Love this John... and what great timing to share these lessons and frameworks for engaging with others with the young adults in our lives, about to head off to college!
Thanks for sharing your remarks here, John. I have been blessed to work in an environment where, on paper, I am markedly different from those around me: a conservative in the midst of liberals, a Christian in the midst of not. But I have found that those categorizations are misleading. Many a time, it doesn’t take much conversation across supposed divides to find that I might even have more in common with the supposed others around me than with my supposed allies. Those boundary lines we draw between ourselves are not as impermeable as popular portrayals depict, if we are willing to take our eyes off the boundaries themselves and look at the people.
Amongst the diversity around me, while we may have profoundly different routes and thoughts on best practices, I find our goals are often similar, even around nebulous words like justice and opportunity. And on many of the routes I gravitate towards, there is the possibility that I might be wrong.
In reading this, it was also fun to recall the echoing walks along the Duke chapel aisles and the weighty silence of its crypt.
Pluralism, - one way to deal with divisive pluralism (all pluralism is not divisive) may be harmonization. Harmony - an attitude of a willingness to seek pleasing blendings and balancings. What he eluded to but did not state; Developing an attitude of a willingness to seek common, solutions, to common concerns, for the common good.
These kinds of conversations always fail to address the differences that don't bear tolerating. Who you voted for or what god you believe in are easy differences to say we can work past, but when people hold beliefs that seek to harm others it is much harder to find empathy for them even if you find yourself sharing a purpose with them as described here. That challenge needs more discussion and I feel that pieces like these ignore the larger issues.
Thanks for your comment. My own view is that in a diverse democracy that regularly surfaces political and policy disputes regarding allocation of rights, we *often* hold and act on beliefs that effectively seek to harm others. And yet most of us still work, live, and play alongside people who support positions antithetical to our own. This is true across a range of issues including the boundaries of antidiscrimination law, tax policy, free exercise rights (and costs), and many other matters.
True! We all "seek to harm others" in our beliefs, but we are usually blind to what those harmful beliefs are. For example, my son is a trans man, and I voted for Trump - who many people claim seeks to "harm" trans people like my son.
From my perspective, it is trans activists who have harmed my son and all trans people by denying the existence of biological sex, supporting child medical transition, and pushing for males in female sports and women's prisons - all of which have been disastrous when it comes to support for trans people. None of those policies help the majority of trans people, and instead have fueled a terrible and unnecessary backlash. Trump is restoring sanity to the trans debate, and I appreciate that.
Policies that appear "loving" can do terrible harm to vulnerable communities.
Biden's open border policies severely harmed public support for immigrants; academia's failure to wholeheartedly condemn and punish the Jew hatred so rampant on university campuses has led to public support for withholding university funds and deporting foreign students like Mahmoud Khalil. (Good riddance to him).
As they say, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions -and is paved even more quickly with moral cowardice.
I used to drive around with an "I heart Muslims" bumper sticker on my car. I don't do that anymore - not since the horror of 10/8 (the grotesque response to the anti-Jewish pogrom of 10/7). Today, I think both Muslim activists and trans activists have violated the good will that was extended toward them. They did real harm to themselves and others.
I am done supporting beliefs that appear "loving" but are harmful (and hateful) in practice. Moral Vanity is a deadly disease.
The best compliment I can give is to say that I pray each day I increasingly embody what you have described here in my role at Lutheran South.
Love this John... and what great timing to share these lessons and frameworks for engaging with others with the young adults in our lives, about to head off to college!
Thanks for sharing your remarks here, John. I have been blessed to work in an environment where, on paper, I am markedly different from those around me: a conservative in the midst of liberals, a Christian in the midst of not. But I have found that those categorizations are misleading. Many a time, it doesn’t take much conversation across supposed divides to find that I might even have more in common with the supposed others around me than with my supposed allies. Those boundary lines we draw between ourselves are not as impermeable as popular portrayals depict, if we are willing to take our eyes off the boundaries themselves and look at the people.
Amongst the diversity around me, while we may have profoundly different routes and thoughts on best practices, I find our goals are often similar, even around nebulous words like justice and opportunity. And on many of the routes I gravitate towards, there is the possibility that I might be wrong.
In reading this, it was also fun to recall the echoing walks along the Duke chapel aisles and the weighty silence of its crypt.
I loved this, John! Thanks for sharing with us!
Pluralism, - one way to deal with divisive pluralism (all pluralism is not divisive) may be harmonization. Harmony - an attitude of a willingness to seek pleasing blendings and balancings. What he eluded to but did not state; Developing an attitude of a willingness to seek common, solutions, to common concerns, for the common good.
Harmony In Our communities Across America
These kinds of conversations always fail to address the differences that don't bear tolerating. Who you voted for or what god you believe in are easy differences to say we can work past, but when people hold beliefs that seek to harm others it is much harder to find empathy for them even if you find yourself sharing a purpose with them as described here. That challenge needs more discussion and I feel that pieces like these ignore the larger issues.
Thanks for your comment. My own view is that in a diverse democracy that regularly surfaces political and policy disputes regarding allocation of rights, we *often* hold and act on beliefs that effectively seek to harm others. And yet most of us still work, live, and play alongside people who support positions antithetical to our own. This is true across a range of issues including the boundaries of antidiscrimination law, tax policy, free exercise rights (and costs), and many other matters.
True! We all "seek to harm others" in our beliefs, but we are usually blind to what those harmful beliefs are. For example, my son is a trans man, and I voted for Trump - who many people claim seeks to "harm" trans people like my son.
From my perspective, it is trans activists who have harmed my son and all trans people by denying the existence of biological sex, supporting child medical transition, and pushing for males in female sports and women's prisons - all of which have been disastrous when it comes to support for trans people. None of those policies help the majority of trans people, and instead have fueled a terrible and unnecessary backlash. Trump is restoring sanity to the trans debate, and I appreciate that.
Policies that appear "loving" can do terrible harm to vulnerable communities.
Biden's open border policies severely harmed public support for immigrants; academia's failure to wholeheartedly condemn and punish the Jew hatred so rampant on university campuses has led to public support for withholding university funds and deporting foreign students like Mahmoud Khalil. (Good riddance to him).
As they say, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions -and is paved even more quickly with moral cowardice.
I used to drive around with an "I heart Muslims" bumper sticker on my car. I don't do that anymore - not since the horror of 10/8 (the grotesque response to the anti-Jewish pogrom of 10/7). Today, I think both Muslim activists and trans activists have violated the good will that was extended toward them. They did real harm to themselves and others.
I am done supporting beliefs that appear "loving" but are harmful (and hateful) in practice. Moral Vanity is a deadly disease.