It seems like we’ve lost it. Is there any chance of bringing it back? And, if so: who are the people most likely to be the source of recovery?
No need to be coy and secretive; in a page, I have limited space to sneak in on the subject through a clever story or a meaningful metaphor. What have we “lost?”
The essential quality that is MIA (missing in action) is what was once known as civil discourse. Now packed away in storage, it was the way that people of differing opinions once interacted in an intentional effort to honor one another while giving each a hearing.
Technically, civil discourse involves the mutual sharing of views in a dialogue. The goal is to promote greater understanding between people through respectful conversation. Attacks are off-limits; conversion of conviction that occurs at the end of the interchange is unlikely. With civil discourse, two people with positions that are mutually incompatible can likely sustain friendly relationship.
Instead of reasonable descriptions and debate, the modern approach to differences has devolved to rancor, ad-hominem attacks and – too frequently – threats of physical attack.
Every two years, political campaigns are conducted with limited – or, no – civil discourse allowed. Every night, the public broadcast world thrives on featured voices expressing disrespect and unmannered attacks on individuals or groups on the other side of the issue-of-the-moment. Today’s bedfellows can become tomorrow’s antagonists when a previously unexplored topic exposes a difference of opinion.
In the absence of civil discourse, there are no victories: only shrinking kinship. Friendships are severed, working relationships are dismissed, families are fractured beyond recovery. Why? We’ve lost the capacity to maintain continuing relational influence with people holding divergent opinions. We no longer embrace civil discourse.
Two thousand years ago, Jesus left his followers with a challenge beyond imagination: travel to the distant horizons of human existence with the most radical message that anyone had ever heard: the Creator had become a man – arriving and living with an intentional incognito strategy – on a redemptive mission that would require His mortal death to enable everyone else’s eternal life.
Since the beginning, societies have created their own religious systems and false gods. Jesus’ followers would arrive and present an alternative answer to the human need for the supernatural. Would debate and debasement be their approach to achieve agreement?
“While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols. So he reasoned in the synagogue with both Jews and God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there. A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to debate with him. Some of them asked, “What is this babbler trying to say?” Others remarked, “He seems to be advocating foreign gods,” (Acts 17:16-18).
Then – as now – the intellectual elite prefer debate and dismissal. Paul wasn’t there to win an argument: he was there to win converts. His response was brilliant: “Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: ‘People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.’”(v 22-23). The result? “Some of the people became followers of Paul and believed…” (v 34).
My goal in life is to grow my audience, find common ground… and share God’s truth without the kind of off-putting acrimony that has become epidemic behind 21st Century microphones.
Tell me: should we be known for winning arguments, or disciples?
