Civil Discourse in the Religious Sphere

Since this is a critical blog addressing issues in theology, I thought it would be good to begin with a post or two on acceptable and unacceptable manners of religious discourse. But at once I run up against the difficulty that few persons have been more guilty of the sins I wish to enumerate than myself. I have been guilty of every single discourse deficiency that I will soon denounce. Perhaps I have such a keen awareness of communication failures now, because I have made so many in the past. So let me disabuse any readers of the notion that I am speaking from some unassailable position of righteousness. I have been uncharitable and overly contentious in dialog and debate. I seek now to clarify some parameters of fruitful dialog so that I myself might follow them throughout my blog.

The impetus for this post

The impetus for this post lies in three areas. First, the general state of religious and theological discourse in the public forum (I am thinking mainly of the United States here) is atrocious. Unfortunately, my own Protestant sisters and brothers appear to be some of the worst offenders. One need only view a variety of televangelist programs to realize that religious discourse is often too contentious, uncharitable and just plain ineffective. Second, while I think my own theological institution has for the most part succeeded in fostering fruitful dialog, I have witnessed several disturbing displays (including class discussions, public dialogs and online forums). This is especially disturbing in the rare instances when faculty members are involved. Third, and foremost, when I first became serious about Christianity, I fervently loved truth (as I still do). Unfortunately I was also a horrible communicator and therefore did “the truth” a huge disservice nearly every time I entered into a debate with another person. In short, I was a jerk.

A few things to keep in mind to produce and facilitate fruitful discourse in religion

One could easily write a lengthy textbook on proper conduct in contemporary religious discourse. The following is a list of helpful points to keep in mind when entering into religious discourse with anyone and in any forum. This is not meant to be comprehensive and I certainly reserve the right to return to this topic often.

1. Critical thinking and the pursuit of truth is not an excuse to be overly contentious.
In the scholarly and unscholarly evangelical circles in which I run, the most common excuse for overly contentious dialog is that the offender was simply pursuing truth or engaging in critical thought. At times phrases like “the ruthless pursuit of truth” are lauded in theological and irreligious circles alike. But something is wrong here. Should we really be “ruthless” in our pursuit of truth? I would say not. Christians have a paradigm for speaking the truth and it is not ruthlessness; rather, Christians are called to speak the truth in love. Now the truth may still hurt, but it will not be meant to hurt or degrade. It will not be stated in unnecessarily contentious and uncharitable ways. And it will always be stated with humility.

Ultimately, in lieu of a comprehensive textbook, what qualifies as overly contentious will have to be decided inductively (through assessing many individual examples of dialog). Some of the guidelines below will help to distinguish proper, civil and fruitful dialog from improper, ruthless, and ineffective dialog.

2. Watch your tone
Unfortunately, much of today’s religious dialog has only one volume (SHOUTING) and one speed (fast). This often results in unfruitful tones such as: annoyed, angry, irate, triumphalist, condescending, etc . . . Effective communication will always be mindful of tone and its overt and subtle consequences. This is especially important in religious dialog when people are dealing with substantive, and often sensitive, issues.

3. Effective communication means that you have to care about both content AND delivery
If your goal as a communicator is to simply state the truth, then you need not worry about delivery at all. However, if you wish to actually communicate that truth in such a way that other people will actually listen to you (and even possibly be convinced of your position) then you will need to care very much about your delivery. Simply put, if you speak the truth and no one hears you, you have not engaged in communication of any kind and certainly not fruitful religious dialog. Oftentimes religious leaders or theologians (both amateur and professional) will speak “the truth” in such a contentious way that only the most ardent ideologue will listen (either to affirm their already held positions, or in preparation to rebut the point made). Many more silent observers will simply stop listening to the speaker or will stop taking her or his points seriously. The speakers tone can effectively nullify their message, even if it is the truth.

Here is where many conservative Protestants will often interject, “But look at how Jesus spoke to the Pharisees and look at how Paul entered into heated debate with those preaching a false gospel.” This is a valid insight. It shows that there is a time and a place to engage in heated rhetoric. Unfortunately, these same Protestants often ignore a few qualifiers, such as:
1-The heated dialog of Jesus and even Paul is only a small portion of their overall communication in biblical materials.
2-The biblical materials only represents a small portion of the overall communication of Jesus or Paul. It would seem safe to assume that Scripture highlights a disproportionate number of heated encounters in order to make certain important points.
3-You and I are not Jesus, or even Paul. Perhaps some of their heated debate comes from a legitimate authority that you and I do not possess.

So, please, do not hide behind the lame excuse, “well at least I proclaimed the truth!” Yes you did, and very few people received it. Congratulations, you just participated in a futile exercise of speaking to the wind.

4. But lots of people are engaging me in fruitful dialogue
At this point our representative religious ideologue will object, “But lots of people are listening to me. I know this because whenever I speak in this way I get a lot of response.” This may be proof of effective dialog. More likely it is proof of the sad truth that overly contentious debate and bold uncharitable claims will attract a lot of superficial attention and chatter. Never mind that you are discounting the large number of folks who have stopped listening to your diatribes. The people left listening often only listen so they can respond in an equally contentious manner. What results is a lot of heated chatter and posturing, very little genuine listening and learning, and most often no changed minds. This is painfully obvious on the internet where all those involved in a dialog (a debate really) will start and end with the exact same positions, having learned very little of the opposing side. What is worse, the debate has actually polarized the sides and resulted in much ill will and harmful bias. This is not fruitful dialog and is a poor example of communication.

5. If you shout people might not hear you
So to briefly summarize, “if you shout people might not hear you.” Fortunately the converse is also true, “if you quiet your voice you may gain many more genuine listeners.” It is true that blowhards often gain a lot of attention and adherents. It is also true that they do little to advance mutual understanding or fruitful discourse of any kind. This is usually accomplished by someone who is a bit quieter, a bit slower and therefore more respected. Such people do not ignore differences or even deficiencies; they simply do not seek to harpoon others with them. Too often I have seen Christians claim that they are speaking the truth in love when the gleam of anger is all too clear in their eyes. We need more people who care about truth and about being winsome communicators.

6. Clear a space for synthetic dialog
Readers should not misunderstand me at this point. I love debate (indeed I love it too much) and it is certainly a legitimate form of communication. Debate has its place and time; however, that place is not EVERYWHERE and that time is not ALWAYS. Debate should be an occasional form of religious communication, not its default. If I could only make one change to the state of religious discourse in the United States in general, and among evangelical Protestants in particular, it would be to reduce debate oriented speech and make more room for synthetic forms of discourse.

Religious commentators are notorious for turning every discussion into a debate. I have actually witnessed a respected Protestant scholar turn what was supposed to be a chance for ecumenical dialog and mutual understanding into a heated debate. This was my chief problem when I first converted to Christianity. All discussions had to be debates (in fact the two words had become synonymous in my mind) and all debates had to come to their end (either the other side conceding my point, or the other ending the debate because they did not care enough about truth). How wrong and harmful I was in my speech and thought.

Synthetic, cooperative and learning oriented communication is both viable and fruitful. I have heard Protestants claim that they already know where they agree with others (such a Roman Catholics) the real area of live interest is the differences between the traditions. First, let me suggest that the majority of Protestants do not know the true extent of similarity that they share with Roman Catholics (especially some of the Wesleyans I have had the pleasure of conversing with). Second, sometimes similarities need to be carefully uncovered. Oftentimes Protestants and Roman Catholics use the same terms in very different ways and so end up talking past one another. If more of our dialog was centered on cooperative learning rather than heated debate, we would more readily notice these instances. Third, there is great value in dwelling on similarities and suspending debate when we encounter differences. Part of being charitable is temporarily (or permanently) suspending debate or critique when one first encounters a difference. This creates the space necessary for genuine understanding to develop. In this process, opposing sides might discover that the difference was only apparent, or that the difference is not as crucial as they once thought, or, perhaps more rarely, that their own tradition is the one that is in the wrong.

So much could be written on religious dialog. I have only given the barest of indications here towards what constitutes fruitful dialog and what should be avoided. For anyone who has actually read to the end, I would be interested in your thoughts concerning any of the above points.

Until next week . . . peace