I (Tomas Spath) preached a sermon not too long ago in which I admitted I cannot speak with certain members of my family. When I open my mouth, I get either a loud verbal “NO!!!” or the silent treatment.
To my surprise, as the congregation left that Sunday morning approximately 85% of the congregants admitted that they too had a similar problem with their siblings or parents.
I shared this experience with my retired pastor father who was preaching at an interim post and he decided to do the same. He admitted from the pulpit that he was having difficulty maintaining a conversation with certain members of his family. To his surprise, about 85% of the congregants in his church also admitted the same!
I know this is not a comprehensive survey, but the fact is that many families cannot hold a civil discussion about certain topics such as religion, sex, or money. What a shame!
Why can’t we learn from each other? Why do we have to put up walls to protect ourselves from each other? What ever happened to working through conflicts until we reach an understanding where all parties can feel good?
I know some of you think this is pie in the sky mentality, but it’s not right to build walls either through stubborn anger or the silent treatment to protect ourselves so much that we cut ourselves off from each other.
In my seminary training days, I was taught that building walls like this in our relationships is called SIN! Is there something we can do to help ourselves overcome the walls we are building against one another in our families and communities? Our political system seems to be falling into the same rhythm as each election cycle brings more and more negative ads. Can this change? Should the church be an agent to bring walls down?
My colleague, Cassandra Dahnke, and I looked around for two years asking if anyone knew of an organization we could join that works at the grassroots level to foster civility in government — to bring people together to work through issues within the governing process. We never found one. Fools that we are, we decided to create the Institute for Civility in Government, an organization that works with members of the United States Congress to create dialogue between Republicans and Democrats. Yes, we create dialogue between the two major political parties — at the grassroots level and beyond.
What a joy it’s been to watch a Republican member of Congress sit beside a Democratic member of Congress in front of 250 University Students without the media present and discuss issues with the students! There’s no time limit, no debate, no pressure to answer correctly. We just ask the representatives and students to share their views and be honest and civil. This civility sets a tone for future political/civic engagement.
We find that many ordinary citizens want the same thing–for our elected officials to do what’s best for everyone. Civil governance focuses on doing things for the common good. Yet, members of Congress are not always “lobbied” to do this. Most of the time, they get pressured to change certain key sentences in legislation by some special interest group that offers financial support during the election season.
What can we do? Galatians 5:22-26 is very insightful. The Christians in Galatia were obviously on each other’s throats about numerous issues. Yet they were called to put on love and to demonstrate the gifts of the Spirit such as “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.”
Former Sen. John (Jack) Danforth from Missouri recently wrote a book entitled: Faith and Politics. In the book this Episcopalian priest asks: “Where is the voice of moderate Christians?” The answer of course is it is silent. Why are we silent? Are we silent because we don’t know how to proceed? Because we are afraid? Because when we verbalize our positions, others lambaste us?
Isn’t this what is happening in each election? One politician lambastes another in order to get elected. Negative ads work. We recently spoke with a newly elected member of Congress. He shared with us that he spent $750,000 on 10 political ads that were positive. Shown on selected cable television programs, the result was added name recognition, but little else. The candidate had a 30% lead over his opponent before the ads and he was that far ahead after the ads were run. His opponent put a “negative” ad on TV that was shown time and again and his comfort zone went from 30% to 20% to 16% to 11%. At this point this candidate spent money to put one negative ad on, and the polls increased his margin of support by 5%. He ended up winning the seat by 12%.
Those negative ads teach all people that when you have a problem with another, just call the other names, demonize them and build up your walls. No wonder we have difficulty talking!
It is time to wake up! Get up and speak at town hall meetings, get up and speak at church meetings and call for working things through! It is time to put on love, gentleness, patience …
Cassandra Dahnke and Tomas Spath are Presbyterian pastors and co-founders of the Institute for Civility in Government www.instituteforcivility.org.
