of politics because it captures the full scope of political engagement that includes BOTH my “conversational” focus AND a broader view of what it means “do justice” in the political realm.

If readers accept my proposal for a both/and approach, what do Greg and I, and all our readers, need to give more thought to in preparation for future conversations? Five issues requiring further thought come to mind: the relationship between these two means for expressing Christian love; possible “limits” on either expression of love; the appropriate scope of the meaning of “justice”; the scope of what may be considered “political”; and how to address the various structural deficiencies in our American political system.

As to the relationship between these two modes of expressing Christian love, I agree with Greg’s assertion that “When all attempts at persuasion and respectful dialogue have been exhausted, you put on a gas mask, take up a flag, a shield, or a hard banner, and prepare to stand against them [Nazis marching in the streets].” But this leaves unanswered the question as to when you decide that all attempts at respectful dialogue have been “exhausted.” My perception is that all too often attempts at respectful dialogue about contentious political issues have not even been tried, no less “exhausted.” This important question begs for further conversation.

Another huge related question that begs for further conversation is whether there are any “limits” to either expression of Christian love and, if so, what those limits may be. First, consider the possibility that there are limits on pursuing respectful dialogue because the call for such dialogue can be a means of control by those in power, or a way to marginalize those who are left out of the conversation. So, as in the first unanswered question above, when do you say that “something more” than respectful conversation is needed? More conversation is obviously called for, That further conversation will at least begin in the month of November when two conversation partners holding to opposing views will address the subtopic “Are There Limits to Free Speech and Civil Discourse?”

Are there also limits to the “doing justice” mode for expressing Christian love on which Greg has focused? Consider Greg’s example of the potential for “conflict” between workers and their employers, which I quote in full so as not to minimize Greg’s sense of urgency.

… if workers and employers have basically opposing interests, if, as the preamble to the constitution of my union says, “the working class and the employing class have nothing in common,” then, while the process of making a common life may involve persuasion, it will, surely, involve force as well. Workers will not just attempt to persuade their bosses to pay them a living wage with moral arguments; they will also, often, have recourse to strikes, slowdowns, boycotts, occupations, blockades, sabotage, and all other manner of mass and covert action to force their bosses to comply with their demands. In such a world, in which the common life that people create together is made not only through persuasion, but through conflict as well, Christian love demands that we be militantly partisan for the working class, for colonized people, for racial, religious, and sexual minorities – in short, for the last, the least, and the lost with whom Jesus Christ revealed God’s unwavering solidarity in becoming incarnate in the form of a slave. Christian love in politics will be lived not only at the podium, but on the picket line, not only in televised debates, but through the tear gas and the gall of militant street actions.

Greg’s assertion gives me a lot more to think about. Since I sometimes call myself a “closet Anabaptist” within the Reformed tradition (a theological combination that creates some tensions; while my good friends will tell you that I came out of that closet a long time ago), I am ambivalent about words like “force, conflict and militancy.” It all depends on exactly what you mean by those words. I believe strongly in the importance of “nonviolent resistance,” as was given powerful expression by Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela. So, the question arises, at least for me, as to what the appropriate limits are on the use of “force” in seeking to “do justice.” That question is not specifically addressed in my eCircle, as currently designed, but it calls for considerable further conversation in some appropriate venue.

A third area that begs for further conversation is the scope of the meaning of “justice.” In my “conversational” focus justice requires that all voices be included, especially those marginalized populations that have been systematically excluded from conversations that could have a significant effect on their well-being. Greg’s focus on “doing justice” clearly places emphasis on fostering the flourishing of the poor, oppressed and marginalized in our society. But there may be more to the multi-faceted meaning “justice.” Greg gives us place to start thinking about this when he talks, more than I do, about the “importance of institutions”. 

For example, what does it mean to “do justice” to the non-governmental institutions of our civil society, such as families, businesses, churches, synagogues, mosques, schools, unions, journalistic outlets, service organizations, professional organizations and other voluntary associations such as the PICO National Networks that organize religious congregations to drive change in their neighborhoods on issues of issues of racial, and immigrant justice? I know that at least one of the conversation partners will address this question in the December conversation on “the Notion of Politics.” That conversation will no doubt also continue, and expand, the conversation that Greg and I have initiated about what politics, “at its best,” should be about.

A fourth issue that needs to be talked about further, closely related to the third issue above, is the scope of activities that can be considered to be “political.” Is politics more than what the political parties do? What about the efforts of the many non-governmental institutions noted above whose citizen-led initiatives are clearly political in nature (in the broad sense of seeking to forge a flourishing common life together)? These questions will surely be addressed in the January 2018 conversation on “Party Politics and Beyond,” as well is in the closing June 2018 conversation that will provide case studies about how two churches and one para-church organization have, or have not, engaged in political activities. 

Finally, much more conversation is needed to address the structural deficiencies in our current political system. Not being a political scientist the best I could do was to point to what I perceive to be some of those deficiencies, such as closed primaries, gerrymandering of voting districts, and the inordinate role of financial support from donors at the extreme ends of the political spectrum. Greg expresses appreciation for my at least pointing to these structural problems, saying that we need to create “just institutions.” But how can that be done? When I read books like It’s Worse Than It Looks (by Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein), I get depressed about the possibility of ever effecting positive structural changes in our political system, due to the existence of so many vested interests. 

Much more conversation is needed to address these huge and apparently intractable structural problems. The February 2018 conversation on “The Role of Money and Special Interests in Politics” will include some of the broader conversation that is needed. My own sense is that such future conversations need to address a common characteristic of most, if not all, of these structural problems: the “hollowing out of the middle” caused by favoring the extreme elements of both parties. For politicians and their supporters at the extremes, it is too often “my way or the highway.” There is a notable lack of that modicum of humility required to acknowledge that those on the other side of the aisle may actually have some good ideas that can be incorporated into bipartisan legislation; another example of the need for both/and thinking rather than either/or thinking.

In conclusion, what has emerged in my conversation with Greg is something I could have never predicted, again exemplifying my claim that you cannot predict beforehand the results of a respectful conversation. But another unpredictable surprise may emerge out of a conversation I will eventually have with myself. That will take some explaining.

As in my last two eCircles, after this eCircle is completed, I hope to publish a book that attempts to capture the highlights of the ten monthly conversations in  a way that does not gloss over disagreements. As before, the way I will be proceeding is that during the month following each month-long conversation I will write a first draft of a book chapter, which I will send to the conversation partners for that month for their review and comments. Then for the next few months after June 30, 2018, I will try to make coherent sense of it all in a book manuscript. What will emerge from that conversation with myself is unpredictable. Given the five upcoming monthly eCircle conversations noted above, as well as what could emerge from the other remaining three conversations (about some “hot-button” current political issues), it is conceivable that the scope of my ten conversations will have expanded so much that the tentative title of a forthcoming book will change from “Reforming Political Discourse” to “Reforming American Politics.” How audacious is that? 

Before Asking What Sort of Speech, Ask What Kind of Politics

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In my first post, I attempted to deconstruct the “leading questions” about the nature of the decline of political discourse in the US and how to reverse it.  I argued that these were, in fact, the wrong questions to be asking.  I pointed out that political discourse is always a concrete thing.  It takes place in particular sorts of institutions, whether those are coffee shops, theaters, newspapers, or the internet, institutions that, following Jurgen Habermas, I called the public sphere.  I pointed out that institutions are never neutral.  Rather, they are always already partisan along the lines of race, class, and gender.  Institutions are produced by forms of political economy in which a given form of social life takes place, and, with the sorts of political economy in which they live, move, and have their being, they arise from a context of social conflict between rich and poor, free and slave, citizen and alien.  I pointed out that the political institutions of industrial, capitalist democracies, which comprise the public sphere and therefore “political discourse” as we know it, have a particular racial, class, and gendered character.  They were created as places for propertied white men, that is, people who own their bodies, to exercise that ownership as it applies to discourse, that is, by the exercise of “free speech,” at least as it is construed by the dominant liberal political tradition pace John Locke.  

To be far more blunt than I was in my original post: that this system is in crisis, and that, as a result, “political discourse” is on the decline in American public life, is nothing to grieve, because the system and the speech that goes with it are all about capitalism, slavery, and genocide.  Moreover, the crisis is not new.  Workers, slaves, women, and LGBTQ people have always sought to contest the boundaries of the public sphere, to “make it their own,” and/or to create alternatives to it.  That’s why the system is in crisis.  American political discourse is on the decline because American political institutions, the institutions that make up the public sphere, are on the decline.  The public sphere is on the decline because it is being enclosed by capital and the state, and it is being enclosed in this way because those in power would rather shut down the public sphere than see it successfully inhabited by those it was originally designed to help exploit and oppress.  Nevertheless, the organized struggles for freedom being waged by those on the margins of the public sphere cannot be defeated so easily.  Alternative spaces for political discourse, whether Anarchist infoshops, punk venues, black churches, gay bars, freedom schools, or popular assemblies continue to grow, and to spawn a new form of political discourse, a new sort of public life, a commons rather than a public in any ordinary sense of the term.  Alternative institutions of this sort house a different kind of speech because they serve different people.  To be more precise, they accommodate different sorts of differences between people (politics is the negotiation of a common life in the midst of profound difference, but “difference” isn’t just one thing; the “difference” between republicans and democrats over how to run the capitalist bureaucracy of American Empire is a very different sort of difference from the disputes between poor and working class and colonized people about how to best go about smashing that Empire into as many pieces as possible).  This means that the “rules of engagement” in these spaces will be fundamentally different from those of the bourgeois public sphere.

This brings me to Dr. Heie’s gracious response.  Dr. Heie attempt to accept as valid my challenge to the original question while, at the same time, maintaining the grounds on which the question was asked.  In so doing, I am afraid that he has (unintentionally, I’m sure) domesticated my challenges to the questions posed in this forum in his attempt to summarize them, underestimating the depth of our differences in his effort to show where it is possible for us to agree.  When I say that I am not interested in rescuing US political discourse from its current state of decline, part of what I am saying is that I detect specific, partisan political commitments behind Dr. Heie’s efforts to lay out universal rules for political discourse that, he claims, can apply to any people in any context, commitments to which I stand profoundly opposed.  In attempting to sketch a granular picture of the institutional context of political discourse in late industrial capitalist America, the larger point that I am making is that there is no such thing as “political discourse” as such.  Different sorts of discourse arise in the context of different sorts of politics, as different sorts of people try to have different sorts of conversations.  

For example, queer black and black feminist authors like James Baldwin and Audre Lorde have shown that the exclusive focus on reason in enlightenment European discourse comes from the presumption that the subject of that discourse owns his body and is therefore able to control his body and, with it, his emotions (emotions, here, are construed with passions – the link between controlling the body and controlling the emotions is the commitment to disciplining sex; slavery and heteronormativity are, for both Baldwin and Lorde, inextricably linked), in order to focus on pure ideas.  The suppression of emotion in political discourse, under the guise of making that discourse “rational,” is rooted in a commitment to controlling the body, a commitment that presumes that human bodies can be owned and that the paradigmatic subject of rational discourse owns his body, among others.  In other words, enlightenment claims about the universal norms for what good comprises good discourse are not universal at all: they come from the heteronormative commitments required to reproduce a genocidal, slaveholding society.  In response, Baldwin, Lorde, and other queer black and black feminist authors have proposed different sorts of discourse, which give full play to the body, to the emotions, and, as Lorde famously argued, the power of the Erotic.  Far from being disembodied and rationalistic, good ways of thinking and speaking together are embodied and passionate – if, that is, you think that good ways of thinking and speaking together are ways of thinking and speaking that resist colonization, enslavement, and other sorts of capitalist regimes of enclosure.

This, then, is what I am afraid that Dr. Heie hasn’t fully reckoned with when he says that, while I’m right to point out that the question of who is doing the talking is important, no matter who speaks, there is a need for shared norms for how speaking is to take place.  My answer to this is NO!  NEIN!  NIET!  ABSOLUMENT PAS!  This is precisely the logic that I have painstakingly tried to deconstruct with my original post and which I am now, in this final post, ready to just reject outright.  In essence, what Dr. Heie seems to me to want is to construct a shared project of political speech, the purpose of which is to “save” US political discourse from its current state of decline, to stand it back up on itself, and then, baptizing that project as Christian, to invite different political actors to join it, including the poor and the marginalized.  He wishes, in short, to construct a normative definition of speech and then fit all sorts of different politics into it.  In this closing post, I propose to turn Dr. Heie’s proposal on its head.  Instead of starting with a normative definition of “speech” to which we can then adduce “political,” I wish to start with a normative definition of “politics” and then figure out what kinds of norms of speech go with it.

 

A TALE OF TWO CITIES

 

In his Come Out, My People! – God’s Call Out of Empire in the Bible and Beyond, Wes Howard-Brook makes the claim that the biblical narrative is an ongoing argument between two religions.  These religions are not Judaism and Christianity.  Rather, they are what he calls “the religion of Empire” and “the religion of creation.”  On the one hand, there is clearly much in the Bible, from beginning to end, that justifies exploitation and oppression.  There is no part of scripture, no book, no discernable author, that is immune from this impulse.  And, yet, there is another impulse at work.  The biblical story begins with human beings living – that is, physically eating, drinking, and sleeping – freely and communally (with God, nature, and one another) in a way that does not require death for themselves or others.  Yet, by mid-way through the book of Genesis, the bulk of people are caught up in ways of meeting these basic needs that are inextricably linked up with both death and slavery.  They get their food from irrigated agricultural systems built and maintained by slave labor, under kings who protect these systems and keep the slaves in check with constant, unending violence.  This system is called “Empire,” and, for Howard-Brook, modern, capitalistic forms of production are just a reinstantiation of it, a kind of Empire-on-hyperdrive.  Human beings under late industrial capitalism still live in such a way that requires death and slavery – for themselves and their human and nonhuman fellow creatures alike.

The politics of Empire is a particular way of being human – one that, again, requires death and slavery.  But, in the biblical narrative, it is not the only way of being human.  It is not the way that God made human beings in the beginning, and God does not abandon creation to its ravages.  Rather, God calls a people out of Empire – that is, at least at first, God physically brings them outside the lands of walled cities and irrigated agriculture into “a land that I will show you” (Genesis 12:1) – in order to live a different way of life.  This happens again and again throughout the biblical story.  Abraham leaves Babylon (and Hagar leaves Abraham! – but that’s part of another story, buried in the canon somewhat deeper than Howard-Brook is able to reach); Lot leaves Sodom; Moses leaves Egypt; Elijah leaves Israel; the exiles leave Babylon; Jesus and the disciples go out into the wilderness.  But the paradigmatic example of this story is the Exodus.  A group of renegade slaves run away from Pharaoh, led out of Egypt by the mighty arm of a liberator God.  This move is what Jesus Christ reinstantiates in his death and resurrection, becoming “our passover from death to life,” doing for the whole, enslaved, dominated cosmos what God does for the Israelites in Egypt.  In Jesus Christ, God is perfectly faithful to God’s promise of freedom from slavery to Israel, and, precisely in that faithfulness to Israel, makes heirs to that same promise of the whole world.

These two ways of being human – towards slavery and towards freedom, towards death and towards life, towards Empire and towards the God of Israel, who has been revealed, at the end of the age, to the whole world in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ – are two ways of doing politics.  They are two sorts of human and creaturely society.  They are two formations of economy and ecology.  Augustine calls them two cities, formed of two opposing loves – love of God and libido dominandi or lust for domination.  What that means is that Christian theology should not accept politics “on its own terms” as if it is something neutral and universal, as if it can be subject to the same norms regardless of who is involved and what it is for.  Who is involved in politics and what goods and ends politics serves determine what its norms will be, not the other way around.  We cannot, as Dr. Heie suggests, come up with set rules for political discourse regardless of who is involved and what the goods and ends to be achieved are, and then invite various people to participate in the activity of politics as given.  No!  We need to reject politics as given, utterly, by naming it as politics according to the logic of Empire, the logic of slavery, the logic of death which our Lord Jesus Christ came to destroy by his glorious resurrection and ascension to the right hand of God the Father!  We need to hold out hope for a different sort of politics, a politics of life and freedom, a politics that is about having enough for everyone, about beating swords into ploughshares, about loosing the bonds of injustice and breaking every chain, a politics that is about the business of making every ditch and valley to be raised up and every mountain and lofty hill to be made low, the crooked paces straight and the rough places plain – a politics, in short, that is about all flesh seeing and sharing and loving the glory of the Lord together!

This is the theological background that I have in mind when I talk about a different sort of political discourse emerging in US public life.  My argument with Dr. Heie’s attempt to “save” US political discourse is that it confuses temporal things for eternal things.  It seeks to define norms for “speech” as such and “politics” as such – not speech for the Kingdom and politics for the Kingdom.  I do not necessarily believe that the new sorts of political discourse that I have described emerging from the commons, that is, from the attempts of the exploited and the oppressed to seize the bourgeois public sphere for their own and/or to create fugitive alternatives to it, is, in fact, the Kingdom of God.  Scripture is very clear that neither Israel nor the Church perfectly instantiates the Kingdom – as I said, there is no space in scripture that is free from the impulse for domination – and, if they don’t, then, certainly, neither do “secular parables” of them like modern US social movements.  But I do want to submit that, in the contemporary American context, these sorts of freedom struggles are an essential place to look for a fleeting glimpse of the Kingdom’s advent.  We may not be permitted to see God’s face in the faces of those taking the streets, rioting in the prisons, striking on the job, and locking down at pipeline construction sites all over the edifice of slavery and death sometimes called the United States of America.  But if God came to earth in the form of a slave, to fulfill the promise first made to an enslaved people – if, in other words, Jesus Christ is Black! – then this is where we should look to follow after God’s train, to see God’s glory passing in front of us on the road to life and freedom, to follow the Risen One going ahead of us into Galilee.

In short, I reaffirm my rejection of the original question and my proposal of an alternative – this time in a theological key.  We should not be asking “why has US political discourse declined and how can we stop the decline?”  We should not, to put it differently, be asking, “what are the rules of engagement for political discourse in the abstract, to which we can then invite concrete individuals?”  Rather, we should ask, “where are the politics of God taking shape in the world?  And what is political speech like in those places?”  You can’t just model respectful conversation and then ask those engaged in political struggle to join you.  You must take up the struggle, and, from that place, which is the place of Jesus Christ, you must ask what sort of speech makes sense, and build the institutions to go with it.


 

Whatever the Question, How Should We Talk?

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I very much appreciate Greg’s thoughtful and insightful initial posting. It helped me to clarify and expand my thinking about both our subtopic (A Proposed Christian Approach to Political Discourse) and my entire eCircle. I will organize my thoughts in my response into three categories: WHAT questions should be asked? WHO should be talking about these questions? and HOW should we talk about these questions?

What Questions Should be Asked?

There is room for significant disagreement about the questions that should be asked in the hope of moving toward a reformation of political discourse. This is evident from Greg’s concern about the “leading questions” that I pose for our subtopic and his proposed “correct question.”

The question “why is political discourse on the decline and how can we revive it?” is the wrong question. The correct question is “how is the public sphere in crisis and how can working class people organize to seize and reinvent it as a commons?”

Holding Greg’s concern about the leading questions that I pose for a later section, my reaction to his “correct question” is that it is an excellent, relevant question. In fact, it can be argued that it is an important “first” question (a “prior” question) to be addressed since it calls for conversation about the perceived pros and cons of the current American context for political discourse (what Greg calls “neoliberal capitalism”).

I am open to improvisation relative to my eCircles (what we called “mid-course corrections” in the aerospace industry). For example, for my past eCircle on human sexuality, I added a third conversation partner for one of my subtopics during the first week of conversation because the initial postings of my two original partners revealed that they did not present differing perspectives. So, I will welcome receiving from Greg, or any other reader of this eCircle, a proposal for two or more persons I can invite to be conversation partners for the question that Greg has posed; persons who will likely give differing responses to this question.

If anyone sends me a suggestion, I will be happy to consider adding an eleventh month to this present eCircle or think about the possibility of a follow-up eCircle, depending on the nature of the suggestion.

Of course, there may be no limit to the questions that should be asked, beyond those I have posed, in the hope of moving toward a reformation of political discourse. In the interest of full disclosure, I had originally planned to include “Race in America” in my present eCircle as one of the “representative public policy issues” for which I wish to model respectful conversation (In addition to the issues of immigration and healthcare that I finally decided upon). In light of recent events, how could that topic be left out?

I scrapped this idea based on a series of face-to-face conversations I had with local friends (academics and practitioners; members of majority and minority population groups) who have far more expertise about race relations than I do (which, unfortunately, does not set a very high bar). These conversations revealed that race relation issues are so multi-faceted and complex that to spend just a month talking about them would do more harm than good. However, these conversations did lead to my designing a potential new eleven month eCircle on this topic. As of today, that design rests in my computer files.

In summary for this section, I embrace Greg’s suggestion for another “correct question” and am open to that possibility I should have added a number of other good questions to my eCircle (So many questions, so little time!). But later in this posting, I will explain my rationale for not including all the questions that should be addressed (besides that being impossible). But I will first address the WHO question, enthusiastically embracing Greg’s concerns about who is typically “left out” of political conversations in America.

Who Should be Talking About These Questions

I agree with Greg’s assessment that the “the public sphere has never been public in the sense of everyone being included.” In particular, “workers, women, people of color, and LGBTQ people” have contested the scope of the public sphere and “thus broadened it,” but “countervailing forces have also sought to narrow it,” thereby “violating norms of ‘civil discourse’ and ‘free speech’.”

So, who should be talking together about possible ways to reform political discourse? In a word, “everyone.” It is my agreement with Greg on this point that prompted me to begin my past eCircle on human sexuality with the subtopic “Voices from the Gay Community,” thereby avoiding the travesty of “straight” people talking “about” gay people rather than talking with them, starting with listening to their painful stories of how they have been brutalized and marginalized in our society.

The need to especially include groups that have been marginalized in political discourse clearly comports with teachings throughout the Bible that Christians are to seek justice for all peoples. It especially exemplifies the teachings of Jesus, recorded in Matthew 25, that those who claim to be followers of Jesus must especially attend to the needs of the poor and marginalized in our midst. But if I believe that, it is legitimate to ask why my eCircle conversations on a given subtopic are limited to two, or at most three conversation partners. To make this probing question more concrete, in the conversation on “Healthcare in America,” scheduled for May 2018, my two conversation partners are highly competent “academics” who have studied and written extensively on public policy issues related to healthcare. But shouldn’t a conversation on healthcare in America also include the coal miner in West Virginia who is on disability due to the negligence of a coal mine owner and now faces the possibility of losing health coverage because of a “pre-existing” condition? Yes! Yes! A thousand times Yes! Why then is he not included in my conversation? I will respond to that legitimate concern later in this posting.

How Should We Talk About These Questions?

So far I have focused on areas where I agree with Greg, even if it appears, at least for now, that the scope of my eCircle belies that agreement. But I must now lay bare a significant area of disagreement. I disagree with Greg’s assertion that “The question ‘why is political discourse on the decline and how can we revive it?’ is the wrong question.” To be sure, it is not the only question. But I believe it is the most important question that my eCircle needs to address. That is because “whatever” other questions need to be addressed (including the question of what other questions need to be addressed), and “whoever” should be addressing these other questions, we cannot proceed until we grapple with the foundational question of “how” we should be addressing these other questions; “how” we should be talking with persons with whom we disagree.

This foundational question is why my first posting focuses on my proposal for “how” Christians should talk to those who disagree with them about political issues, whether they be other Christians or those committed to other religious or secular worldviews. In a nutshell, I have proposed that Christians should engage those who disagree with them about political issues (and all other contested issues) in respectful conversations that exemplify humility, courage and love. And that exhortation applies to conversations about the leading questions that I have posed for my various eCircle subtopics as well as the important additional question that Greg has proposed and all other questions that need to be talked about in future conversations about political discourse.

It is important for me to add that I am not proposing that it is only Christians who should exemplify the virtues of humility, courage and love in talking those who disagree with them about political issues. I start with this exhortation to Christians because theses virtues are central to the Christian faith and we need to get beyond only paying them lip service. The fact is that I know some persons holding to other religious or secular worldviews who exemplify these virtues better than a lot of professing Christians. So, my exhortation is also a reminder to them.

I will highly value any reflections Greg may wish to share relative to my proposal for “how” Christians (and others) should engage those who disagree with them about political issues.

Conclusion: I Just Want to Get the Conversation Started and Model “How” It Can Be Continued.

I now return to the unanswered questions above as to why some important questions have been left out of my eCircle (like the probing question that Greg posed) and why some important conversations partners (beyond my two or three) have been left out of the conversations about some of my subtopics (like a West Virginia coal miner for the healthcare in America conversation).

These omissions make no sense if you think my goal is to come up with a definitive solution to perceived problems with current political discourse in a period of ten months. That would be an impossible goal, even given my propensity to “dream about possibilities that are far out of reach.” I am simply trying to get a conversation started. If the conversation ends with my eCircle, and a book that hopefully emerges from its content, then not much will have been accomplished. My grandiose dream, which I can only envision through the eyes of faith, is that the results of this initial eCircle conversation, will lead to numerous follow-up conversations. Such follow-up conversations must include more topics and more conversation partners who can “give voice” to marginalized groups who have been excluded for too long from conversations that are not academic exercises but that affect the quality of their daily lives (like my coal miner from West Virginia).

So, I start modestly by demonstrating, hopefully, that even just two conversation partners for a given subtopic can model respectful conversations about strong disagreements, with the hope and prayer that such modeling will inspire some of my readers to continue such respectful conversations in their respective spheres of influence toward the ideal of reforming political discourse (giving fair warning that what I am asking readers to consider doing is easy to say, but very difficult to do – to recruit my 22 conversation partners for this eCircle, I had to extend 79 invitations).

Having said that, however, I close with a suggestion that some of the unanswered questions that may now exist in the minds of readers may well be addressed in later months of this present eCircle. My conversation partners for November 2017 will be dealing with the subtopic “Are Their Limits to Free Speech and Civil Discourse?” In light of the leading questions I have posed for them, they will likely say something that addresses Greg’s legitimate concern that the public square, as currently constituted, has left out many who have been marginalized in our society. 

In addition, the conversation scheduled for December 2017 on the subtopic “The Notion of Politics,” will likely address the relationship between responsibilities of “government” and other segments of civil society, including “associations of workers” and other groups who may be marginalized in current political discourse. Similarly, the conversation scheduled for January 2018 on the subtopic “Party Politics and Beyond” will likely call into question the idea that political discourse is only what takes place within the major political parties; which should begin to address Greg’s concern that political discourse should include “everyone.”

So, please keep reading.

Christian Love Demands Something More

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My colleague, Dr. Harold Heie, has opened our session of this ten month conversation with a profound meditation on the role the virtue of love plays in shaping human discourse in general, and political discourse in particular. Dr. Heie affirms a norm of respectful, active listening in all places where human beings meet one another, and argues that political conversations, the conversations human beings have about how to order their common life, are no exception. In spite of our differences (which I’ll get to shortly) I find this basic definition of political discourse to be helpful, and to helpfully provincialize the picture of public life that I offered in my own opening reflection. Where I attempted to offer a granular historical account of the public sphere in America and the way that oppressed communities have negotiated, expanded, and created alternatives to it – and defended their position in it and against it from efforts at enclosure and repression by both state and nonstate actors – Dr. Heie’s piece offers a sweeping horizon across time and space, holding up universal moral norms above the conditions under which we have to live them in our present historical and geographic context. In this and many other ways, some of which I will list in the short space I have here, I see our reflections as deeply complimentary. What is most helpful is that Dr. Heie avoids the common trope of equating politics with statecraft, and this means that political discourse is not just something that politicians do – although politicians should be held to the basic norms of political discourse.

AGREEMENTS

In the spirit of “respectful conversation,” let me begin by offering three of the things that I agree with about Dr. Heie’s piece.

First, like me, he stresses the importance of institutions. He writes:

There is room for disagreement as to the causes of political enmity. A primary reason, in my estimation, is that for far too many politicians and their supporters doing politics is about winning rather than about governing well. And this focus on winning has led to pernicious political structures and practices that militate against genuine political discourse. These include closed primaries that attract more ideologically extreme voters who have little interest in dialogue, gerrymandering of voting districts that protect politicians from having to engage opposing views, and the inordinate role of financial support from donors at the extreme ends of the political spectrum.

Dr. Heie goes on to say that, as someone not trained in political science, he doesn’t feel confident commenting on the specific institutional formations that to a breakdown of political discourse. This is why he chooses to focus on individual virtues of humility, courage, and love, instead, which, he says, are essential to maintaining a functioning democracy. This is all to the good. I thoroughly agree that even the best set of political institutions will not last long without the virtuous pursuit of common goods by those who live in them. Similarly, as Dr. Heie implies, but does not state outright, in the passage from his essay that I have just quoted, I also hold that structures are created and recreated by concrete, flesh-and-blood human beings (this was, in fact, a major theme of my own reflection, since I noted the creative ways that marginalized people have chosen to interact with a public sphere that was never intended to include them) and, therefore, their virtues and vices can be and are reflected in the structures and institutions that they create. So, we need to attend to creating just institutions and we also need to attend to forming loving people. At base level, my essay focused on the former and Dr. Heie’s focused on the latter, and, in this way, I find them deeply complimentary.

Second, I could not agree more on the importance of love for the practice of politics. The New Testament is clear that this is the sum of all the virtues. As 1 Corinthians 13:13 states, “And now abideth faith, hope, and charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.” I do not quote the King James Version only because it is still the most eloquent rendering of the text in English (though I believe that it is). I also want to highlight that Christians affirm a specific sort of love – caritas, charity, the kind of self-giving love that moved the Son of God to take the form of a slave (Philippians 2:7) and which powers the two most important dimensions of Christian practice – care for the poor and care for one’s enemies. In the Incarnation, God does both. God comes to Israel, a nation of escaped slaves living under Roman military occupation, and comes to seek and save the last, the least, and the lost (Luke 19:10). God also comes to redeem sinners, and to die for them while they are still enemies (Romans 5:10). God’s action to bring humanity to Godself establishes all people, and all of creation, in a loving communion with the persons of the Trinity, bound together by that inexhaustible love that the Triune God has enjoyed from all eternity, in which there is enough for everyone and difference is the occasion for joy rather than enmity. In assuming human flesh to Himself, the Word of God, Jesus Christ, allows us, as human beings, to do His works, too, and thereby calls us to solidarity with poor and oppressed people everywhere (work that solidarity that starts, but does not end, among the poor and the oppressed themselves) and to the work of active peacemaking for the sake of a common life with and for meaningfully diverse others. In this way, God makes us ambassadors of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:20), and heralds of God’s commonwealth of peace and freedom, in which there is no poverty, no degradation, no war. Politics, then, as the sphere in which basic goods are negotiated and in which friends and enemies are distinguished, is the primarily site in which the virtue of Christian love is to be exercised. Politics is the modality in which charity is lived. This is, in fact, one major reason that it is crucial to distinguish politics from statecraft. Because politics is the essential terrain in which human beings live out the call and vocation they have received in the coming among them of the Incarnate Word, it must be something that anyone and everyone can do. Politics must be an activity shared by all, because the life of the gospel is meant for all. This is the basis for the close connection between Christian theology and democratic politics.

Third, I am in deep accord with Dr. Heie on the importance of difference-in-relation for political life. For Dr. Heie, the main way in which love is lived in politics is by deeply and actively listening to people who are different from oneself. While I will challenge that assessment in the coming paragraphs, I want to lift up what I see as the ethical principle behind the assertion. This is that the goal of political life is not to make everyone else look, think, and act like oneself, but to negotiate the terms of a common life with people who are meaningfully different. Politics happens because people disagree on how to go about achieving basic goods. How are we going to raise our kids? How are we going to take care of our elders? How should we work to avert the coming of a climate catastrophe that is already here for the poorest and the most vulnerable? What should education look like? What should our food system look like? The goal of politics is not to get everyone to give the same, pre-prescribed answers to these questions but to enable people who have radically different answers to those questions to live together in such a way that every person is able to participate in that common life and, in that context, to flourish. I have already stated in my own essay that this is precisely what the bourgeois public sphere fails to do, and that it is what the rebellious counterpublics and the repurposing of the public sphere by exploited and oppressed people and communities does, in my view, significantly better. The goal of radical politics, at its best, is not to eliminate the need for the ongoing negotiation of a common life, but to allow that negotiation to occur on dramatically better terms for the poor and and working classes than it does now.

DISAGREEMENTS

So much for the places that I agree with Dr. Heie. I would now like to move towards three main areas of disagreement, which I view as deeply related.

First, I see the concept of love that Dr. Heie has offered in his essay to be overly general. I understand that he is trying to offer a version of Christian love that is as broad and ecumenical as possible. But I believe that there is a profound danger in positing and underdefined notion of love, particularly as an individual virtue. It can easily devolve into sentimentalism, respectability, or both. Whether the goal is to have a tender heart and an open disposition or not to speak in such a way that might offend or cut off dialogue, the danger is that this Christian understanding of political discourse might have more to say about how Christians speak in the public sphere than to whom, for whom, and to what end. Dr. Heie’s opening essay is case in point. While he does give some examples of important political work in his own life, like supporting pro-immigrant legislation, the way that active listening and respectful conversation become the principal outworking of Christian love in political discourse leave no clear guidance as to how Christians are actually to come to good judgments about the great social issues of their day. You can be open and respectful when advocating for cuts to social benefits or against police accountability just as much as when struggling for labor rights and immigration reform.

It is absolutely crucial to stress that Christian love is unequivocally partisan. With the God who took the form of a slave, it stands on the side of the exploited and the oppressed and against their exploiters and oppressors. To miss this is, in fact, to miss the whole reason that Christians are commanded to love their enemies in the first place. Christians are commanded to love enemies because their partisanship for the poor and working classes will make them many enemies among the rich and the powerful. The enemies that Jesus Christ commands His disciples to love include the master who strikes his slave on the right cheek (that is, if he is right handed, using the back of his hand, a sign of disrespect and degradation shown towards those of lower social status), the soldier of the occupying, colonial power who conscripts civilians to carry his pack, and the creditor whose debtors are so impoverished that he literally takes the clothes off their backs. Moreover, the love that Christians show their enemies – turning the other cheek, going the extra mile, giving your shirt as well as your cloak – are creative acts of resistance, what James Scott calls “weapons of the weak,” which seek to actively transform the situation of injustice itself.

This brings me to the second point of tension between myself and Dr. Heie. While Dr. Heie speaks of political opponents coming together to discover a common good, I prefer, together with Luke Bretherton, to speak of diverse communities coming together to make a common life. The difference is crucial. As I have just demonstrated, the picture of enemy love offered in classic Christian texts like the sermon on the mount shows the life of the gospel being lived out in a world riven by basic and fundamental differences between exploiter and exploited, oppressor and oppressed. The world hasn’t always been this way – it is a feature of the fall – and it won’t always be this way, either. But Christian love does not turn away from the fallen and finite world in which disciples find themselves. It does not retreat into a sectarian community to wait for the eschaton or try to set up utopian communities in which the eschaton can come early. Rather, the victory of Jesus Christ over the powers of death that rule the present age is precisely what makes possible His followers’ mission to the present age, announcing its immanent end and the advent of the age to come. So Christian partisanship for the poor and working classes is not lived out in isolation from the very real conflicts of interest that they experience on a daily basis with the wealthy and the powerful. That is, once again, why Christians have occasion to turn the other cheek and go the extra mile.

But that means that, in the political theater that Christians enter, and in which they seek to proclaim God’s glory and announce the coming of God’s Son, Jesus Christ, into the world at the end of the age, there may not actually be a single common good that everyone shares. Employers and workers, for example, may well actually have nothing in common – thanks to the inequalities created by capitalistic modes of production. But even if workers and bosses have nothing in common, they still have to live together, if massive bloodshed is to be avoided. The question is, on what terms will they live together? Who will profit the most from the productive activity of the workplace? Who will control what is made and how it is used? Such basic divisions are not limited to the issue of class. Analogous ones could be identified if we were to examine issues of gender, race, nationality, and ability.

This brings me to my third major difference with Dr. Heie. If the goal of politics is to identify and seek a common good, something that everyone shares regardless of their social location, then politics will be, primarily, about persuasion. If you and I share a single, identifiable common good, then all our differences of opinion can be explained as differences in how to seek that good. My task, then, will be nothing more and nothing less than to try to convince you that my way of seeking our shared good is more effective, and vice versa. In that context, the norms of respectful conversation that Dr. Heie has laid out make perfect sense as universal rules for how Christians should conduct themselves in politics. If the goal is to persuade my adversary, then I should try to do so with love, and that means doing so respectfully and with an open mind, from a posture of active listening. But if we don’t share a common good but nevertheless have to figure out how to live together, how to make a common life, then persuasion, while it will, surely, still be part of the political equation, will not be the sum total of political discourse. To return to the example of class, if workers and employers have basically opposing interests, if, as the preamble to the constitution of my union says, “the working class and the employing class have nothing in common,” then, while the process of making a common life may involve persuasion, it will, surely, involve force as well. Workers will not just attempt to persuade their bosses to pay them a living wage with moral arguments; they will also, often, have recourse to strikes, slowdowns, boycotts, occupations, blockades, sabotage, and all other manner of mass and covert action to force their bosses to comply with their demands. In such a world, in which the common life that people create together is made not only through persuasion, but through conflict as well, Christian love demands that we be militantly partisan for the working class, for colonized people, for racial, religious, and sexual minorities – in short, for the last, the least, and the lost with whom Jesus Christ revealed God’s unwavering solidarity in becoming incarnate in the form of a slave. Christian love in politics will be lived not only at the podium, but on the picket line, not only in televised debates, but through the tear gas and the gall of militant street actions.

In closing, I will return, once again, to the issue of fascism and antifascism in American politics. I absolutely agree with Dr. Heie that it is necessary to engage potential recruits for white supremacist groups and to sway them away from far right politics. Some of the most important work antifascist work leading up to Charlottesville was done by Redneck Revolt, who successfully persuaded the three percenters not to march with the Nazis. As a white working class oriented group trying to detach gun culture from racism, this is one of their major roles. But, when all is said and done, when there are actual Nazis marching in the streets, prepared to attack you and your community, Christian love demands something more. When all attempts at persuasion and respectful dialogue have been exhausted, you put on a gas mask, take up a flag, a shield, or a hard banner, and prepare to stand against them. When people of color, LGBTQ people, and religious minorities are under attack, partisan Christian love demands nothing less than full scale participation in community self-defense efforts. Respectful dialogue is important, but it is not enough to satisfy the demands of a liberative Christian love ethic in the political sphere.

Respectful Conversation as a Deep Expression of Love

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A strategy I have found to be helpful when I engage with someone who disagrees with me strongly about a given issue, in the political realm and everywhere else, is to first seek areas of agreement. Can we find some “common ground?”  This starting point fits well with my understanding that politics, at its best, is the search for common ground that seeks the common good.

Current Political Discourse is Appalling

Our conversation partners for September, Republican Jeff VanDerWerff and Democrat Kim Van Es agreed that the sample YouTube video clips from Cable TV political news reporting were deplorable: “drivel” that exemplifies “weaponized distrust” (Jeff); “name-calling that lowers the level of argument to that of mean kids on the playground” (Kim).

The picture doesn’t get any better when you listen to how our elected political representatives typically engage their counterparts on the other side of the political aisle. Motives are called into question; name-calling is common; even demonization. The resulting extreme polarization and hyper-partisanship militate against politicians on opposite sides of the aisle working together to find common ground. What are the reasons for this wasteland?

There is room for disagreement as to the causes of political enmity. A primary reason, in my estimation, is that for too many politicians and their supporters doing politics is about winning rather than about governing well. And this focus on winning has led to pernicious political structures and practices that militate against genuine political discourse. These include closed primaries that attract more ideologically extreme voters who have little interest in dialogue, gerrymandering of voting districts that protect politicians from having to engage opposing views, and the inordinate role of financial support from donors at the extreme ends of the political spectrum. The net result is a hollowing out of the middle that militates against politicians reaching across the aisle in search for common ground.

But I want to dig deeper by focusing on some foundational reasons for the brokenness of political discourse; the attitudes (enduring dispositions) that underlie such questionable political structures and practices. Although it will sound quaint, I maintain that the root causes of political rancor are lack of humility, lack of courage and lack of love.

Ask yourself when the last time was that you heard a politician or staunch supporter of a particular public policy position say “I may be wrong.” As scripture teaches, we all “see through a glass darkly” (1 Corinthians 13:12). As human beings, the particularities of our social locations inform our views on public policy. The position taken by someone who disagrees with me may be deeply informed by her gender, socio-economic status, her race and elements of her personal biography, which may enable her to see things that I miss. Likewise, my particularities may enable me to see things that she misses. And since we are both finite and fallible human beings, we cannot claim that either of our partial glimpses captures the full truth on the matter, as only fully understood by God. In addition, I can be blinded when I succumb to the temptation to sin by thinking “it’s all about me and those who agree with me.” 

It is hubris and a gross failure to exemplify an appropriate attitude of humility for me to assume that I have a God’s eye view of the truth about a given policy issue. It takes genuine humility for me to express my beliefs with clarity and conviction while acknowledging that “I may be wrong.”

Exemplifications of courage are also often missing in the political realm. Too often, politicians do not express their deepest convictions for fear of what their constituents will think and the possibility that they may be punished for such honesty on the next election day; another symptom of the inordinate focus on winning in politics.

I have personally witnessed such lack of courage in face-to-face conversations I have had with some local elected officials as I have advocated for the well-being of my immigrant neighbors, documented or undocumented. A specific example involves my advocacy for Iowa state legislation for temporary driver’s licenses for all immigrants, which, in my estimation is a win-win-win situation (good for public safety, employers and immigrant families). The response of one member of the Iowa legislature was, in effect, that he agreed with the need for such legislation and would support it if it were proposed by others (jumping on a bandwagon), but it would be too politically risky for him to take the initiative to propose such legislation.  

Relative to the recent events in Charlottesville, I am not in a position to know or to pass judgement on the motives of others. But I encourage politicians who have remained silent about President Trump’s equivocation regarding the moral culpability of the protestors and anti-protestors at Charlottesville to examine their motives. Is it possible that such deafening silence reflects a failure in courage?

In addition to failures to exemplify humility and courage, I believe that lack of love is the primary attitudinal cause of the current coarseness of political discourse, which leads me to my proposal for a Christian approach to political discourse and all other areas of human discourse

A Christian Approach to Political Discourse

Starting again with an area of agreement among Christians, I know of no Christian who denies that Jesus calls his followers to “love others” (Mark 12:31). But there is much disagreement as to how to express that love. My proposal for a Christian approach to all human discourse, in the political realm or anywhere else, focuses on one expression of love for others that I find to be too rare in Christian circles. I am loving another person when I abide by the following guidelines for respectful conversation:

  • I create a safe and welcoming space for her to express her perspective on the issue at hand. 
  • I listen carefully, seeking to empathetically understand the reasons she has for her perspective.
  • I express my perspective, and my reasons for holding that perspective, with commitment and conviction, but with a non-coercive style that invites conversation about disagreements.
  • I explore whether we can find some common ground that can further the conversation. But, if we cannot find common ground, I conclude that “for now we agree to disagree”; yet I will do so in a way that demonstrates respect for the other and concern for her well-being and keeps open the possibility of future conversations.
  • I aspire to be characterized by humility, courage and patience.

 

There is an extremely important element that pervades these steps: “getting to know” the person who disagrees with you. Those politicians, pundits and citizens who bash each other on cable TV, talk radio or their local newspapers have typically not taken the time to get to know each other very well. When you take the time to get to know the person who disagrees with you, you may uncover new insights from her reasons for her perspective and you may discover that she too wants the best, although you may differ as to what is best. In politics, this often means that you may find agreement on ends (e.g., the needs of those living in poverty must be addressed); with your disagreements being primarily about the best means to accomplish those ends (e.g., emphasizing free market mechanisms or governmental interventions). During this process of getting to know her you can build the mutual trust and respect needed to continue your conversations.

While recognizing the excesses of nostalgia, this suggests the need for politicians to go back to the days when Tip O’Neill and President Reagan developed a friendship that made it possible for them to work across the aisle in the midst of their deep political disagreements. Although it appears trivial on the surface, a current problem in Washington is the virtual elimination of adequate time for “socialization” among politicians on opposite sides of the political aisle brought about, at least in part, by the inordinate amount of time spent on fund raising.  

What are my arguments for the importance of Christians expressing their love for others in this conversational mode? I appeal to both personal experience and scriptures.

In my former life as a Vice President for Academic Affairs at two Christian colleges, I have seen some positive results from my attempts to live out these guidelines for respectful conversation in proving leadership for my faculties, which has been likened to “herding cats.” But there was one notable exception, when my commitment to a collaborative leadership style led to my being fired for “lack of deference to the president and Board of Trustees,” who exemplified a top-down approach to leadership.  

As if the pain of being fired was not enough, it was magnified considerably when I was not provided a welcoming space to “present my point of view”; when I was silenced, rendered voiceless. But one day, a member of Board of Trustees who apparently was not involved in the decision that this governing body made came to my home because he wanted to hear my side of the story. Finding someone who willing to listen to my perspective on what had transpired brought joy to my whole being. It was like coming across an oasis on a journey through a desert. As he left my home that sunny morning in south central Pennsylvania, I knew that I had been loved.

But I don’t wish to make my experience normative. What light is shed by scripture? I will limit my reflections to one passage; 1 Peter 3:15 (in Today’s New International Version).

Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect …

Richard Mouw, the former president of Fuller Theological Seminary, on whose shoulders I stand since his book Uncommon Decency has inspired me and supports my proposal much more eloquently than I can, once expressed an unusual take on this verse. Paraphrasing generously, Mouw reported that in his Christian upbringing, great emphasis was placed on the first sentence in this verse (express the reasons for the hope that is in you “with commitment and conviction” – to use my own words); but virtually nothing was said about the second sentence (“do this with gentleness and respect”).

This failure to heed this entire exhortation points to the scarcity of a rare combination pointed to by Ian Barbour in his definition of “religious maturity.”

It is by no means easy to hold beliefs for which you would be willing to die, and yet to remain open to new insights. But it is precisely such a combination of commitment and inquiry that constitutes religious maturity

As quoted by Jeff VanDerWerff in our September conversation, Richard Mouw draws on Martin Marty in highlighting the importance of “civility” in living out this rare combination of commitment and inquiry, calling for a  “convicted civility.” 

One of the real problems in modern life is that the people who are good at being civil often lack strong convictions and people who have strong convictions often lack civility.… We need to find a way of combining a civil outlook with a “passionate intensity” about our convictions. The real challenge is to come up with a convicted civility.

Openness to the beliefs of others without commitment to your own beliefs too easily leads to sheer relativism (I have my beliefs, you have yours; end of conversation). Commitment to your own beliefs without openness to listening to and respectfully discussing the beliefs of others too easily leads to fanaticism, even terrorism. (As C. S. Lewis has observed, to which past and recent world events tragically testify, “Those who are readiest to die for a cause may easily become those who are readiest to kill for it.”) One of the most pressing needs in our world today, is for all human beings, whatever their religious or secular faith commitments, to embrace, and hold in tension, both commitment and openness; giving living expression to “convicted civility.” 

Objections

I anticipate at least the following three objections to my proposed Christian approach to political discourse.

First, are there not limits to my call to respect others? Should I respect those white supremacists, neo-fascists, and members of the KKK who marched in Charlottesville chanting “Jews will not replace us?” It depends on what you mean by “respect.” Stephen Darwell has made a distinction between two kinds of respect. Appraisal respect is a positive evaluation of somebody’s achievements or virtues. Recognition respect is elicited by the worth someone has simply because she is a person, independent of her achievements or virtues. From my Christian perspective, all persons are of worth because they are “beloved by God” and have been created in the Image of God, however distorted that image has become. Therefore, I recognize the worth of those who practiced bigotry while marching in Charlottesville at the same time that I believe that their beliefs and actions are deplorable. And that means that I would be willing to engage them in respectful conversation about our disagreements, if they so desire.

The above reflections on the marchers in Charlottesville leads to my response to the third leading question that Gregory Williams and I have been asked to address: What does it mean for Christians to love their enemies in politics? Starting with a definition of an “enemy” as someone who is “antagonistic to another”; someone who is “seeking to injure, overthrow or confound an opponent,” then, from the outside looking in, I may have my share of enemies. But my proposal for how I should engage others in the political arena does not depend on whether they consider themselves to be my friends or enemies; whether they seek my well-being or not. When I engage anyone who disagrees with me, I am to love him/her by engaging in conversation according to the guidelines that I enumerate above. But I must say that even if she considers herself to be my enemy, I do not consider her to be my enemy since she is “beloved by God.”

A second possible objection is that my proposal allows Christian perspectives on public policy issues to gain a hearing in the public square. Should particular religious perspectives be allowed in public discourse in our pluralist society? The substance of my perspectives on political issues will be deeply informed by my value commitments as a Christian. Some argue that this is impermissible in the public square. Political discourse should be value-neutral. But that is impossible. No one comes from nowhere. Every person brings their values to public conversations. For some, these values flow from particular religious commitments. For others, they flow from secular views about the nature of reality and our place within that reality.

This means that political discourse should be characterized by a “level playing field,” where all perspectives, religious or secular, should be given a hearing; an approach that has been called “dialogic pluralism,” where each perspective is not evaluated on the basis of its genesis (e.g., did it come from a Christian, a Muslim or an atheist, or from a Republican, Democrat or Independent?), but, rather, on the basis of the extent to which the perspective being proposed can lead to public policy that fosters the common good.

A third possible objection to my proposal is that it has absolutely no hope of being “successful.” I can only imagine some of my readers rolling on the floor laughing: “Harold, you are living in la-la land; totally out of touch with political reality.” It is hopelessly naïve to think that a significant number of politician and their supporters will soon be embracing the virtues of humility, courage and love in their engagement with political opponents. Such virtues are in short supply, even among those, like Christians, who pay them considerable lip service.

I acknowledge the force of this objection. But “success” is not uppermost in my mind. My aspiration is to be faithful to my understanding of how a follower of Jesus is called to engage someone with whom he/she disagrees in the political realm and every other area of discourse. I entrust the possibility of success, or not, into God’s hands. In my numerous attempts over many years to facilitate respectful conversations about contentious issues, I have been sustained by the parable of the mustard seed told by Jesus, as recorded in Matthew 13: 31-32.

The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; it is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and makes nests in its branches.

In ways that far exceed my limited understanding, the “Kingdom of God” inaugurated by Jesus “is here but not yet.” In our broken world, we see only faint intimations of the eventual fullness of the Kingdom of God to come, something like the early morning sunrise provides a hint of the full noonday sunshine to come. In the meantime, I am called to plant tiny seeds of redemption, entrusting the harvest to God. As I am fond of saying, “One cannot predict beforehand the results of a respectful conversation.” Therefore, it is only through the eyes of faith that I can envision my proposed Christian approach to political discourse bearing any redemptive fruit. 

Model! Model! Model!

Since I am not trained in political science, I am not competent to address the deficiencies in political structures that I point to above. I can only encourage other Christians to commit themselves to the messy hurly-burly of doing politics as a career, encouraging them to address these deficiencies.

But I know what I can do. I can plant and cultivate tiny seeds of redemption. About seven years ago, I decided that rather than just writing essays, like this one, trying to convince others in the abstract about the need for a Christian approach to dialogue about contentious issues, I would just “do it” (to borrow a phrase from Nike). So, I recruited 47 conversation partners for my past eCircles on American Evangelicalism and human sexuality and 22 conversation partners (myself included) for this present eCircle on political discourse, all of whom agreed, up-front, to abide by the guidelines for respectful conversation enumerated above. 

Readers of my web site will have to judge. But if you take the time to read the many postings on my past eCircles, I believe you will conclude that these 47 Christians have modeled my proposed Christian approach to dialogue to an admirable degree. And it is my hope and prayer that by the end of this current ten-month conversation on political discourse, readers will conclude that it has again been demonstrated that it can be done: Christians who exemplify humility, courage and love and commit themselves to the guidelines for respectful conversation that are deep expressions of love can engage in conversations about political issues that uncover some common ground about public policy issues that promote the common good. I don’t expect the postings for this eCircle to go viral any time soon. But I will entrust the redemptive harvest to God.

But planning such seeds of redemption cannot be the work of a lone ranger or two or three. I applaud my friend Kim Van Es for the way in which she has planted such redemptive seeds through her series of face-to-face “Plain Conversations” in Sioux County, Iowa. I applaud my friend Steve Mahr who has made his Town Square Coffee Shop in Orange City, Iowa a welcoming place for respectful conversation. I hope and pray that many readers of this eCircle will do likewise in their respective spheres of influence.

My Quest for Truth

Some of my friends and readers may wonder about the genesis of my passion for seeking to orchestrate respectful conversations among persons who have strong disagreements. As the above narrative suggests, I am responding, in a way that fits with my gifts and abilities, to the call of Jesus for me to love others and my understanding of a deep expression of that love.

But there is another foundational reason for this passion. It has emerged from a continuous integrative thread in my life since my early teaching days: my insatiable “quest for truth” at the cognitive level and my aspiration to live out that truth one day at a time. The ultimate authority to which I am committed is not to be found in the pronouncements of church leaders, the Pope or anyone else, or to the interpretations of Scripture and doctrines of any particular Christian tradition or denomination, for no person or Christian tradition/denomination has a corner on God’s truth. Rather my ultimate authority is the truth as God fully knows it. The fact that I am not God presents a considerable challenge. Since I only have a partial glimpse of the truth, at best, it is important for me to engage with humility, courage and love in respectful conversations with those whose glimpses differ from mine, so that, together in conversation, we can gain better approximations to that truth.

The Scandal of Silence or Complicity

What is at stake if Christians don’t model a better alternative to the brutal rancor of current political discourse?  The credibility of the prophetic witness of the Christian church is at stake. It is tragic that many Christians have been silent in the face of the current broken nature of political discourse that directly violates Christian teachings regarding humility, courage and love or, worse yet, gladly contribute to such pernicious discourse. 

That is not to suggest that my particular proposal for a Christian approach to political discourse should be normative. I welcome alternative proposals as to how Christians should engage others in the political realm. But for Christians to acquiesce or contribute to the current appalling state of political discourse is inexcusable and scandalous. We need to model a better way to do politics that is deeply informed by our Christian faith.   

Challenge the Question Itself

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Why has political discourse in America broken down and what can be done to revive it? The question presumes much. Indeed, to be transparent from the outset, it is my intention in the following pages to challenge the premise of the question itself. My argument is not so much that there hasn’t been a breakdown, but that this breakdown is not a declension, and that Christian thinking and acting should not seek to reverse it. The breakdown of “political discourse” is a crisis in liberal democracy, part and parcel with a larger crisis of neoliberal capitalism and global empire to which (I take it to be axiomatic) Christians should stand opposed. It is not, however, enough simply to reject liberal capitalist modes of civil discourse (e.g. “free speech”) as proper to a corrupt and death-dealing social system. “The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.” This paper, then, will paint the broad outlines of both. First, it will narrate how liberal democratic ideals of civil discourse and free speech are embedded within capitalist property relations, and how and why those ideals are currently in crisis. Then it will attempt to narrate how these ideals have always been contested by those who were never meant to have “free speech,” and expanded primarily by that contestation. It will close with a mediation on antifascism as a defense of free speech for the poor and working classes against the threat of enclosure posed by white supremacy and the far right.

THE FRAGILITY OF THE BOURGEOIS “PUBLIC SPHERE” – HABERMAS AND LOCKE

In his 1962 text The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, Jurgen Habermas tracked the emergence and evolution of the main arena in which “political discourse” takes place within liberal capitalist democracy. For Habermas, the “public sphere” was originally a creature of the rising bourgeoisie, evolving out of venues like coffee shops where some of the first newspapers were produced, read, and discussed by merchants and stock brokers, and eventually came to include the theater, book publishers, etc. The birth of the public sphere was a key part of the creation of the modern, bourgeois state, because it guaranteed one of that state’s key features: limited government. The public sphere, as a place where private individuals could gather and discuss matters of common significance, created “the public” as such, a body that could limit the scope and authority of the state and to which the state could be held accountable.

The main significance of Habermas’ argument for our purposes is that “civil discourse” – or any other kind of discourse – does not arise out of the blue. It does not and cannot happen between individuals with nothing standing between them and the state and the market. Rather, “public discourse” and “the public” itself needs to have an institutional existence. At a very basic level, this can and often does mean a physical space, whether that is a coffee shop in renaissance London or union square in New York City. So, on Habermas’ account, if one wanted to look for the cause of the decline of “civil discourse” in contemporary American society, one would look to the decline in the number of genuinely public spaces where people can come together. Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community is one text that tracks this decline. As membership in labor unions, churches, mosques, and synagogues, rotary clubs, debating societies, amature sporting leagues, and other voluntary associations continues to plummet, Habermas might argue, we can expect the quality and quantity of “civil discourse” to continue to fall.

This is an extremely powerful argument, and true as far as it goes. But it fails to attend to the deep contradictions with which the bourgeois public sphere has always been riven. The public sphere is, by definition, a sphere for anybody and everybody. But the “everybody” – the “everyman” – that it includes has never really been all human beings. Rather, the bourgeois public sphere has always primarily served as a meeting place for the paradigmatic bourgeois subject – propertied, white, male, and heterosexual. Thus, the primary logic of the public sphere, and of “political discourse,” namely the liberal ideal of free speech, has always been modulated in such a way as to presume that subject. This is why John Locke, arguably the principal “organic intellectual” of the liberal bourgeoisie and the philosophical architect of the modern bourgeois state, argued that basic rights, including the right to free speech, depended on owning property. Rights, in Locke’s formulation, just like “the public” in Habermas’ formulation, are about space. Rights are things that a subject can exercise over a space that he controls, a space that includes both land and bodies. Thus, a Lockean subject, a la the US Bill of Rights, has the right to free speech because he owns his body, and specifically his mouth, just like he has the right not to quarter a soldier in time of peace because he owns his home, and just like he has the right to bear arms to protect his sovereignty over both his home and his body. The public sphere is a meeting place for such subjects. It is a place where they can actualize their rights over their bodies by exercising those rights in public, in the presence of others. Of course, the existence of subjects who own their bodies and therefore have rights is only plausible in a world in which human bodies are property that can be owned, that is, in a world where there are some people who do not own their own bodies. This is why, in American Slavery, American Freedom, Edmund Morgan shows that the emergence of rights discourse in the commonwealth of Virginia, which pioneered this legal framework for other British colonies and which served as an important model for the later US Constitution, was intrinsically linked to the existence of slavery and indentured servitude. Virginia’s House of Burgesses, both a predecessor to later representative assemblies and a kind of liberal public sphere, was a space where the rights of “free born Englishmen,” including the right to free speech, the right to participate in a “civil discourse,” could be exercised, and was both economically produced and philosophically predicated on the existence of slavery.

This central contradiction in the public sphere is the basis of innumerable conflicts, and of the current crisis in “civil discourse” in America. Women, slaves, and working class people have always contested the boundaries of the public sphere and demanded entry into it. This is, for example, what Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, and other formerly enslaved people were doing when they took to the lecture circuit to contest chattel slavery and call for abolition. It is also what working people – particularly “unskilled,” industrial workers – were doing when they formed voluntary associations that evolved into the first labor unions. Because of the bourgeois character of the public sphere, these interventions have always been contentious. And so the shape and scope of the public sphere, and of what counts as “civil discourse” have always been negotiated and renegotiated in a necessarily messy and conflictual process. A catalogue of modern examples of this process might include the defense of gay bars like Stonewall and the growing levels of participation in civil disobedience by undocumented people under the banner sin papeles, sin miedo! – no papers, no fear! Michael Warner’s 2002 volume Counterpublics and the State has pointed out that a concomitant process with this has been the creation of alternative “publics” by marginalized groups, which can fester underneath the surface of a “civil society” characterized by “civil discourse” for years before erupting into open revolt. To continue with the example of LGBTQ struggles, Sherry Wolf argues that working class queer communities not only flourished in urban areas but actively struggled to protect their members long before Stonewall – at least as far back as the second world war, if not further – and that this was the condition for Stonewall’s possibility.

Yet, even as workers, women, people of color, and LGBTQ people have contested the scope of the bourgeois public sphere and thus broadened it, countervailing forces have also sought to narrow it. As common spaces have cropped up where exploited and oppressed people can appear publicly to one another and organize and contest their immiseration, the neoliberal capitalist order has responded with strategies of enclosure and containment. In this light, we can reconceptualize the decline of public spaces tracked by Habermas and Putnam. It is not something that has happened naturally, but something that has been engineered, a basic feature of neoliberalism. Libraries get defunded. Churches, particularly in poor neighborhoods, get closed. Town greens get paved over, or people get moved to suburban and exurban areas with no community centers other than a local strip mall, if that. This is Luke Bretherton’s argument in Resurrecting Democracy: Faith, Citizenship, and the Politics of a Common Life, and he submits that churches, together with mosques, synagogues, unions, LGBTQ community centers, and student groups, have a crucial role to play in “reweaving” civil society by organizing together around common goods.

I propose that the decline of “political discourse” be traced to the institutional decline of the public sphere, and that this be thought of as what Silvia Federici, following a long tradition of autonomous Marxists, calls “enclosure.” The “public sphere” has never been public in the sense of everyone being included. It must always be modified, as Habermas modifies it, with the adjective “bourgeois.” But this adjective has never been uncontested. The commons, the demos (the last, the least, and the lost whom Jesus Christ came to serve and to save) have always sought to seize space within the public sphere, or to make public spheres of their own – at union halls, gay bars, pride centers, anarchist infoshops, punk venues, black churches, and alternative religious spaces – in order to meet one another, to identify common concerns, to organize and fight the ruling classes, and/or just to survive. In order to preserve itself from the real threat that these reclaimed “common” spaces pose, the state and the capitalist class has consistently attempted to crack down on them, to “enclose the commons” not just economically but politically, even if it means violating the bourgeois public sphere’s norms of “civil discourse” and “free speech.” This is why free speech, from union organizers standing on soap boxes in the early 1900s and 1910s to Mario Savio delivering his “machine speech” on the steps of Sproul Hall in 1964, has always been a subaltern, working class concern. In the closing section of this paper, I will argue that, media portrayals to the contrary, it still is.

“EVERY NATION, EVERY RACE, PUNCH A NAZI IN THE FACE!” – FASCISM, ANTI-FASCISM, AND FREE SPEECH

The state and the market have many ways of enclosing common spaces to prevent the entry of subaltern voices into the public sphere and shut down subaltern counterpublics. For example, in The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond The Nonprofit Industrial Complex, the members of the INCITE! collective argue that the creation of 501(c)3 organizations has detached social service provision from social movements, and thereby taken away places that people met and organized by depoliticizing food sovereignty programs (often replacing them with food banks and soup kitchens), rape crisis centers and domestic violence shelters, sexual health services for LGBTQ people, community gardens, etc. Moreover, the massification of indebtedness and the growth of jobs without fixed hours or even specific job sites that can be organized (see: the replacement of taxis by uber and lyft, for example) has deprived a whole generation of workers of the time and space to organize together. Sometimes, common spaces are shut down through sheer acts of state violence. COINTELPRO, for example, did not just put many of the leaders of the Black Panther Party and other racial justice groups in jail. It also shut down the party as an institution, depriving the communities it had served of a common space. Perhaps the most striking and recent example has been the use of surveillance, raids, and outright attacks to break the Occupy movement, which was nothing if not an alternative public space in almost every major city in America. The more recent crackdown on those who protested the inauguration, including felony charges carrying upwards of 70-75 years in prison for more than two hundred activists, is also an attempt to make the risks of protesting in Washington, DC too high to be worth it to any political organization.

Yet, while they are the most common means, economic restructuring and state repression are not the only means of enclosure used against these sorts of political commons. The violence of the far right, and specifically white supremacist violence, has always been specifically targeted at subaltern counterpublics and at keeping subaltern voices out of the public sphere. This is exactly how we must think about Dylann Roof’s attack on Emmanuel AME in Charleston, SC in 2015 and Omar Mateen’s attack on the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, FL in 2016. Without commenting on the individual motivations of Roof and Mateen, it is crucial to stress that black churches and gay bars (particularly those serving people of color) have been two of the most important institutions where working class people have come together as a public over the course of the twentieth century. They are places where black folks and LGBTQ folks have been able to appear to one another as “somebody” and, out of that experience, to identify and organize around common goods. In this way, black churches helped birth the civil rights movement in the south and black power in the north and gay bars were ground zero for the emergence of Pride as a modern social movement. To attack these spaces is an act of enclosure, and Roof and Mateen, whatever they thought they were doing, were, also, acting as unofficial agents of the white supremacist state and the capitalist market in shutting off an important point of common people’s access to the public sphere.

These are not isolated examples. The violence of the far right has always played an auxiliary role to the state and the market in the process of enclosure. The two greatest periods in the history of the Ku Klux Klan, for example, the 1920s and the 1960s, corresponded to the height of the labor movement and the civil rights movement, respectively. The two most notorious massacres by the Klan in North Carolina, where I live and organize, occurred in Gastonia in 1929 and in Greensboro in 1979. In both instances, the people that the Klan murdered were labor rights activists trying to organize textile workers interracially. In the wake of both attacks, organizing collapsed in the area.

Similarly, the rise of the “boneheads” and other right wing skinhead groups in the 1980s was a deliberate attempt to push queer people and people of color out of the punk scene, one of the most important working class counterpublics in the North. Unlike in the case of the labor movement, however, nazi punks were met with significant resistance from Skin Heads Against Racial Prejudice (SHARPs), the “baldies” (an organization of antiracist skinheads in Minneapolis), and, later, from national organizations like Anti-Racist Action (ARA) and Love and Rage that grew out of these efforts. Thus, antifa was born in the United States as an effort to preserve common spaces, the institutions of a particular part of the public sphere (bars, concert scenes, etc.), from attack by the far right, for the sake of working class people whose presence in the bourgeois public sphere presents a fundamental contradiction for the Lockean framework on which it is organized, and therefore a real threat to capitalist conditions. “Nazi Punks, Fuck Off!” is a revolutionary slogan that stands for working people’s access to spaces where they can drink, talk, enjoy music, and share a common life – and also where they can plot the overthrow of American Empire.

Antifa, then, so commonly criticized for violating the “free speech” rights of Nazis, is, in its origins – and, I would argue, its present praxis – in the defense of free speech’s most basic precondition, i.e. physical and institutional space where people can appear to one another as public actors – particularly if they are marginalized along the lines of race, class, and gender. It is on this basis that it becomes possible to answer the oft-posed objection to antifa, “if you take away the free speech of nazis, don’t you worry that your free speech will be threatened?!” The answer is “it already has been.” Indeed, working class people, queer people, people of color – people who make up a disproportionate number of “the antifa” at events like Charlottesville – were never meant to have “free speech.” They are explicitly excluded from the framework of “political discourse” along the lines of which the bourgeois public sphere operates. Indeed, it is clear that contemporary neoliberalism would rather destroy the public sphere than allow these groups the opportunity to appear as genuine public actors.

This paper, then, has attempted, in a short space, to deconstruct at least one of the questions that prompted it. The question “why is political discourse on the decline and how can we revive it?” is the wrong question. The correct question is “how is the public sphere in crisis and how can working class people organize to seize and reinvent it as a commons?” The desire for a civil society, one in which people can genuinely talk to and listen to one another about issues of common concern, cannot be separated from the economic and political processes by which civil institutions are produced. These institutions are in crisis, but there also exist, now as ever before, countervailing forces that seek to create a public sphere that genuinely is for everyone, one not dominated by the one, the few, or the many. Contrary to media portrayals, not the greatest enemies, but the greatest defenders of free speech are black clad masked activists yelling “Alerta! Alerta! Antifascista!”

Subtopic 2: A Proposed Christian Approach to Political Discourse (October 2017)

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Leading Questions:  What are the reasons for the current appalling state of political discourse that often leads to demonization of the other, name-calling, questioning of motives and broken relationships? What are the characteristics of a constructive political discourse from a Christian perspective? What does it mean for Christians to love their enemies in politics?

Conversation Partners: 

  • Harold Heie, Senior Fellow, The Colossian Forum 
  • Gregory Williams, Ph. D. Student, Duke University Divinity School