Untruth Cannot Withstand Respectful Conversation

/in /by

A foundational basis for my eCircle on human sexuality and my previous eCircles is a particular expression of “love” for others.

There is no disputing that Jesus calls those who claim to be his followers to love others (Mark 12:31). But there is a particular expression of such love that is all too rare.

I believe it is a deep of love for another when you create a safe and welcoming space for the other person to express her disagreements with you on any given issue; when you listen empathetically to her perspective in order to adequately understand the reasons she has for her position; and when you then engage in respectful conversation about your differing perspectives for the purpose of seeking common ground and illuminating remaining disagreements in a manner that will facilitate ongoing conversation.

In my estimation, this expression of love is an “intrinsic” Christian value. It is the right loving way to engage another human being independent of whether it bears positive results, such as the uncovering of significant common understanding of the “truth” about the issue at hand.

But there is marvelous potential by-product of expressing this intrinsic Christian value; the possibility that the conversation will indeed help both of you to gain a better grasp of the “truth” as God fully understands it.

I had an “aha” moment about the nature of this “instrumental” value of respectful conversation a few weeks ago when reading the book Lincoln on Leadership for Today by Donald T. Phillips. 

Phillips recounts how in 1859, Abraham Lincoln gave more than a dozen talks across six Midwestern states, including my current home state of Iowa, in which he “continued to hammer away at the slavery issue, because he still wanted it openly discussed across the land.” Why did Lincoln call for such ongoing conversation regarding slavery? Because Lincoln believed, as he said in Columbus, Ohio, that “Evil can’t stand discussion” (p. 82). 

Reading those four words constituted my “eureka” moment. All of a sudden, I found just a few words, a variation on Lincoln’s words, that captured concisely my second rationale for my respectful conversation projects: “Untruth cannot withstand respectful conversation.”

Of course, what happened in the 1860s is that Americans chose war instead of the ongoing discussion that had the potential to uncover the evil of slavery.

And my mantra that “untruth cannot withstand respectful conversation” could suffer the same fate in our time. It appears to me that relative to LGBT issues, most Christians have chosen combat over conversation. Not combat with guns and bullets, but verbal combat wherein those who disagree with you are demonized or the sincerity of their Christian commitment is called into question. So, we may never know if untruth about LGBT issues can withstand respectful conversation because we refuse to engage in such conversation.

But, let us assume, for the sake of argument, that more Christians choose to engage in such respectful conversations about LGBT issues. Will such conversations help us to distinguish between truths and untruths? I don’t know, because as I am fond of saying “you cannot predict beforehand the results of a respectful conversation.”

So, here is my hope and prayer: that by means of ongoing respectful conversations (for which my eCircle on human sexuality is just the beginning and not the end), the truth regarding LGBT issues will gradually emerge (because untruth cannot withstand respectful conversation). How audacious is that?

You see, it is only through the eyes of faith that I can envision the possibility of ongoing respectful conversations about human sexuality helping Christians to come to a better understanding of the “truth” about human sexuality. 

As far-fetched and utopian as that possibility may seem in the contemporary Christian Church, it is my embracing of that possibility that is foundational to my sense of calling that I should devote significant time and energy to orchestrating respectful conversations about human sexuality (and other contemporary issues that are dividing the church).

 

Learning from Someone Who Disagrees with you: Immigration Reform and Beyond

/in /by

It is a challenge for those who hold to their beliefs with deep conviction to acknowledge that they may be wrong about some things and could learn from someone who disagrees with them about the issue at hand.

The root problem is all-or-nothing thinking: I have the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth and everything the other person believes about the issue is false.

As recorded in Acts 15, the early Christian church modeled a way to get beyond such all-or-nothing thinking by means of conversation. Some Christian Jews believed that Gentiles who wished to embrace the Christian faith needed to be circumcised and keep all other aspects of the “law of Moses” (v. 5). But at the Jerusalem Conference, “all the assembly kept silence; and they listened to Barnabas and Paul as they related what signs and wonders God had done though them among the Gentiles” (v. 12).

It appears that the authenticity of the Christian commitment of these Gentiles could not be questioned. So, a compromise was reached: Gentile believers did not have to be circumcised; but they should adhere to some other tenets of the “law of Moses”: “For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things: that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from unchastity. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well” (vs. 28-29).

In this example from many years ago, those who disagreed learned from each other. By means of respectful conversation, they were able to forge a position that reflected some, but not all, of their respective deep convictions. This conversational approach to dealing with disagreements has long since gone out of style, both within the Christian church and the broader culture. Nowhere is this more evident than in our current hyper-partisan political environment.

Political discourse these days is plagued by all-or-nothing thinking. It’s “either my way or the highway.” Little thought is given to the possibility that “both-and” thinking is preferable to “either-or” thinking when it comes to “governing” (rather than just getting elected). The surest way for politicians to be relegated to political oblivion is to suggest that those in “our party” should reach across the aisle to those in “that other party” to talk about their agreements and disagreements, with the goal of agreeing on a legislative position that synthesizes each party’s best thinking about the issue at hand.

Lest this seem like an abstract critique, I will be concrete by considering the hotly debated issue of immigration reform, an issue about which I have been heavily involved in recent years in northwest Iowa (I currently serve as Co-Director of CASA of Sioux County. The vision of the Center for Assistance, Service, and Advocacy is for “transformed northwest Iowa communities that welcome, empower and celebrate people from all cultures”). The report that follows is based on face-to-face conversations I have had with three Iowa State legislators as well as with U. S. Senator Chuck Grassley from Iowa and U. S. House Representative Steve King from Iowa.

Those politicians and citizens on one side of the aisle typically take a strong “law and order” position regarding undocumented immigrants: They have broken the law by entering the U. S. illegally and should be punished by means of deportation. Christians taking this position appeal to the teaching in Romans 13: 1-7 that governmental authority has been instituted by God and if you “do what is wrong,” government should punish you for your wrongdoing.

Many on the other side of the aisle argue that undocumented immigrants should be provided a “pathway to citizenship.” Christians taking this position appeal to the admonition to “love the stranger” in Deuteronomy 10:18 and the teaching of Jesus in Matthew 25 to “welcome the stranger” and to care for the vulnerable and marginalized in our midst.

There is obvious tension between these two positions, which would appear to be irreconcilable if those on both sides of the aisle are not willing to talk. But imagine along with me the following possible snippets of conversation.

Yes, those who have broken the law by entering the U. S. illegally should be punished. But should that punishment be deportation? Is there no middle ground between “no punishment” and the severe punishment of deportation that is decimating many immigrant families? Shouldn’t account be taken of the fact that many of our undocumented immigrant neighbors entered our country illegally to flee horrific living conditions in their home countries and/or to provide their families with the necessities of life that most of us take for granted, like food on the table?

Politicians on the same side of the aisle disagree in their responses to these questions. Steve King takes the position that anything short of deportation is “amnesty.” But amnesty means “no punishment.” So, those who argue for a means of punishment short of deportation are not arguing for amnesty. 

Senator Grassley seems to disagree with Congressman King’s view that any punishment short of deportation is amnesty. My understanding of Grassley’s position is that he could be persuaded to support an eventual “pathway to citizenship” provided strong “law and order” measures that have proven to be effective come first. For Grassley, it appears to be a matter of sequencing: first secure the borders and institute appropriate forms of punishment for undocumented immigrants who have broken the law. Then, when that has been accomplished, let’s talk about the possibility of a pathway to citizenship. I know from face-to-face conversation that Grassley’s vote against the comprehensive immigration bill that the U. S. Senate passed in 2013 (more about that later) was primarily because of his lack of trust that President Obama would actually enforce the law and order measures contained in that bill.

By now you may have surmised that the snippets of conversation outlined above are not hypothetical. They were surely part of the conversation between the eight U. S. Senators, representing both sides of the aisle. who passed a comprehensive immigration reform bill in 2013; a bill that included BOTH punishment of undocumented immigrants in the form of significant fines AND a lengthy and arduous pathway to citizenship. That bill is an excellent example of the both-and thinking that is sorely needed in the halls of Congress. Unfortunately, that bill died in the U. S. House of Representatives because of the prevalence of either-or thinking in that chamber.

It is not just relative to immigration reform that politicians need to exercise a BOTH/AND approach. As I have elaborated in my book Evangelicals on Public Policy Issues: Sustaining a Respectful Political Conversation, there are a number of other public policy areas where an either-or approach will be a dead end.

Solving the federal budget deficit problem will require BOTH cuts in expenditures AND increased revenues.

An adequate health care system will require BOTH health insurance coverage for the many who are uninsured AND reducing the spiraling costs of health care.

Adequate K-12 education will require BOTH freedom for entrepreneurial innovation AND regulations that will avoid expressions of such freedom that will harm certain segments of our society.

Adequate gun control will require BOTH addressing the mental health and “culture of violence” problems that beset our nation AND legislatively enacting some common sense gun control measures. 

If I am right about the need for BOTH/AND approaches to most public policy issues, this  

suggests to me a greater need for what some pundits have called “governing from the middle,” not being beholden to the extremists in either major party. Of course, this is much easier said than done since enormous amounts of money are expended on promoting the election of those with extreme views and thwarting the political aspirations of those who wish to engage in “principled compromise” with members of the other party toward balanced BOTH/AND solutions to our most pressing societal problems.

But another major obstacle to BOTH/AND thinking in politics and all other areas of life is a lack of humility, properly understood, a shortcoming that militates against being open to the possibility of learning from someone who disagrees with you.

For me, humility does not mean that one is wishy-washy about his/her beliefs. I hold my beliefs with deep conviction, and am happy to articulate my deeply held beliefs in public discourse. But I aspire to exemplify that rare combination of deep commitment to what I believe to be true with openness to the possibility that I may be wrong and can, therefore, learn from engaging in respectful conversation with someone who disagrees with me. The late renowned Christian scholar Ian Barbour has suggested that exemplifying this rare combination is a sign 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 (Myths, Models and Paradigms, p. 138).

My ideal for politicians to carefully listen to one another for the purpose of learning from each other’s best insights does not only have “instrumental value”; opening up the possibility of breaking out of our current political gridlock. From my perspective as a Christian, it also has “intrinsic value;” it is the right thing to do whether or not it  “works.” I close with an explanation, which will not be a surprise to those readers who have been following my web site.

Jesus calls those who aspire to be his followers to “love others” (Mark 12: 31). I believe that a deep expression of my love for a person who disagrees with me is to give that person a “voice”; to create a safe and welcoming space for that person to express her point of view and the reasons for her position. It stretches credulity for you to claim that you love someone you have rendered voiceless.

Here is an ideal scenario that could emerge if you create a safe, welcoming space for someone who disagrees with you by first listening carefully with an “empathetic ear” that seeks to “put yourself in the other person’s shoes.” As you listen you will get to understand better the particularities of her social location that inform the reasons for her position on the issue at hand, such as her life experiences, the tradition in which she is embedded, her gender and her social and economic status. You may begin to understand that because of her particular social location, she is seeing things that you have missed Hopefully, if she reciprocates by listening to you, she will also come to understand better your reasons for the position you are taking; open to the possibility that you are seeing things that she has missed.

Such mutual understanding has the potential to lead to mutual trust. Rather than you thinking she is some kind of “crazy” (or any other name that we too often ascribe to those we don’t know well who disagree with us), you may see that her she is seeking the same good “end” that you are seeking; your disagreement is about the best “means” toward a shared good end. For example, if you are discussing the problem of poverty in the U. S., you may agree that steps need to be taken to alleviate extreme poverty, but one of you gravitates toward free market mechanisms and the other gravitates toward governmental intervention. But if you trust that you share the same good end, a door is open to the possibility of rejecting either-or thinking. Based on a growing level of mutual understanding and trust, both of you are poised to genuinely learn from one another, thereby forging a BOTH/AND position by means of ongoing conversation.  

Seeking the Good of your City: an Expansive View of God’s Redemptive Purposes

/in /by

But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare (Jeremiah 29:7)

In the pietistic Lutheran Church in which I was nurtured as a teenager in Brooklyn, New York, we were called to evangelism: sharing the good news that people can be redeemed from the tyranny of selfish will and be restored to a proper relationship with God through Jesus Christ. That was good, as far as it went, because Christians are called to be agents for fostering redemption between persons and God.

But when I was exposed to the Reformed Christian tradition, first as a faculty member at Gordon College in Massachusetts, and then, in no uncertain terms, when I moved to northwest Iowa in 1980, I came to the conclusion that that my earlier view of God’s redemptive purposes was severely truncated: In addition to, not in place of, the “saving of individual persons,” God intends for all of the Created order to be redeemed through Jesus Christ (Colossians 1: 15-20). As beautifully expressed by Abraham Kuyper, “There is not a square inch on the whole plain of human existence over which Christ, who is Lord of all, does not proclaim ‘This is mine!’”

On October 27-29, 2016, Dordt College will be hosting a Christian Community Development conference (Connect: CCD Iowa) that will exemplify to a marvelous extent this expansive view of God’s redemptive purposes. You will have to attend to capture this amazing scope: There will be 41 sessions with presenters including the renowned John Perkins, Director of the John Perkins Center for Reconciliation, Leadership Training, and Community Development. What follows is only a sneak preview: a partial sampling of topics to be covered that will expose attendees to the extraordinary breath of God’s redemptive purposes.

God Christians to be agents for peace among all persons and reconciliation between those in conflict. A number of conference sessions will address this calling, including “Reconciliation and Redemption: Theory and Practice” (focusing on diversity and race relations); an “(In)Complete Dutch People’s Guide to Understanding Race”; and “Cross-Cultural Collaboration.”

God calls Christians to be agents for justice, one aspect of which is to work tirelessly on behalf of the poor, the marginalized and oppressed of the world. This aspect will be addressed in multiple sessions devoted to efforts to promote the well-being of our immigrant neighbors, including “Current Efforts and Future Prospects for Immigration Reform”; “Living Faithfully in a Broken Immigration System”; “A Pastoral Response and Church Approach to Immigration”; “Creating a Generous Economy for Immigrants”; and a moving life-story told by an “Immigrant DREAMER.”

Seeking to promote the well-being of the marginalized in our communities will also be addressed in a “Blanket Exercise” (“The Loss of Turtle Island”) that will simulate the experiences of Native Americans.

Another aspect of justice deals with questions related to our criminal justice system. Two sessions will deal with such challenging issues: “Prison Ministry: Finding Freedom Inside the Walls”; and “How to Integrate Restoration in Your Own Life and Advocate for Restoration in the Criminal Justice System.”

God calls Christians Christian to be agents for promoting the physical well-being and healthy growth of persons. Sessions that will address this calling include “Promise Community Health Center: Transforming a Community”; “Prevention/Intervention for Substance Abuse Disorder”; “World Renew Disaster Response Services”; and “Kids Hope USA: Loving Kids Beyond Church Walls.”

God also call Christians to be agents for knowledge, seeking greater understanding of all aspects of the created order, so that we and others may live in proper relationship with that order. Four sessions that will focus on that calling are “Juntos: Together for a Better Education” (helping Latino high schoolers and their parents to understand better their college and employment options after high school); two sessions on “Knowing Islam: Work Among and with Muslims”; and “Addressing the Needs of Students with Interrupted Formal Education.”

Those who choose to attend the illustrative sessions noted above will see that although there will be a call for “global outreach” in a number of sessions, the target audience for most of these means for fostering God’s redemptive purposes will be those neighbors who live in our own cities and communities, better preparing us to “seek the good of our cities,” as called for in Jeremiah 29:7. In  addition, the following sessions will also focus on means to foster the well-being of persons living in our own cities and communities: “Helping Without Hurting in the Local Community”; two sessions on “Missional Hospitality:  Loving Cities and Communities into Greatness”; “Yes, You CAN Make a Difference: The Foster Grandparent and Senior Companion Programs of Greater Siouxland”; “Creating Space for Community Connections”; “Fair Trade: The Economy of Community”; and “Organizing a Successful Community Meal.”

By now, readers who aspire to be agents for God’s redemptive purposes should feel overwhelmed. How can I do all of that? Of course, you can’t and to think that you should is to misunderstand biblical teachings on how the “Body of Christ” works (e.g., I Corinthians 12). God’s calling for Christians to be agents for fostering the expansive scope of God’s redemptive purposes is a “collective” calling, with each follower of Jesus choosing to “partner with God” in ways that best fit his/her unique gifts and abilities. So, whatever your particular gifts and abilities may be, I hope and pray that you will join us on October 27-29 to explore ways in which you can use your giftedness to promote aspects of God’s redemptive purposes for creation.

Harold Heie is a Senior Fellow at the Colossian Forum and served as Vice President for Academic Affairs as Northwestern College (IA) from 1980-88. A member of the Planning Team for the CCD Iowa conference, Heie will be presenting at a session titled “Respectful Conversations about Controversial Issues” based on his recent work on his web site www.respectfulconversation.net.

Modeling Humility and Love in Public Discourse

/in /by

When is the last time you heard someone say the following about a controversial issue: “This is what I believe, but I may be wrong?

We are often quick to say “this is what I believe.” But the qualification “I may be wrong” is a rarity. Why is that? Rather than dealing in abstractions, I will set the stage for my answer by considering a concrete example with which I have had some direct experience.

Consider the controversial issue of “immigration reform” in the political realm[1]. Some citizens and their political representatives or candidates focus on the need to maintain law and order. What they believe is: We need to tighten border security to keep undocumented immigrants out of our country, possibly by building a “higher wall” between the USA and Mexico. We also need to punish those who have broken our laws by entering our country illegally. Christians taking these positions appeal to Romans 13: 1-7, which calls for government to maintain order and punish those who break the law. 

Other citizens and politicians focus on a need to promote the stability, unity and flourishing of immigrant families in our midst, documented or undocumented. What they believe is: We need to provide a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. We also need to create better Guest Worker programs for those in other countries who can no longer support their families. Christians taking these positions appeal to Deuteronomy 10: 18 and the exhortation of Jesus in Matthew 25: 31-40 to “welcome the stranger.”

Unfortunately, there is virtually no meaningful conversation between these two sets of citizens/politicians because of the prevalence of either/or thinking in the political realm: It’s my way or the highway. Few have any desire to entertain both/and thinking.

What would both/and thinking lead to relative to immigration reform? Imagine along with me a few possible snippets from the kind of “yes/but” conversation that could take place if Christians on both sides of the “immigration reform” issue were willing to say: “While I believe that my position is ‘true,’ I “may be wrong” in believing it is the “whole truth.”

A: In light of Romans 13, Christians should support measures that promote lawand order, including punishment of those who have broken the law.

B: Yes, but shouldn’t the punishment “fit the crime?” Is there no middle ground between no punishment for undocumented immigrants and the severe punishment of deportation that is decimating some immigrant families?

If the conversation started above leads both A & B toward serious consideration of a both/and approach toward immigration reform, I can imagine the following further exchange.

A: If we agree on an approach that includes both tighter border security and a pathway to citizenship, can’t politicians legislate that sequentially; tightening up border security first and then providing a pathway to citizenship?

B: Yes, that is a logical possibility, but is it politically feasible? Once the proponents of tighter border security get the legislation they want passed, would there be any political motivation for them to then even consider legislation that provides a pathway to citizenship? It appears to me that legislators must pass comprehensive legislation that provides for both needs, although the legislation could be written in a way that calls for sequential implementation in which a pathway to citizenship is implemented only after there is evidence that measures to tighten border security have succeeded. What do you think?

Such “yes/but” conversations must have taken place in 2013 when a bipartisan “gang of eight” Senators passed a both/and type of comprehensive immigration reform bill that included both the strengthening of border security and an arduous pathway to citizenship that included punishment of undocumented immigrants by means of significant fines. But the bill died in a House of Representatives dominated by hyper-partisan either/or thinking. And no progress toward comprehensive immigration reform has been made since then because the obstacles to both/and thinking in politics are formidable.

Possibly the most formidable obstacle is that politics has often become more about “getting elected” than about “governing well” and those politicians who desire to reach across the aisle to find both/and solutions to societal problems often gets punished on Election Day.[2]

So, what is a Christian who senses a call to engage in politics to do? Surely, slow and laborious steps can be taken to attempt to overcome these obstacles to both/and thinking in politics. But our broken political system will not change easily or quickly since the vested interests in maintaining the status quo are enormous. In that light, I decided a few years ago that instead of just writing essays (like this one), I would help Christians to “just do it” (to borrow a phrase from Nike) by creating a forum for Christians to model a better way to do politics.

I did this by hosting on this web site an extended “Alternative Political Conversation” in which six evangelical Christians who situated themselves all along the political spectrum, from the Heritage Foundation to Sojourners, addressed twelve contentious societal issues, including the Federal Budget Deficit, Immigration, Poverty, Marriage, Abortion and Gun Control. In order to participate in this electronic conversation (eCircle), each participant had to pledge to abide by the following “guidelines for conversation.”

 

·       I will try to listen well, providing each person with a welcoming space to express her perspective on the issue at hand
·       I will seek to empathetically understand the reasons another person has for her perspective
·       I will express my perspective, and my reasons for holding that perspective, with commitment and conviction, but with a non-coercive style that invites conversation with a person who disagrees with me
·       In my conversation with a person who disagrees with me, I will explore whether we can find some common ground that can further the conversation. But, if we cannot find common ground, I will conclude that “we can only agree to disagree;” yet I will do so in a way that demonstrates respect for the other and concern for her well-being and does not foreclose the possibility of future conversations.
·       In aspiring to these ideals for conversation, I will also aspire to be characterized by humility, courage, patience and love

 

My six contributors abided by these guidelines in an exemplary manner. A book that emerged from this eCircle[3] summarized areas of agreement and illuminated disagreements in a manner that can be a springboard for ongoing conversation. A recurring theme that emerged from these twelve conversations was the need for “balance” between competing views on public policy issues,[4] which can only emerge from both/and thinking. For example, the consensus of our six contributors was that the only way to solve the federal budget deficit problem is to both cut expenditures and increase revenues; seeking an appropriate “balance” between these two strategies.

Neither my actual “Alternative Political Conversation” nor my imagined “yes/but” conversation about immigration reform could be possible if participants were not willing to qualify their truth claims by saying “I may be wrong.” Why, then, is it so hard for a human being to say “I may be wrong?”

In brief, I believe this reflects our unwillingness to embrace our humanity, which includes our finitude and fallibility. Because I am a finite and fallible human being, I do not have a “God’s eye” view of the “Truth” about controversial issues. I only have my partial understanding of that “Truth,” which reflects aspects of my particular social location such as my biography, the tradition of thought in which I am embedded, my gender and my social and economic status. In biblical terms, I only “see through a glass darkly” (1 Corinthians 13:12). It is this realization of my finitude that calls for “humility,” properly understood.

For me, humility does not mean that I am wishy-washy about my beliefs. I hold my beliefs with deep conviction, and am happy to articulate my deeply held beliefs in public discourse. But I aspire to exemplify that rare combination of deep commitment to what I believe to be “True” with openness to the possibility that I may be wrong and can, therefore, learn from engaging in respectful conversation with someone who disagrees with me. The late renowned Christian scholar Ian Barbour has suggested that exemplifying this rare combination is a sign 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.”[5]

But it is not just the need for humility that is a prerequisite for the possibility of respectful conversations about disagreements. Another prerequisite is a commitment to “love” someone who disagrees with you, in the following way.

No Christian I know of would deny that a “follower of Jesus” is called to “love others” (Mark 12; 28-31). But there is an expression of such love for others that is too often neglected: A deep expression of love for a person who disagrees with you is to create a safe, welcoming space for her to express her disagreements and then engage her in respectful conversation about those disagreements. This expression of love for others is the foundation for all my respectful conversation projects, the most recent of which was an extended conversation on my web site dealing with nine contentious LGBT topics, informed by the same “guidelines for conversation” noted above.[6]

I am guessing that by now a number of my readers are thinking the following: All of the above is totally out of touch with reality; the real, brutish world of public discourse doesn’t work that way and never will.

To be sure, there is a huge chasm between the current state of public discourse and what would appear to be an impossible utopian dream of public discourse informed by humility and love. Much of public discourse reflects disdain, demonization and vitriolic name-calling of those who disagree with you rather than the love that creates a safe, welcoming space for respectful conversation about disagreements. Furthermore, to humbly state that “I may be wrong” is too often taken as a sign of “weakness.”

My attempt to navigate this chasm is informed by a marvelous insight from a recent Palm Sunday sermon given by Elizabeth Hardeman, the co-pastor of the church where I worship,[7] about the “collision of two worlds” that took place between Palm Sunday and Easter.

“This is the week in Jesus’ journey and ours that two worlds collide. This is the week that a festive entrance into the city and a footwashing mingle. This is the week it becomes clear that a hoped-for King and a sacrificial Savior are the same person. This is the week in which shouts of ‘Save us!’ and shrills of ‘Crucify him!’ coexist. This is Palm to Passion Week and Jesus could not be clearer in this week about who he is and what it means to follow him.”

To these stark Palm to Passion Week juxtapositions I will add the juxtaposition of the present world of combative public discourse and the potential world of public discourse that is characterized by humility and love. Elizabeth’s insight teaches me that “following Jesus” requires that I reject the prevailing view of what it means to be “strong” relative to public discourse. To give public expression to humility and love may be considered a sign of weakness in our current world. But, it is a sign of strength in the “colliding world” proclaimed by Jesus.

In biblical terms the “colliding world” proclaimed by Jesus is called the “Kingdom of God.” And the teaching of Jesus about the “kingdom of God” that drives my passion for public discourse that expresses humility and love is the Parable of the Mustard Seed recorded in Matthew  13: 31-32.

The Kingdom of heaven 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 make nests in its branches

One of the great mysteries of the Christian faith is that despite all appearances to the contrary, this Kingdom of God was inaugurated by Jesus and will one day be fully realized “on earth as it is in heaven.”[8] This parable of Jesus teaches me that in the meantime I am called, as a follower of Jesus, to plant tiny “seeds of redemption,” entrusting the harvest to God. Planting such tiny seeds may seem like utopian foolishness. But, much like the sight of an early morning sunrise on the horizon provides only a “mere intimation” of the eventual bright light of noonday, so planting tiny seeds of redemption in public discourse, by “modeling” humility and love, provides an intimation of a glorious future to come that can only be seen though the eyes of faith.

 

 

[1] My experience with the issue of immigration reform has resulted from my serving as the Chair of the Advocacy Group of the Center for Assistance, Service and Advocacy (CASA) of Sioux County (Iowa). The “vision” of CASA is the realization of “transformed Northwest Iowa communities that welcome, empower and celebrate people from all cultures.”

[2] Other obstacles to both/and thinking in politics include closed primaries that minimize the number of moderate voters and candidates participating in the nominating process; gerrymandered voting districts that protect or harm the political interests of incumbents and parties; winner-take-all elections that militate against the diversity of voices within our pluralistic society, and the inordinate political influence of those with wealth since Citizens United. See Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein. It’s Even Worse Than it Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided with the New Politics of Extremism. New York: Basic Books, 2012, 143-160.

 

[3] Harold Heie, Evangelicals on Public Policy Issues: Sustaining a Respectful Political Conversation. Abilene, TX: Abilene Christian University Press, 2014.

[4] Ibid, pp. 140-142.

[5] Ian Barbour, Myths, Models and Paradigms: A Comparative Study in Science and Religion. New York: Harper & Row, 1974, p. 138.

[6] In addition to the Alternative Respectful Conversation noted in this essay, I have also hosted two other extended eCircles on my web site: a conversation about American Evangelicalism, which led to the publication of A Future for American Evangelicalism: Commitment, Openness, and Conversation (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2015), and a nine-month conversation on “LGBT issues,” completed on March 31, 2016. I am currently working on a manuscript for a book that will report on the highlights on this latter conversation, tentatively titled Respectful LBGT Conversations: Seeking Truth, Love and Christian Unity.

[7] American Reformed Church in Orange City, Iowa.

[8] To quote a portion of the Lord’s Prayer that is spoken much more than given expression in daily living: “Your Kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Luke 6:10)

Disagreements as a Pathway toward Common Ground in Politics

/in /by

Considering the goal of politics to be the search for common ground that promotes the common good, there are enormous disagreements as to the substance of that common ground. That is to be expected. But what is alarming is the inability of most politicians to respectfully engage each other about those disagreements. More often than not, politicians resort to shouting at rather than talking with those who whom they disagree.

Such shouting has been rampant in some recent debates among presidential candidates, where political disagreements are wielded as weapons employed to garner voter support. In such verbal warfare, politicians holding to “fixed positions” on issues often dismiss or even demonize political opponents who disagree by shouting out a name: “Liar” was the name of choice in the February 13 Republican debate in South Carolina. Other favorite labels are: crazy political conservative; wild-eyed political liberal; free-market nut; socialist; homophope; baby-killer.

But it is not just politicians who are at fault for the lack of actual conversations about disagreements. We citizens are typically ill-prepared for such conversations because of an unwillingness to even listen to those who disagree with us. Too many citizens get their political news by exclusively tuning into TV and Talk Radio stations where they only hear support for a position they have already taken on an issue. As Susan Jacoby has suggested, “Americans today have become a people in search of validation for opinions that they already hold,” demonstrating a strong reluctance “to give a fair hearing – or any hearing at all – to opposing points of view,” wanting to hear only an “echo” of themselves.

The tragedy of politicians shouting names at each other to garner voter support or of citizens only listening to an echo of themselves is that it precludes any serious attempt to sort through disagreements by respectfully talking with one another. There has to be a “better way” to deal with disagreements in politics, or any other arena of public discourse.

The basis of this “better way” for Christians is the call of Jesus for those who claim to be his followers to “love others.” Simply put, a deep expression of what it means for me to love another person is for me to create a “safe and welcoming space” for that person to express a disagreement; with our careful listening to each other’s perspectives followed by respectful conversation about our agreements and disagreements in the quest for common ground.

A concrete strategy for expressing such love to a person who disagrees with you has been proposed by Stephen Monsma (in his essay “Called to be Salt and Light – An Overview” in Harold Heie & Michael A. King, eds., Mutual Treasure: Seeking Better Ways for Christians and Culture to Converse. Cascadia Publishing House, 2009).  Monsma proposes the following three challenging steps.

Start by Getting to Know the Person Who Disagrees with you: The politicians or political pundits who bash each other on TV or Talk Radio probably do not know each other very well on a personal level. And it is all too easy to demonize a person you hardly know, or to simply dismiss him as stupid, biased, a liar or evil. We may not be so quick to demonize others once we get to know them personally.

Try to Understand Why a Person Who Disagrees with You Takes a Position that You Believe is Wrong: The better you get to know someone, the better chance there is for you to come to understand why she believes as she does, as you uncover the experiences and the other various aspects of her social location that inform her beliefs on the issue at hand. She has reasons for her position that you need to understand, and, likewise, she needs to understand your reasons for your position. Such mutual understanding can help to build bonds of mutual trust that may enable you to talk through difficult issues about which you may vehemently disagree.

Seek for Mutual Treasures by Means of Respectful Conversation: Dr. Michael King, a Mennonite pastor and scholar, has proposed a provocative definition of “genuine conversation”:  “genuine conversation involves a mutual quest for treasures in our own and the other’s viewpoint. The first move is to make as clear as I can why I hold this position…and why you might find in it treasure to value in your own quest for truth. The second move is to see the value in the other’s view…and to grow in my own understandings by incorporating as much of the other’s perspective as I can without losing the integrity of my own convictions.”

Note carefully what King is and is not saying. After genuine conversation, you may conclude that there is very little, if any, treasure in the other person’s position. But, then again, you may find some unexpected treasures in the other person’s position. You cannot tell until you talk. As I never tire of saying, you cannot predict beforehand the results of a genuine conversation.

For Christians to commit to this arduous and time-consuming process of talking respectfully with those with whom they have significant disagreements in politics, they will need to exercise a healthy dose of “humility.” I must be willing to say “here is my present position, but I may be wrong.” In politics this means my being willing to reach across the political aisle to seek to identify some “good ideas” on the other side that can complement my ideas.

To give a concrete example, Christians on both sides of the aisle generally agree that Christians ought to seek to help the poor. Their disagreements are mostly about the best “means” to accomplish that worthy goal. Those on one side of the aisle may emphasize the role of free markets. The emphasis on the other side of the aisle may be on governmental programs. Is it conceivable that rather than embracing an either/or approach (my way of the highway) that characterizes too much of contemporary politics, a respectful conversation could lead to a both/and approach that incorporates elements of the free market with elements of governmental programming while avoiding the potential abuses of relying exclusively on just one of these approaches? Of course, such attempts by politicians to “build bridges” across the political aisle will require immense courage since in a political system that often focuses more on “getting elected” than on “governing well,” such  “reaching across the aisle” typically gets punished on Election Day.

My educated guess is that by now many readers will have decided that I am completely out of touch with reality when I propose this “better way” to deal with disagreements in politics: “that is just not going to happen in our current political climate.” But why can’t Christians model this better way? With that hope and prayer in mind, I simply decided a few years ago that I was not going to spend too much time trying to convince other Christians in the abstract (as in this musing) that my proposal for respectful conversations about politics and other contentious areas of discourse is possible. Rather, I committed to demonstrating that it is possible by “just doing it” (to borrow a phrase from Nike).

Therefore, I set up this web site, in which I have hosted a number of extended conversations (eCircles)among Christians who disagree about some contentious issues, which includes an “Alternative Political Conversation” informed by the content of this musing (the results of which I distilled in a book titled Evangelicals on Public Policy Issues: Sustaining a Respectful Political Conversation. Abilene Christian University Press, 2014). This web site is currently hosting an extended conversation about LGBT issues.

I believe it is fair to say that these electronic conversations have demonstrated that Christians who disagree vehemently about some contentious issues can express their disagreements with grace and respect, identifying common ground and illuminating remaining disagreements in ways that can inform ongoing conversations. A marvelous by-product of these conversations is that they demonstrate that Christians having strong disagreements about divisive issues can actually come to know each other as deeply committed brothers and sisters in Christ. This is a modest step toward realization of the ever elusive quest for “Christian unity” that Jesus prayed for in John 17; teaching that such modeling may be our greatest “witness” to those who do not share our Christian faith.

 

Root Causes of Political Rancor

/in /by

It was like watching a food fight among 6th graders at my former public school in Brooklyn, P. S. 105. But I was actually watching the Republican debate among presidential candidates in South Carolina on February 13.

The name-calling, demonization of opponents and charges of “liar, liar, pants on fire” took my breath away. I found it hard to believe what I was hearing. How could political discourse stoop that low?

One cause of such deplorable behavior is the sheer lack of respect that many people have toward those who disagree with them, which increasingly characterizes discourse in many venues for human engagement, be they political rallies, churches, local community meetings or backyards. The goal of this very web site is to model a better way to engage those who disagree with you, the way of “respectful conversation.”

But the causes for such inhuman behavior run even deeper. Our society rewards such temper tantrums in two ways. First, there is ample evidence that such “negative political campaigning” works. Nastiness too often gathers votes. Shame on us as citizens when we reward such brutish behavior.

ohn Kasich, who, to his credit, refused to participate in the food fight on February 13, predicted that eventually the American electorate will not reward such boorish behavior when he said words to the effect that “if we keep behaving like this, we will lose the election in November.”

What scares me is the possibility that Kasich may be wrong about the American electorate not rewarding such disrespectful behavior, on either side of the political aisle, since such disrespect seems to have become the “new normal.”

But there is a second root cause of such disrespectful political discourse beyond the fact the being disrespectful often gets you elected, a deeper root cause that may help to explain why being disrespectful typically gets you elected: the systemic brokenness of our political system.

As pointed out by Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein in their book  It’s Even Worse Than it Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided with the New Politics of Extremism (New York: Basic Books, 2012, 143-160), aspects of the systemic brokenness of our political system include closed primaries that minimize the number of moderate voters and candidates participating in the nominating process; gerrymandered voting districts that protect or harm the political interests of incumbents and parties; winner-take-all elections that militate against the diversity of voices within our pluralistic society, and the inordinate political influence of those with wealth since Citizens United. The two aspects that I see as root causes of the current political rancor are closed primaries and the inordinate political influence of those with wealth since Citizens United.

Consider first the system of closed primaries that attract numerous voters at the extremes of the political spectrum and not enough “moderate” voters. Voters at the political extremes seem to relish food fights, possibly because they are so deeply convinced about the truth of their positions that they are incapable of saying “here is my position, but I may be wrong” (which is the best entre into a respectful conversation about disagreements). Moderates are typically more open to listening to the differing views of others and then engaging in respectful conversation about disagreements in the quest for common ground, rather than resorting to food fights.

Secondly, consider the nature of the inordinate political influence of persons with wealth since Citizens United. The Super-PACS that spend obscene amounts of money in support of particular political candidates milk the empirical fact that “negative campaigning typically works” to the maximum, thus feeding the political rancor of those they support by means of their advertising (think about the significant amount of time spent in the “food fight debates” refuting the ads put out by super-PACS). In addition, the wealthy donors to such super-PACS seem to represent the “political extremes” rather than the more “moderate middle.”

n summary, the causes of the current political rancor are two-fold: A failure to embrace a respectful mode of engagement with those who disagree with you and a broken political system that feeds that failure. Addressing the first cause will take a change in “heart” bordering on “conversion”; a “turning away” from demonizing those who disagree with you to a “better way” that respects the dignity of every human being. Hopefully, politicians who demonstrate such respect for their political opponents will also have the courage and fortitude to address the apparently insurmountable problems associated with our current broken political system.

My vote in November will go to that candidate for President who demonstrates commitment to engaging in respectful conversation with those with whom he/she disagrees and who is committed to addressing the root causes of present political rancor.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MUSLIMS IN DONALD TRUMP’S OLD NEIGHBORHOOD SAY, COME GET TO KNOW US

/in , /by

“Donald, come home.” As Liz Robbins reported in a recent online post in the New York Times, that was the message on the night of December 7 in Queens, New York “as two dozen men finished their prayers in a basement mosque beneath a discount store on Hillside Avenue in the Jamaica neighborhood, just a block from where Donald J. Trump grew up.”

As Ali Najmi said after prayers at the Arafa Islamic Center in response to the question “Where are the moderate Muslims”: “We’re right here; we’re right in Donald Trump’s neighborhood. He needs to come back home.” Mr. Najmi has extended a Twitter invitation to Donald Trump to come back for “some halal kebabs and a cup of chai tea in the old neighborhood.”

I never tire of saying that it is all too easy to marginalize and demonize persons who disagree with you when you don’t know them on a personal level, including a whole category of persons, like the overwhelming majority of Muslims who are deeply committed to peace and justice. The only antidote to that prevalent contemporary tendency is to take time to get know those who differ from you, listening to and understanding their expressions of joy and sorrow, and their aspirations for the future, which may be very similar to your hopes and dreams.

I know from personal experience that a profound change in perspective can occur when you get to personally know someone who differs from you. So, Donald Trump should accept Mr. Najmi’s gracious invitation, and all of us should take the necessary steps to get to know those who differ from us, especially those who strongly disagree with us. At this time for making resolutions for the New Year, that would be a good place to start.

 

 

POLITICS IN THE TRENCHES: LOCAL ADVOCACY FOR IMMIGRATION REFORM IN IOWA

/in , /by

Promoting public justice in a dysfunctional political system is not for the faint of heart. Systemic obstacles are enormous, such as closed primaries that minimize the number of moderate voters and candidates participating in the nominating process; gerrymandered voting districts that protect or harm the political interests of incumbents and parties; winner-take-all elections that militate against the diversity of voices within our pluralistic society, and the inordinate political influence of those with wealth since Citizens United (See Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein. It’s Even Worse Than it Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided with the New Politics of Extremism. New York: Basic Books, 2012, 143-160).

These seemingly intractable obstacles are enough to tempt a Christian to give up hope, or succumb to a truncated view of God’s redemptive purposes that focuses exclusively on modeling Christian values within our Christian communities. To be sure, such modeling is important. But if we wash our hands of the messy business of political engagement, we ignore our calling as Christians to plant seeds of redemption in all areas of life, including the political realm (Colossians 1: 19-20; Matthew 13: 31-32).

So what then are we called to do in the political realm? While some of us may address these systemic problems head on, others will sense a calling to embark on local citizen initiatives that are seemingly more modest… at least until you try them.

What follows is an account of my local endeavors as an advocate for immigration reform in Sioux County, Iowa, arguably one of the most politically conservative counties in the United States. My report here does not reflect any formal education in political science (which, for me, is nil). Rather, it is a story “from the trenches,” focusing on my attempts to promote legislation in the Iowa Legislature that would grant Temporary Visitor Driver’s Licenses (TVDLs) for undocumented immigrants. This is an initiative of the Center for Assistance, Service and Advocacy (CASA) of Sioux County, where I serve as Chair of their Advocacy Group. The vision of CASA is to bring about transformed Northwest Iowa communities that welcome, empower and celebrate people from all cultures.

In the 2015 session of the Iowa legislature, TVDL legislation received some discussion, but never came to a vote for lack of broad support. This legislation would have granted TVDLs to undocumented immigrants who met stipulated eligibility requirements and then passed a driving test and obtained auto insurance. Possible eligibility requirements could have included the submission of a valid foreign passport or consular identification and proof of legal residency. Twelve states and the District of Columbia have approved TVDLs with specific, yet somewhat differing requirements. A TVDL cannot be used to register to vote, to vote, to apply for public benefits, to apply for a Firearm Owner ID card, to board an airplane, or to enter a federal building.

 Benefits of TVDLs

Citizens like me who support and promote the granting of TVDLs see it as a win-win-win situation, reaping obvious benefits for public safety, for employers, and for immigrant families.

It appears that the main argument that has convinced legislators in twelve states and the District of Columbia to approve TVDL legislation focuses on its benefits for public safety. It insures that all immigrant drivers get tested on driving skills and know the rules of the road, it requires them to carry auto insurance, and it enables first responders to medical emergencies to use the license to identify the individual they are assisting.

TVDLs will also help local employers by insuring that their immigrant workers will have a dependable means to travel to work.

Finally, TVDLs will be of great benefit to immigrant families by enabling workers to drive to work and by legalizing family travel to schools, churches, medical facilities and shopping outlets.

Obstacles to TVDL Legislation and Comprehensive Immigration Reform

Given these benefits, what is not to like? I have heard a number of concerns and responses, one of which is the legitimate concern that TVDL legislation needs to be carefully crafted to avoid abuses, such as forging the required documentation to meet eligibility requirements.

But two other major obstacles to TVDL legislation reflect the widespread dysfunction and brokenness that I have found in the current political system. One sign of this pervasive brokenness is that the primary goal of too many politicians is to get elected, and then re-elected, rather than to govern well in a manner that promotes the well-being of their constituents.

I experienced this when talking face-to-face with elected law enforcement officers about the possibility of getting their support for TVDL legislation. While a handful of elected law enforcement officers in Iowa support such legislation, the majority of elected law enforcement officers, whose very job is to promote public safety, oppose it. Why? My paraphrase of an underlying reason I have discerned from my conversations is that even if an elected law enforcement officer acknowledges the many benefits for public safety, employers and our Latino neighbors, going public in support of such legislation could lead to being voted out of office since the majority of constituents are against any type of immigration reform.

A second, often unspoken, but extremely prevalent obstacle to TVDL legislation is captured in the words, “That would be rewarding those who have broken the law.” I have found that those who express this concern have usually succumbed to a second symptom of the current brokenness of politics– a hyper-partisanship that takes an either/or approach to solving societal problems rather than seeking the both/and solutions that could emerge if those on both sides of the political aisle genuinely engaged one another. 

The current debate about comprehensive immigration reform, which includes and goes beyond potential TVDL legislation, is a case in point. Those on one side of the political aisle focus on strengthening border enforcement and punishing those who have broken the law by entering our country illegally. Those on the other side of the aisle focus on providing a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. Very few politicians say we need to do both, possibly because such both/and thinking typically gets punished on Election Day. In 2013, the U S Senate passed a bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform bill that included both a pathway to citizenship and punishment for those who have broken the law by means of appropriate fines. But House leaders who embrace either/or thinking refused to even bring the bill up for a vote.

Such either/or thinking is also prevalent among Christians who are committed to promoting justice consistent with their understanding of the biblical record. Some Christians focus exclusively on those biblical teachings that call for a proper respect for the “rule of law” (e.g., Romans 13: 1-7 and 1 Peter 2: 13-14). They conclude, and rightfully so, that the restorative/retributive dimension of justice requires punishing those who have broken the law. Other Christians focus exclusively on the call for Christians to “welcome the stranger” (Deuteronomy 10:18 and Matthew 25: 31-40). They conclude, and rightfully so, that the distributive dimension of justice calls for seeking the well-being of all people groups in society, with a special focus on those who are marginalized and disadvantaged.

When I listen to Christians talking about the possibility of immigration reform, I often perceive this disturbing either/or thinking that does not adequately address the tension between these two dimensions of justice in the biblical record. Christians committed to promoting justice should embrace both of these dimensions, which were duly included in the Senate attempt in 2013 to forge legislation for comprehensive immigration reform and which can be addressed in TVDL legislation.

Christian Responses to the Obstacles

To address the obstacles to TVDL legislation or any type of immigration reform, Christians should begin with “getting their own house in order” and think carefully about the biblical teachings about justice. The Center for Public Justice has numerous resources to inform that task, among them its Guidelines for Government and Citizenship.

The Guideline on Citizenship highlights the urgency of political advocacy for immigration reform by asserting that “Responsible citizenship includes … helping to shape the political community to conform to the demands of justice.” The Guideline on Government embraces the need to find a proper balance between restorative/retributive and distributive justice by asserting that “Upholding public justice for a political community must include responsiveness to a variety of interrelated principles, such as distributive justice, which holds for the way government allocates benefits, and retributive and restorative justice, which holds for the way government punishes offenses and seeks restitution and reconciliation.”

Finally, the Guideline on Family points to the need to address the devastating effect that our current broken immigration system has on the unity and stability of immigrant families. The Guideline asserts that “Government should aim to uphold the integrity and social viability of families.” 

However, as important as these educational efforts are, a more adequate understanding of  the biblical call for justice will have minimal impact on the ground if Christians do not directly address the two main political obstacles noted above: the current focus for politicians on just getting elected, and the hyper-partisanship that precludes both/and approaches to solving societal problems.

Therefore, for those seeking to address these two obstacles, I’d like to offer a proposal, one that echoes a truth stated by Mark Prosser, the Director of Public Safety and Police Chief in Storm  Lake, Iowa, who has worked tirelessly for many years advocating for immigration reform: “Working for immigration reform is a marathon, not a sprint.” My proposal calls for a marathon run and not a sprint because it seeks to change hearts and minds by means of developing personal relationships, which won’t happen overnight. 

My experience in the trenches tells me that too many Anglos who are unsympathetic to the plight of their immigrant neighbors haven’t taken the time to get to know them. Too many legislators argue for bills that can have profound negative effects on immigrants that they don’t know. So, our immigrant neighbors too easily become faceless statistics, not real human beings who have the same aspirations and dreams as all other human beings.

I believe that a profound change in perspective happens when we get to know our immigrant neighbors on a personal level A few years ago, I led a series of seminars at my church in which we didn’t talk at or about our immigrant neighbors. Rather, we talked with our immigrant neighbors, listening to their painful stories about how the current broken immigration system was decimating the unity and stability of their families. We found out that many of those who were undocumented fled to our country to provide their families with food and other basic necessities that they couldn’t get in their homelands, and that we wouldn’t think of doing without. We admired their close-knit families and the ways in which they have made important contributions to local economies by working faithfully at low-paying jobs that Anglos would no longer take.

Since then, CASA has arranged for our Sioux County Sheriff to meet with small groups of our Latino neighbors to listen face-to-face to their expressions of concern about law enforcement issues. For the past four years, we have sponsored an annual Latino Festival that celebrates Latino culture and enables Anglos and Latinos to get to know one another better around good Latino food, entertainment, and children’s activities.

So, my proposed strategy for winning the marathon of immigration reform is this: Get to know your immigrant neighbors and take whatever steps are necessary to encourage and enable your political representatives to get to know their immigrant constituents on a personal level. That will have a profound effect on who you vote into office and the political initiatives your legislators decide to promote. Implementing this strategy will take a long time and will not be easy. But running a marathon has never been easy.

Questions for Reflection:

1- What is your experience with politicians who are preoccupied with just getting elected and practicing hyper-partisan either/or thinking? What have you tried to do to overcome such obstacles?

2- What would be the most appropriate balance in immigration reform legislation between the biblical calls to “welcome the stranger” and respect the “rule of law?”

3- What concrete steps can you take in your neighborhood to get to know your immigrant neighbors and to encourage your political representatives to get to know their immigrant constituents on a personal level?

-This essay was first published in the November 16, 2015 issue of the Capital Commentary of the Center for Public Justice (CPJ). Harold Heie has served as a Trustee of CPJ.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LEADERS, DISSENTERS AND TRUE COMMUNITY

/in , /by

It is not uncommon for leaders to allow little or no space for dissenters within their  organizations; the result often being an erosion of any sense of community. 

A radically different approach to effective leadership has been proposed by Parker Palmer in his book The Active Life: A Spirituality of Work Creativity, and Caring (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1990), in which he suggests that Jesus exemplifies such leadership.

Jesus exercises the only kind of leadership that can evoke authentic community- a leadership that risks failure (and even crucifixion) by making space for other people to act.  When a leader takes up all the space and preempts all the action, he or she may make something happen, but the something is not community.  Nor is it abundance, because the leader is only one person, and one person’s resources invariably run out.  But, when a leader is willing to trust the abundance that people have and can generate together, willing to take the risk of inviting people to share from that abundance, then and only then may true community emerge. (p. 138).

The type of effective leadership that Palmer points us towards has two major characteristics.

Benefiting from the Gifts of Others, Including Dissenters

An effective leader starts with a vision for her organization. But if she attempts to implement that vision on her own she will likely fail because she has not enabled others in her organization to embrace her vision, or, better yet, to collectively embrace an improved version of her vision because of their respective gifts.

In other words, if she proceeds as a “Lone Ranger,” the contours of her vision and the quality of its implementation will only be as good as she is. If she dares to provide a safe space for others in her organization to help her to refine her vision and then help her to  implement that vision (with enthusiasm because it is a shared vision), then the results will be as good as the collective giftedness as all members of the organization.

Such a collaborative (collegial) process absolutely needs dissenters, those whose vantage point leads them to suggest that the original vision and/or the original plans for implementation are flawed. A safe space must be created that allows all voices to be given a fair hearing in the process of refining an original vision and implementation plan.

Fostering True Community

A pernicious myth is that if dissenters are given a safe space to express their disagreements, this will have an adverse effect on a sense of community within the organization. My experience suggests just the opposite. It is when dissenters are stifled that a sense of community erodes.

As messy as it is, it is when all members of an organization feel that they have been consulted and have had an opportunity to express their perspectives in conversations involving all who are potentially affected by the decisions that are made that a true sense of community is enhanced.

On Being a Strong Leader

Some leaders who want to be perceived as strong leaders are actually very weak leaders. They perceive strength as “being in charge,” deciding, in the confines of their office, without talking to anyone, what needs to be done, and the just doing it. That is not a sign of strength. Rather, it is a sign of weakness and insecurity, and reveals a lack of trust in the giftedness of others.  

A truly strong leader creates a safe space for others to express their points of view and to exercise their gifts, trusting that to do so will lead to results that are better than she can accomplish by herself. It is a sign of strength, not weakness to “give up total control,” daring to believe that working together as a true community will ultimately yield the best results.

Political Advocacy for Immigration Reform is a Marathon not a Sprint

/in /by

The message in my title is not original with me. I have heard it stated a number of times by Mark Prosser, the Director of Public Safety and Chief of Police in Storm Lake (IA), based on the results of his tireless efforts to promote immigration reform and his experiences “in the trenches” of the enormous obstacles to accomplishing these goals (which the Advocacy Group at CASA has also experienced).

One such obstacle is the current brokenness of the political system, where the primary goal of too many politicians is to get elected, and then re-elected, rather than to govern well in a manner that promotes the well-being of their constituents.

A case in point is my own experience in talking face-to-face with an elected law enforcement officer or two about the possibility of their supporting legislation to provide temporary driver’s licenses for all immigrants, documented or undocumented. In addition to the benefits such licenses would provide for immigrants who need a way to get to work and for enabling their families to get to stores, churches and medical appointments, the public safety benefits would be enormous since such a program would insure that all immigrant drivers get tested on driving skills and know the rules of the road, and would require that they have auto insurance.

Yet many law elected law enforcement officers whose very job is to promote public safety oppose such legislation. Why? To give one reason, I paraphrase what one elected law enforcement officer told me: “I can see the many benefits for public safety and our Latino neighbors. But if I went public in support of such legislation in my conservative county, I might lose the next election.”

A second reason for not supporting such driver’s license legislation for undocumented immigrants, which is often unspoken, but extremely prevalent, is captured in the words, “That would be rewarding those who have broken the law.” To introduce my response to that concern, I point to a second symptom of the current brokenness of politics, hyper-partisanship.

As currently practiced, politics focuses on one-dimensional either/or thinking (“It’s my way or the highway”) rather than the needed both/and thinking. So, when it comes to any potential immigration legislation, those on one side of the political aisle focus on border enforcement and punishing those who have broken the law by entering our country illegally. Those on the other side of the aisle focus on providing a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. Very few politicians say we need to do both, possibly because such both/and thinking gets punished on Election Day.

An attempt was made by the U. S. Senate in 2013 to pass such both/and legislation by means of a proposal for comprehensive immigration reform that included both a pathway to citizenship and punishment for those who have broken the law by means of appropriate fines. But those who embrace either-or thinking killed that bill.

As an aside to those readers who profess commitment to the Christian faith, such a both/and approach to immigration reform can navigate the tension between two biblical teachings: respect for the law (Romans 13: 1-7) and the call for Christians to “welcome the stranger” (Deuteronomy 10:18 and Matthew 25: 31-40). But such both/and thinking seems to be missing as much in our churches as in the halls of congress.

In light of these two major political obstacles, those of us who are committed to political advocacy on behalf of the well-being of our immigrant neighbors should not expect quick victories (as in a 100 meter dash). But that doesn’t mean giving up. We work for incremental change within the constraints of the political obstacles at the same time that we work to ameliorate those obstacles. We do that because it is the “right thing to do”, not because we envision “quick success around the corner”.

To press my track analogy, to complete a marathon, you need to “keep running.” And that is what we at CASA have been doing these past few years, by taking initiatives such as the following: circulating an electronic petition “To Fix Our Broken Immigration System” that garnered about 800 signatures in and around Sioux County, which caught the attention of Charles Grassley and Stephen King sufficient to lead to two conference calls with Grassley and a face-to-face meeting with King; and placing a half-page add in the Des Moines Register, signed by numerous individuals and agencies in Iowa, expressing support for comprehensive immigration reform.

But the primary reason why advocacy for immigration reform is a marathon is that it will require a change in minds and hearts of many Anglos in our region and our political representatives, which is a slow process. My proposed strategy for increasing the likelihood that we will eventually win the marathon race by changing minds and hearts can be called the “personal touch.”

What I mean is that too many Anglos who are unsympathetic to the plight of their immigrant neighbors haven’t taken then time to “get to know them.” And too many legislators argue for bills that can have profound negative effects on immigrants that “they don’t know.” So, our immigrant neighbors too easily become “faceless statistics,” not real human beings who have the same aspirations and dreams as all other human beings.

But, everything changes when you get to know your immigrant neighbors on a personal level.” I know that for a fact. A few years ago, I led a series of seminars at my church in which we didn’t talk at or about our immigrant neighbors. Rather, we talked with our immigrant neighbors, first listening to their painful stories about how the current broken immigration system was decimating the unity and stability of their families. We found out that many of those who were undocumented fled to our country because of a need to provide their families with food and other basic necessities that they couldn’t get in their homelands. We rejoiced with them about their close-nit families and the ways in which they have made important contributions to local economies by working faithfully at low-paying jobs that Anglos would no longer take.

So, my proposed strategy for winning the marathon is this: Get to know your immigrant neighbors and take whatever steps are necessary to encourage and enable your political representatives to get to know their immigrant constituents on a personal level. That will have a profound effect on who you vote into office and the political initiatives your legislators decide to promote. Implementing this strategy will take a long time and will not be easy. But running a marathon has never been easy.

——–

Harold Heie chairs the Advocacy Group of the Center for Assistance, Service, and Advocacy (CASA) of Sioux County. This article was originally written for the “In All Things” blog at Dordt College (IA), where it was pubslished on August 25, 2015.