Christian to Christian: Mr. Ryan, We Have a Problem

In a teleconference last night, Paul Ryan, Republican candidate for Vice-President, said, “the path the president has put us on . . . [is] a dangerous path, it's a path that . . . compromises those values, those Judeo-Christian, western-civilization values that made us such a great and exceptional nation in the first place."

I have a problem, Congressman Ryan, with your characterization of President Obama as a destroyer of “Judeo-Christian western civilization values”.  And it’s not a political problem.  It’s a religious one.  You and I are family – brother and sister, to be precise.  So are you and President Obama.  Why?  Because we’re all Christians.

And here’s the thing:

1. Disagreeing with you does not make one a non-Judeo-Christian - shoot, the Nuns on the Bus (professional Christians, you might say), disagree with you on economic policies.  And they disagree out of their faith, not in spite of it.

2. Destroyer of Judeo-Christian values, in the context of the long-standing vitriol, is either (a) most unfortunate or (b) intentional pandering to incipient racism played out in the form of  'he's not [really] a Christian' (translate, he's not 'one of us' - he's a 'Muslim' - which in the US, just as often means 'he has brown skin' as it does anything about one's religious persuasion - and that, not as a compliment.  I would almost prefer to believe it was intentional on your part:  at least then I would know you understand what's at stake with this kind of exploitation of the language of hate, fear and division.  But giving you the benefit of the doubt, I choose to believe that the connection was not obvious to you and was thus unintentional.  One of the challenges of being a public speaker, however, is to try to hear our words as others hear them.

3. As another 'professional' Christian,  I have to say that you and I disagree on many things, particularly about economics and the role of government when it comes to the least fortunate among us.  I am a bit startled to hear you as a fellow Christian characterize my own view as destructive of the very faith I have dedicated my life to trying to follow.

4. Finally, there are MANY things about which I disagree with the President (and Gov. Romney, for that matter).  That disagreement does not make either of them bad men, morally flawed, dangerous, or bent on my personal destruction.  Whether they are any of those things or not is not for me to say.  And what we often forget when we demonize our enemies is the notion of reaping, perhaps best learned as a parent: whatever bad habits  we teach our children, they will use against us.  So too with public discourse: pandering or indifference in public discourse by the few lowers the bar for the many.  Thus unjustified or untrue attacks against you become justified because “well, he said worse”.

People of good faith of all and no political and religious stripes will go to the polls tomorrow.  All of us will, I hope, pray and trust, try to exercise our own best judgement in discharging our duty as citizens.

And next Friday, Saturday and Sunday, many of us will resume our places, side by side, in our respective places of worship, in common cause together to worship our God and take what we receive there out into the world.

I guess I'm just trying to remind you that there is no hierarchy among Christians - as St. Paul so eloquently pointed out, all fall [far] short of the glory of God.

To put it more bluntly and to borrow freely from a wise Baptist minister, responding to a man I once knew who was thinking of leaving that particular congregation because he was unhappy with some things, "Well, Bob, whenever you find that perfect church, do me a favor:  don't join and spoil it for everybody else."

A little humor and a little humility when making truth claims on behalf of God isn't a bad thing, my brother.

Let's [not] agree to disagree

When we’ve set a lunch date looking forward to laughter, good conversation and fine repast over the table, the struggle to find common ground for our palates, our preferences, never results in abandon of the plan [of agreeing to disagree], each heading off to our own favorite restaurant because somehow the choice has become more important than the time together.  Or maybe it does.  Urban Dictionary Definition 4

Agreeing to disagree – how I hate the concept:  it reeks to me of surrender, of failure, dismissal, entrenchment, missing the point as well as the boat.

Case closed; conversation over; pronouncement had; you win; I lose; final word seized, snatched from the air between us in mid exchange.  Exhibit A: the origin of the phrase – wouldn’t you know?    Wikipedia  -- John Wesley’s sermon about colleague George Whitefield at Whitefield’s funeral –way to go with that last word about a dead guy, John:  "There are many doctrines of a less essential nature ... In these we may think and let think; we may 'agree to disagree.' But, meantime, let us hold fast the essentials..."  Wesley's Eulogy of Whitefield

Let’s just agree to disagree.  Translation:  I’d rather talk to someone else than you about this –  someone who agrees with me.  It’s just easier to talk about rather than to.  Alternate translation:  if you don’t shut up, I’m going to have to hit you.

The nice, the good, the kind, the well-bred*, the appreciaters of the cost of conflict, the oilers of social congress, would cry out at my injustice – sometimes you just can’t agree, but that shouldn’t be the end of the friendship.  True.  But isn’t agreeing to disagree a rather lazy form of friendship, one in which only either my agreement or my silence can assure our continued relationship?

And that’s the heart of it for me: I will never insist on your silence as the price of our friendship.  And I’m not agreeing to anything as the necessary precursor to you in my life, save you in my life.

Isn’t it lazy to say let’s agree to disagree rather than Help me understand?  Or I don't want this to change my opinion of who you are?  Or explain to me why you feel that way – I really want to understand?  Or can we talk about this another time?  Or . . . or . . . or . . . a million other responses that reflect the value of the person by the value placed on what the person thinks, feels and believes, rather than the walk away from the hard work of listening, understanding and resolving?

So let us not agree to disagree.  Rather, let us agree when we can, disagree when we must, surrender even when it's costly, listen rather than speak, hear rather than assume.  Let's do the hard work and be friends.


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*Sorry Mom - you tried your best

Cut It Out!

Just because you disagree with me does not make you stupid or heard-hearted or uninformed, or even wrong.

Just because I disagree with you does not make me stupid or heard-hearted or uninformed or wrong either.

Because you are across the aisle from me doesn't make you bad.

Please remember the same is true for me when you see my face on the 'other side'.

I don't know if, in the United States, we have ever known how to disagree.  But if we did, we have forgotten what we knew. 

We in these United States could stand to learn some things from other cultures:

(1)  If we're going to be insulting, we could be more creative, like the British.  Or maybe we just need better accents (we Americans are quite smitten with all the speech patterns of the UK - I know - the Irish aren't British and the Scots don't want to be, but you take my light-hearted point, I hope).

(2)  Eastern cultures could teach us to have greater respect for the other simply because they are the other.

(3)  Iraqi culture could teach us that the freedom of speech is not the same as the freedom to insult, denigrate, and dismiss.

(4)  And we could learn from many cultures about the importance of social compact.  And how to argue.  And that arguing is not the end of anything, it's simply part of the on-going conversation; the world will not end simply because we disagree.  And how to listen to others, especially others whose views are different than our own, on the off chance that we might actually learn something.

In the Christian tradition, Paul writes in Galatians that followers of Christ are no longer Jew nor Gentile, slave nor free, male nor female.  He is, of course, not speaking literally.  He is making the point that previous differences that divided no longer apply, as we are all one within the body of Christ.  

Yet within that one-ness, there is a great range of humanity and possibility.  And so an American gal like me can learn from a Taiwanese friend that negotiation can look like friendship and does not have to be a competitive sport; from Iraqi friends that even violently heated political arguments can end in laughter and the sharing of a meal; from Scots friends that teetotallers and those who enjoy a wee dram can dance together, each without judging the other.  

These are but a few of my own lessons; I wonder, what lessons have you learned from those so different than you that you can scarce understand them?

If only we would stop talking at each other, we might be able to actually listen to each other.  

What a wonderful thing that would be.