In my sermon for All Saints Sunday, I spoke about how the celebration of the Feast of All Saints calls us to recognize that we are part of something larger than ourselves. I contrasted that view with a tendency in modern Western culture to make the single solitary self the primary value, and to measure all (or most) other things in terms of how well they serve the self. I included this observation about our socio-political scene:
"Our national culture seems to get more polarized every year, encouraging us to think of our country as a series of entrenched ideologies, each hunkering down around its own base and lobbing slogans at each other from its preferred cable network; but the invitation to the communion of saints reminds us that we are part of something larger than ourselves, and as Christians we carry into public discourse our religious commitment to respect the dignity of every human being, and to treat those with whom we disagree as real persons with whom we want to build up the common good."
Do you think this is true? Is entrenched ideology a problem for us today, or simply the way we frame our discourse? Is there room today for more substantive conversation than exchanging sound bites and slogans? Do different constituencies have enough in common to really speak about the "common good"?
And do Christians have a religious commitment to engage in secular discourse in a particular way? I personally think the legal separation of church and state is a good thing. I don't want the state establishing an official church, any more than I want a single church dictating terms to the state. But I don't think that means religious values and commitments can never be a part of public discourse and secular governance. In the Episcopal baptismal service, we make a promise as part of our Baptismal Covenant to "strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being," as I quoted in my sermon. I think this constitutes a commitment to engage in public discourse in a civil manner, quite independently of any specific religious content. That is, I don't need to say that my Christian values should be imposed on everyone as universal legally enacted values; but I do need to be true to my Christian values myself, by treating those with whom I disagree with respect.
What do you think? Is there a Christian commitment to civility that should be part of the manner in which we engage in secular discourse?
I struggle with this, because although I essentially agree with you, I think:
ReplyDelete1) Few of us, Christians included, are taught civil discourse any more, and we tend to confuse "civility" with "tolerance," despite the fact that on definition of tolerance is how much you can take of something before it makes you sick. Discourse doesn't mean standing by silently.
2) Much that has been interpreted as "polarization" has to do with truth-telling from a particular perspective. We desperately need to tell the truth as we see it. We need it in order to maintain human dignity-- our own, and others'. We need to call lies, lies; and they are out there. This doesn't absolve us from listening and trying to understand the perspectives of others, but it isn't being discussed as an essential part of civil discourse, probably because others' truth doesn't often feel warm and unifying. I think we need to take a hint from effective interreligious dialogue here and start by clarifying our differences.
A fair point. But I tend to see "polarization" in this sense as entailing "hunkering down" and "lobbing slogans," as I put it in my sermon image -- in other words, a kind of willful oversimplification of differing positions that makes genuine dialogue impossible. We need to call lies, lies; but simply shouting at someone "Liar!" when you don't agree with them (as happened in Congress not too long ago) doesn't help. So calling another to account for truth-telling and truth-hearing must be done, but done in a way that does not itself foreclose on the possibility of further discourse. I'll be the first to admit that it is very hard to do that, and I myself am not too good at it -- emotions can run high.
ReplyDeleteAnd, for what it's worth, I'm all for dropping the use of the word "tolerance" in this context altogether. Respect is about much more than taking what you can until it makes you sick.