Why is it that so many well-intentioned, ethically-minded people behave so badly, so often? Nowhere is that more the case than during national election campaigns. The best and brightest work countless hours, empty their savings accounts, and promise to enact ennobling legislation, all aiming to fulfill their high call to civic service. But in the process they trash their opponents by slinging false accusations like competitors in a cow-pie-tossing competition.
Our exclusive interview with two U.S. senators (this issue), both active Presbyterians, presents a glimpse of their hopes to reverse such patterns of behavior. They are trying to promote civility in a culture of hostility.
Of course, politicians don’t own a monopoly on high-minded hostility. We Presbyterians play in that muck, too. Nasty letters to editors often reflect nasty editorials from editors. Blogs, with impunity, take uninformed swipes at leaders. Friends congratulate one another for becoming the object of a critic’s ire. Hostility mushrooms.
We Presbyterians possess the tools to correct such behavioral aberrations.
We have the teachings of Jesus that tell us to address opponents “privately” long before going public (Matt. 18:15).
We have the perfect communication tool with which to fulfill that obligation of the Savior: the telephone.
We also have the perfect resource to empower our use of that tool: the telephone directory. Yes, we publish and distribute annually to every church a directory that lists every minister and every national committee member. We also publish the Presbyterian Planning Calendar (99,000-plus have been distributed this year) that includes the phone number of every national staff member, every synod and presbytery executive and stated clerk, every seminary, and every PC(USA)-related college. All we need do is look up the number, push several buttons, and voilà , we have a conversation with any leader of the church. In fact, if they don’t live too far away, a phone call can set up an appointment to meet face-to-face.
We use those tools too seldom.
A presbytery executive asked me, “Do you think pastor so-and-so will lead his church out of my presbytery?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “When’s the last time you took him out to lunch?”
“Uh, I haven’t done that.”
“You might want to try starting there.”
A church member asked me, “So do you agree that the national staff are intentionally deceiving the church?”
“Have you called those national staffers to find out?”
“They’re so busy. I wouldn’t want to bother them.”
Then again a senior national staffer reflected, “So-and-so invited me to attend a meeting of unhappy leaders. Do you think I should go?”
“Uh, I think that’s a good idea,” I said, expounding the obvious.
Now, to make matters worse, the OGA has published an essay that dissects the evangelical movement within the church, presenting a highly critical, one-sided, and oft-erroneous set of generalizations about that movement. What are they doing writing about the very people with whom they ought to be having conversation?
Last week The Outlook published a letter to the editor from the session of Sequoyah Hills Church in Knoxville, Tenn. It expresses the distress they feel over recent actions of the General Assembly. It also shares how they conveyed those concerns directly to denominational leaders and how those leaders–from the presbytery and the General Assembly Council–actually traveled to their church, met with them, listened to their concerns, answered what questions they could, and vowed to continue in conversation with them. Wow! Some Presbyterians actually knew enough to pick up the phone to have a conversation. In the process, they initiated a reconciliation effort, a pretty good idea considering it is the nature of the ministry the Savior entrusted to us.
A new wave of leadership has blown into Washington, D.C., and it is taking steps to build civility by pursuing consensus in place of partisanship. How? By spending time together. By talking together. By picking up the phone to connect together. By trying to follow the Golden Rule. They got that particular idea from our Savior. Maybe we ought to try following that rule, too.
Sure beats cow pie tossing.
JJH
