Bob Carlton, he of The Corner fame, who brought you the top 5 posts blog at the end of 2004, has cobbled together a bunch of us to blog about Jim Wallis' book God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It.
I was undecided about participating, as I am not inclined to Wallis' views on many things, and the Sojourners weekly spam (that I voluntarily receive just to see what they're up to) often hacks me off no end. But, I figured, we need counterpoints, so here I am.
Our first assignment is to write on the introduction, the title of which is "Why can't we talk about religion and politics?" This is interesting because Wallis starts the introduction off with the question, but then proceeds to ignore the whole idea except for acknowledging in the first couple of paragraphs that we're taught not to discuss these topics in polite company. After that it's pretty much a gripe session about last November's US election. So he's no help.
So why do we find it hard to discuss these two topics?
One reason is that we tend to hold our religious and political beliefs pretty strongly. Not only that, every single person's combination of beliefs about these two things is different. Sometimes in subtle ways, sometimes not subtle at all. For example, here's a really simple little political quiz with ten questions in which few people in a smallish group will score identically. Make it more complex than that, like this one, and we really are all over the map.
When we talk about these things, we discover differences about what we believe and we are faced with a choice. Do we cling to our own belief and believe the other person is wrong? Or do we give up some of our own belief, modifying it to fit better with the other person's views? This can either be an outward spoken exchange (which can degenerate into nasty arguments) or an inner one - often, quieter people, when faced with someone expressing opinions vehemently will not speak up, and that can lead to an inner turmoil.
If I get talking to someone and it becomes evident that they're, say, a rabid six literal day creationist, I'm just not going to engage them on the subject. Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt. Engaging fanatics on a topic can be likened to wrestling with a pig. You just get crap all over you and the pig kind of likes it anyway. So why go there?
These exchanges don't have to be bad, necessarily. They can be learning experiences. If you listen to someone whose views are different from yours but theirs somehow explain things better, it can be a good thing. But even then, the change can be a little disconcerting.
So there's the comfort issue. There's also the potential of losing friends outright. The more we know about each other, the more likely we are to find a fatal flaw in the other person that kills the friendship. "Well, if she thinks that way about studded snow tires, how clever can she be? I can't possibly stay friends with someone who drives around with those road-eroders on all winter!"
All too often, when it comes to contentious subjects, we adopt a "don't ask, don't tell" policy. If I don't really know what you think, I don't have to deal with it. And that's sad, because we can learn from each other. But it takes a certain amount of humility to be able to set aside our own beliefs temporarily to listen to the other side. And then it takes a certain amount of restraint not to respond with our first thoughts about why they're wrong.
So humility and restraint are what we need. No wonder this is difficult.
