Introduction

President Trump and Visions for America

 

 

MODERATOR

Harold Heie

Pivoting to Face-to-Face Conversations

The previous conversations hosted on this website have featured electronic exchanges ( eCircles – See Previous Conversations).

This conversation is face-to-face, involving eight “conversation partners” who are local residents of Sioux County, Iowa, equally divided between Christians who are “general” supporters of President Trump and Christians who situate themselves as “general” non-supporters of President Trump (the qualifier “general” indicates that none of the conversation partners indicated that they agree, or disagree, with everything that President Trump says or does).

PURPOSE

Christians have significant disagreements in their visions for the future of America and the extent to which President Trump is facilitating, or not, the accomplishment of their respective visions. In that light, the purposes of this series of conversations are:

  • To present the initial reflections of eight “conversation partners” as to their respective visons for the future of America and the extent to which President Trump is, or is not, facilitating the accomplishment of their visions.
  • To follow-up initial reflections with ongoing conversations intended to uncover areas of agreement and illuminate areas of disagreement.
  • To model “respectful conversations” among conversation partners as they sort through their agreements and disagreements.

STAGES

To avoid the rancor that often occurs when persons who disagree with one another and do not know each other well jump right into airing their disagreements, this conversation will be implemented in four successive stages designed to build camaraderie (even friendship) and mutual understanding (even trust) among the conversation partners before laying bare disagreements and seeking (together) to identify areas of agreement and to illuminate remaining areas of disagreement, as follows:

    • Stage 1: Getting to Know One another (Why are you interested in this conversation and what do we hope to get out of it?) and Agreeing to Engage Respectfully (as spelled out in a set of “Guidelines for Respectful Conversation”).
    • Stage 2: Individual responses to the question “What is your vision for America and how is President Trump facilitating, or not facilitating your vision for America?”
    • Stage 3: Discussion of Leading Questions that emerged from the Stage 2 presentations, with a focus on identifying areas of agreement and disagreement (For a listing of these seven Leading Questions, click on Trump Leading Questions).
    • Stage 4: Individual responses to “End Game” questions that solicit opinions about areas of agreement and disagreement that have emerged; evaluations of this conversation; and suggestions for refining the methodology for future similar conversations (For a listing of these end-game questions, click on Trump End-Game Questions).

 

See the Methodology page for elaborations on these four stages.