Angela Weszely:
Welcome to the ProGrace podcast, in the months leading up to the 2024 election. Over the summer, we spent a lot of time listening to you at the ProGrace community. We wanted to know how you feel about the landscape of what's happening in this heated social and political climate. We also wanted to know how ProGrace and this community is helping you promote unity and grace, and what you need from us to continue to do this. So, stay tuned for a variety of topics where we will address your concerns and your questions. And stick around for the end of the podcast, there'll be an opportunity for you to send us more questions that I can address on future podcasts. Here's today's episode.
Hi, and thanks for joining me on the ProGrace podcast. We are three weeks away from the 2024 election, and because of that, we have a special format today. I'm really excited about this, we have so much great content in all these podcast episodes, and we have put together a best of series based on the questions that we're getting the most from the ProGrace community. So I'm really excited to share with you just some people who have been inspiring and grounding through their interviews with us and conversations with us on the ProGrace podcast. And we will walk through that, that'll be our time, Taylor, today.
Before we jump into that, I did want to share what's giving me hope right now. I know that this can feel more divisive than ever before. I know even in our families, conversations can be hard. I actually had a conversation with my son, who's a senior in high school, as I was finishing up a manuscript for a book I'm writing. And he said to me, "Do you think it's going to make any difference, mom?" And he was being very authentic to his own discouragement. And it was all I could do not to just talk the whole time and say, "Yes, I do, and here's why," but to really listen to him and to find out why as a 17-year-old, he looks at the divisiveness. He looks at even how Christians are engaging in different issues, and he doesn't have a lot of hope right now.
And I really felt even me learning through my journey with ProGrace, for me to zip my lip and listen to him was actually a very meaningful conversation for me at least, and I think for him as well. And that is something we always talk about. I was trained to always share my view on an issue, specifically on abortion. I was always taught to, I'm very persuasive, I was taught to persuade, and I really think our first step is to listen and to ask questions. And I'm grateful that my son allowed me into his world a bit with what he was experiencing. And I wouldn't have connected with him the way I did if I hadn't listened.
So it wasn't a hopeful topic, it's sad hearing his thoughts, but it did bring me motivation. This is why I do what I do, because I believe God has a solution for this and every issue, but specifically, we talk about the abortion issue. God is so much bigger than the political parties. If you've been around our community for very long, we talk about, the sides make us choose. Are we for the woman or the child? But God sits above everything with this immense heart where he values the woman and child equally, and he can see pathways for hope that we can't see. He's interacting with people, he's at work when we can't even see it. And really, I think our biggest mistake in the abortion issue over the last several decades has been to put more emphasis on political parties that are made by people, than spend time with him and listen to his heart and listen to his value for all people who are created in the image of God. And so that's the hope I have.
Again, I share some discouragement like my son, it's not like I don't see what's going on. At the same time, I get to see all these people, people like you, people in the ProGrace community. And that was some of what I was sharing with my son is, I get to talk to Christians who really are seeing the futility of having a primarily political approach. And they're taking their responsibility to vote very seriously, that's why we have this podcast today. It's just that they're taking their kingdom connection with other believers more seriously than their political affiliation.
They are looking to God to bring an answer and they're looking internally at themselves. There's not a lot out there right now telling us to focus on ourselves. We're taught to focus on the other side, that's where the divisiveness comes from. But really, this podcast is we're sharing it in the hopes that three weeks out, this can be a space for us to breathe and invite the Lord into our own life, invite the Lord into our own attitudes to do that work within us so that we can then go out, listen and bring hope in conversations.
And one story I wanted to share is that we recently started a ProGrace Transform Leaders cohort with about 25 people. They're walking through our Transform course together in an online community. They didn't know each other before this, so it's been really great to see them interact. But they're evaluating if they want to bring this as a small group to their church or their organization or their community. And one person had this comment about the course, that I felt sums up our value in this election season right now. And she said, "It seems like there are a lot of resources out there for numbers and data about abortion or people's opinions about abortion, but there's not many resources to help us learn how to do our own heart work, and that the transform is a great format for that."
That made it all worth it to me. This is why we do what we do, is because we are really only responsible for ourselves but the beautiful thing is that God promises that he's working within us and he will work through us. And while we can feel discouraged by looking outside at things we can't control, I believe the Holy Spirit wants us to take this time and focus inside where we do have control and think about, how do I want to be in my space, in my sphere of influence, in my relationships? What kind of person do I want to be as we walk into this election?
So, I'm really excited to share our Best Of series, and question one, the first one, is I'm just worn out and sick of talking about politics. And so we will hear from Kaitlyn Schiess, has an incredibly encouraging word for us on this.
Kaitlyn Schiess:
And I both want to say, our politics is not intended to be a space where you show your greatest identity or community, where it's just a sense of a lawn sign or a T-shirt. Sometimes those can be fine, they're not immoral, but we treat all of our politics like it's just about showing off who I am and what community I belong to, which is not a great way of doing politics because if your way of engaging politically is showing everyone who you are and what community you belong to, you can't compromise. It's your identity we're talking about. It's if you're a good person, if you're one of the good guys and not the bad guys. You can't compromise, you can't change your mind. You can't say, "Well, in this election this feels like the pressing issue, but maybe in the next election it'll be a different issue." You can't do any of that because politics is about showcasing your identity and your sense of community.
And the other part that I think is troubling about this way of engaging politically is that it limits politics to just this one, often presidential vote. Sometimes we'll talk a little bit more broadly than that. Maybe we'll talk about national politics, but still we tend to think, my politics is boiled down to this one vote that has to represent everything I care about and believe in. And for Christians then, everything I think God cares about. And then we don't recognize that politics in a just really broad sense means building a common life together. So yes, we can vote for certain candidates that we think represent values that we care about or that might fight for policies we think are good. Politics also includes holding those leaders accountable, right? So you voted for them and they start doing things you don't think are good. Having some sense of responsibility to write a letter or show up to a meeting.
It also means just building relationships with your literal neighbors. There's been a real breakdown of any sense of neighborhood in most American contexts. So part of the check the box issue is, well, you haven't really treated politics like the thing it is, if you think it's just a space for you to show who you are. But also, that one vote is just one small part of your political life. It shouldn't be a box I've checked. It should be, okay, I've participated in this meaningful way. It is important, but it's one small part of a whole life that includes volunteering at a community center, that involves bringing a casserole to your next-door neighbors, that involves local politics, which we can get into more, but it involves so many other things.
And hopefully, not only does that much wider sense of politics mean we can't just think of it as checking a box, but it hopefully also means that we can take a little bit of a breath, because sometimes when I get really passionate about this and I'll be like, there's all these ways we can engage politically. Sometimes people hear like, "Oh, there's so many things I have to do. You've just added to, I thought I could just vote for this one vote. I could just vote for President and that would be good enough." But I hope it actually makes us calm down a little bit, in part because this isn't your one shot. You don't have this one box to check and then that's it.
And if you make the wrong decision, well, you've really messed up all of your political life. It's not that. You will make wrong decisions, I make wrong political decisions, but that's one small part of a whole life. And if this one vote feels impossible, if this one vote feels like there is not a good candidate for me to vote for that I feel totally great about, which to be honest is probably how we should feel all of the time.
Angela Weszely:
We should, right, right.
Kaitlyn Schiess:
There's no perfect person, Jesus is not on the ballot.
Angela Weszely:
Exactly.
Kaitlyn Schiess:
So if that's true, we can take a breath and go, I'm making the best choice that I can, I'm being as wise and faithful as I can. And then if this vote doesn't represent a bunch of things I care about, I have other opportunities in other places and other people in the body of Christ who are working on those things, even if that's not the thing that I'm spending all of my time working.
Angela Weszely:
Okay, our next question is, I feel loyal to a political party. What's wrong with that? And I think that's a really valid question. We would say there's nothing wrong with that, but as we talked about belonging to the Body of Christ comes first, and so we'll explore more of that with Skye Jethani.
Skye Jethani:
Often we use the word church, and what we mean is the institution. We mean the 501(c)(3) nonprofit with clergy and staff and budgets and buildings and all that. And that's an aspect of it, but really the church is the community. It's the people of Jesus Christ and there are good, wonderful, godly women and men who are the church who are safe and approachable and non-judgmental and loving and serving their neighbors, and so it's there. Unfortunately, it's not the perception a lot of the culture has, because the institution and its agenda and political activism often is what gets the attention.
So I don't want to just paint with a broad brush and say the church is all one way or another, it's much more complicated than that. And when I need encouragement or hope, I look for those individuals in small pockets of groups of Christians who are really displaying the character of Christ in his kingdom. They're everywhere, we just need to highlight them and lift them up as an exemplar of what the church can and should be.
Angela Weszely:
One of the reasons I think politics feels different now than when I was growing up in the '80s, is that there's more identity that people are getting in politics, rather than other places of identity we used to have in our communities. And so here's Kaitlyn again, talking about how politics is not the place to find our identity.
Kaitlyn Schiess:
Many of us are exhausted by national politics, and our mutual friend, Michael Ware will say, "Oh, they're not even exhausted by politics. They're exhausted by just consuming political media." You're exhausted because you've been scrolling Twitter, you've been watching cable news, and that is exhausting, and it's probably warping your soul. So maybe you do take a break from that. If people listening are like, I'm still not convinced politics is something I should care about because I'm so exhausted, great. Don't get involved in that. Maybe for a season you just turn all of that off.
Politics, if it's so much bigger than that, then let's maybe if we're turning that other stuff off, maybe we're conserving energy and attention for the local.
Angela Weszely:
Love that.
Kaitlyn Schiess:
Sometimes for the very local, sometimes for the... I mean, I have an immigrant family, a whole community of immigrant families in my neighborhood, and my ability to both build a relationship with those kids, where there's a little less of a language barrier, or work through the language barrier with some of the adults. If I had spent hours scrolling on Twitter arguing with people, I don't have the energy and attention I need to focus on these people right here-
Angela Weszely:
Wow.
Kaitlyn Schiess:
... and build relationship with them. So that's politics, but then it's also showing up to a community organizing meeting, or going to a community center, or volunteering with an organization or a group that's oriented towards something that you might also vote for, but this is another way to get involved in it.
I just spent some time this last week at a pregnancy center in my area and was learning about both the clothes they're providing for babies and for moms. The fact that moms can come there and get their SNAP benefits paperwork figured out through all of this, just really practical work that this center is doing. And it's like, I can vote for policies that I think support women and children and I can show up to a fundraiser for this organization. I can volunteer there, I can organize people in my church to work there. So, how could we conserve energy by maybe fasting a little bit from the national stuff, and then orienting our attention to the local stuff?
And the cool thing about the local stuff is, it still can be really hard. People probably have seen clips of school board meetings that have gotten crazy in the last few years. They can get really partisan, they can get really contentious, but there are more possibilities for common ground and cooperation because you can't... At the national level, it's so abstracted from human needs that it does just become identity. Who I am, who I belong to, I'm a good guy, you're a bad guy. The local level, there are often things that you just can't slot into a partisan box. There's issues of zoning and where sidewalks get built and whose trash service gets handled, or in my community recently there was... I love using this example because almost everyone I talked to is like, "Oh yeah, I would show up for that even though I don't maybe vote the same way as everyone else who would show up for this."
In my community, it was discovered recently that the office that handles housing disputes in my city didn't have anyone that spoke Spanish. But most of the people dealing with housing disputes, we have a high Hispanic population, spoke Spanish and many of them didn't speak English. So if you're voting Democrat, you're voting Republican, if you like small government, it doesn't matter. You have so many other political opinions, but most of us agreed, hey, these people in our community that need help navigating disputes with their landlords should have someone that speaks their language and we can work together to kind of pressure the city into creating that. I watched people in my community, in my church who disagreed on that question, agree that they could work together and cooperate on that.
Angela Weszely:
All right, here's another piece on, in terms of politics versus the Bible, and the place we give to each of those. And we do hear people wrestling with that, right? I know what scripture says, it's actually from scripture that forms my politics, but here's some great things for us to ponder from Skye Jethani, that separates the politics from scripture.
Skye Jethani:
The politics did not create the problem of abortion, it pre-exists politics. Right?
Angela Weszely:
Right.
Skye Jethani:
And so politics alone is not going to solve the problem of abortion. So when we lock into this political framework, we're denying the multiple dimensions of this really persistent challenge.
Secondly, politics, and I don't want to demean politics as all evil or bad or something. It's not, it has a good facet to it, but politics is inherently coercive because the goal of politics is to amass more power than your political opponent. And then use that power to essentially force your perspective upon, at least in a democratic republic setting, to force your point of view upon the population. We're going to appoint enough justices to overturn Roe, or we're going to get enough people in Congress to pass this law, or we're going to get a president in the White House to move this initiative, whatever it might be. But it's always against the will of some portion of your population, your neighbors. In that sense, it's inherently coercive.
The difference with Jesus is he's never coercive. He's persuasive, but he's not coercive. When you think about the story of the rich young ruler, who comes to him and says, "What do I have to do to have life forever in the kingdom?" And he has this interaction with Jesus, and eventually it comes down to Jesus tells him, "Go and sell everything you have and then come follow me." And he was very wealthy and very rich and he couldn't do it, and he walked away, and Jesus let him walk away. He didn't twist his arm, he didn't manipulate him, he didn't scold him. He just said, "Here's the offer, take it or leave it." And again and again and again, you find Jesus and his apostles were okay with people rejecting their message. Okay with people, not happy about it, but he respected them enough to give them the choice and let them make their path.
Similarly, when it comes to this issue, since there's not a political solution to abortion, we also have to resist the coercive solution, saying, "We are going to force upon everybody the answer we want." It just isn't possible. So I think the Jesus way then is to say, "I'm going to respect the humanity and the dignity and the choice of people in this circumstance. I want to persuade, I want to love, I want to care, but at the end of the day, I can't make them do what I want them to do. And am I okay with that?" And that might make some people really uncomfortable, but that's the reality of the situation is, you cannot legislate it, you cannot enforce it, you cannot make it what you want it to be. And the way of Jesus means allowing people the freedom to sometimes make decisions that we would profoundly disagree with, but would not ever go to the extent of coercing them into doing what we want because that would violate an even greater evil.
Andrew Hanauer:
The types of division we have in our country, to your point, they speak to this idea that we have become people who are looking for their belonging and their identity in politics. And the thing is that politics, politics, it can excite us. You go to a rally, you hear an inspirational candidate. Maybe you believe that it's really, really important, who wins and who loses. But at the end of the day, politics is not going to fill the spiritual holes in our lives. It's not going to give us a vision for human flourishing and for understanding the nature of the universe and our purpose on earth. And so it's an incomplete identity in that way. And what we're finding out of course, is that it's also really, really negative in many ways. It pits us against each other. It convinces us that we're right all the time. It tells us that our neighbors are actually our enemies. Our faith tells us that actually, even if our neighbors are our enemies, we're still supposed to love them, and so we really see the teachings of our faiths as the response to division.
I go to a lot of conferences. I hear a lot of explanations of how we can solve polarization. And I think the things that are in Scripture to me, they give us the answers to those questions, we just have to live them out. The problem doesn't start with us arguing on Twitter or our politicians doing X or Y. At our core as human beings, we are wired, I believe, by our Creator, but for anyone out there who isn't religious still by evolution by the way that we're designed, we're wired to want to belong. We want to be in a group. A group gives us protection, it gives us a sense of stability, it gives us meaning. It gives us a way to understand the rules of life and of living. And the scariest thing for a human being is the idea of being kicked out of their group, of being left behind in a way that then maybe I don't belong to this group and now I can't, but I still can't belong to that other group. And so where am I, right?
So human beings are going to search for belonging. And if they're not finding it in a healthy religious community, they're not finding it in a local community group of some kind, they're going to look for it online. They're going to look for it wherever they can find it. And one of the easiest ways to find it is to say, "Who hates the same people I hate?" Right?
Angela Weszely:
Right, right, straight forward.
Andrew Hanauer:
Yeah, right, exactly. "Who believes the same things about politics as me?" And in fact, these yard signs and Twitter photos of solidarity with this group or that group, is a way of sort shortcutting to say, "Who's like me that I can affiliate with?" But if faith communities are healthy, then at their core, they give you all of those aspects of belonging and a language and a set of values that teaches us how to then be in the world with other people who don't agree with us. And that's what our country needs so badly. And I think that's what a lot of faith communities all across the country are doing, but it's up against a lot of loud, angry, divisive rhetoric that is oftentimes much better funded than your local church and has a large megaphone.
Angela Weszely:
All right, well, as we look at scripture, we see Jesus actually, and him being our model in this issue is what we're shooting for.
Christy Vines:
If you forget all of this.
Angela Weszely:
That was good.
Christy Vines:
One thing, it can really help change how you engage on really hot topics, really passion topics. And I always say, if you cannot answer the question, I understand why this person holds the position they hold, then it's your job to keep asking the question, because what happens is you end up having this incredible experience of hearing somebody's story. And out of that, I would be hard-pressed to find too many people who won't find something in common, some point of connection that actually allows that defensive posture to soften, for that to see the other person not as a zero or one, but to see them as the full expression of a history of things done to them, done by them that have brought them to that point. It's magical what happens as a result.
Angela Weszely:
All right, here's a question that I get from people because I talk so much about having a non-political approach, and that is, are we saying that voting isn't important? And here's Kaitlyn again with thoughts on that.
Kaitlyn Schiess:
And this is a great distinct gift of Christian theology. So what I'm about to say, other people might get there from a different place or they might come to some kind of shared understanding. But this is I think a real distinct gift of Christian theology about politics is that we can view politics, and these are two words I use all the time, provisional and contingent. Provisional and contingent meaning, provisional, this is not the final word. When we engage in politics, we're not bringing heaven to earth. We're hopefully bringing glimpses of the kingdom. We're hopefully being faithful, but this is provisional. This is a kind of attempt In the meantime, while we await the full redemption and restoration of all creation. And that doesn't mean it's unimportant, it just means it's provisional.
So we can fall into two ditches here on either side of the road. One is like, this is everything. We are bringing the kingdom to earth, or Jesus is coming back so nothing really matters. And it's like, no, politics matters because people matter. We care about human beings made in God's image so we care about how politics affects them, helps them flourish, or keeps them from flourishing.
But so we say it's provisional, this is not the final word, this is not heaven on earth. It's contingent, meaning we're doing the best that we can. We're making the best decisions that we can. We're open to changing our minds, because this has happened over and over and over again in all of human history, especially even just in our own history in America. We have an idea for a policy that will fix some problem or help some people. We put it in place and either we discover it doesn't actually help the people we thought that it would help, or it does, but it causes all these unintended consequences over here in another direction and now we either have to figure out if it's worth it or if we come up with something new to fix the new problem, or... So it's contingent in that we can decide we were wrong or we can just decide, this is the right policy for right now, but maybe the conditions will change and suddenly a different policy is the best policy
Angela Weszely:
With voting, I know I just absorbed that was my main responsibility in the abortion issue, in other divisive issues as well. But that's a question we'll explore in this next part with Andrew Hanauer. Is that really our primary responsibility, one vote, or does our responsibility go deeper than that?
Andrew Hanauer:
We have to realize that we think we have much more control than we do over world events, or national politics, or things like that. We have way more influence over our local community, and way more ability to make change, way more ability to help other people. And so I think a lot of this has to come down to, is my church healthy? Am I healthy? Am I living in a way that would make someone else want to understand what I believe, rather than am I shouting into the void at people who I see on TV who I don't agree with? And what am I accomplishing?
And I think, I talk a lot about how what I go around the country, I get in Ubers and I say, the Uber driver says, "What do you do for work?" And I say, "Well, I'm trying to make the country less divided." And they usually laugh first, like, "Good luck with that." And then they'll tell me how excited they are that we exist because almost nobody likes our division. Right?
Angela Weszely:
Right.
Andrew Hanauer:
But then the most interesting part is they say, "Well, let me tell you why we're divided," and invariably it's everyone's fault that they don't like, right?
Angela Weszely:
It's the other side.
Andrew Hanauer:
It's the Democrat's fault or it's the Republican's fault, or it's the media or mass media, whatever. We're ready to look everywhere for the problem, except the mirror. And I think we have to start with, who am I? What am I doing? What am I putting out into the world? Because you can't control what other people do. You can't control what politicians do, but you can control how you influence the people directly around you.
Angela Weszely:
Here we have Kaitlyn and Andrew, both talking to us about belonging, identity. Again, this thing that's driving us in politics. Is there something bigger that we belong to than our particular political identity or even how we're going to vote in this next election?
Kaitlyn Schiess:
What's beautiful about Christianity and why I wrote a whole book about spiritual formation and politics and spent a lot of it saying I actually think we don't need to reinvent the wheel. I think we have some good resources from just Christian, normal Christian history that can help us. And one of those is the life of the church, which seems like a pretty crazy thing to say these days because we do have some pretty high profile examples of the church being captivated by partisan politics, a particular pastors or churches saying, "Yeah, to be a Christian does mean to be a Republican or to be a Democrat or to vote for this person or act this way."
However, most of us don't actually belong to those churches. They take up a lot of air time. Most of us belong to churches that are not perfectly diverse politically or theologically, but for the most part, we belong to churches that we don't agree with everything with everyone in them. And we believe this totally radical, wild thing that through the practices of baptism and communion, we belong to one another in a way more foundational than our biological families, than the racial or ethnic lines that divide us, than nationality, than socioeconomics. There are so many ways in which, especially our political lives, tell us, this is who you belong to and this is who you are.
And the church very imperfectly, but still kind of by the grace of God amazingly has said, "No, that's not actually foundationally who you are." You actually belong to the people of God that spans time and the world and amazingly, the prayers that we're praying in a different language are being prayed in another part of the world. And the things that we believe are believed by people who don't speak the same language, who don't have the same kind of social setting that we do, and that's amazing. And that can be, if we're thoughtful about it, a way to rightly frame our political lives to say we have opportunities to engage in politics on behalf of our neighbors, out of love for our neighbors, out of love for humans made in the image of God.
But we also have this powerful tool that a lot of our neighbors don't have to resist this temptation to get put into a box or boxed into a community that then determines everything we believe. We can show up to a meeting for the party we belong to or we can show up to a special interest group that wants to advocate for something, and it can feel really pressured to kind of go along with what everyone in this community says and not have any differences of opinion.
And then we show up at church on Sunday, and many of us pray the Lord's Prayer or say a creed that people have said for thousands of years. And we might not be aware of it, but I do think it's forming us to think, okay, I actually can be the dissenting voice in this party or in this group that's meeting because this is not most foundationally who I am. I can belong to these people and love these people, but nothing's threatened here. If I get kicked out of this community that wasn't most foundationally who I belonged to, the people of God through the death and resurrection of Christ, that's who I most deeply foundationally belong to.
Andrew Hanauer:
I think the question is, how can we make sure that we don't become politics first and Christian third or ninth? We should not be Democrats or Republicans who happen to go to church. We should be Christians who happen to be Democrats or Republicans. And so in that church environment where it's more homogenous, what is a practice that you can build into the rhythm of church life that might start to just challenge a little bit? Maybe it's even just a regular reminder that Jesus tells us to love our enemies. Maybe that's all, but maybe there's a lot more that you could do.
Angela Weszely:
So now, after grounding ourselves in some of the topics that cause us anxiety, we want to be a peaceful presence as we talk about this. And so focusing on our own heart work, I love that phrase now, is first.
Now we're going to turn, to what can we do? Because once we are grounded, we're living in peace, not anxiety, we have our focus on Jesus. There are some things we can do, and the first thing is to not look for our differences first, but go into every conversation, interaction, looking for where we are alike. Looking for where we have common ground, and how can we do that?
This is Laura McAlpine, who is talking with Denise, the co-founder of ProGrace. We also have amazing quote from Amy Peeler, and Christy Vines is back to talk to us about some of this.
Laura McAlpine:
And that's really what I heard right away from both of you was that you went right to, if we do what's right for the woman in this situation, we'll be doing what's right for everybody. And that's the common ground, because I really believe anyone who is someone who feels really strongly about reproductive rights and maternal and child health, they are all about, how do we help the woman? And that's the common ground, right?
Angela Weszely:
That we can all have, yeah.
Laura McAlpine:
But sometimes people start to get wiggy when they start talking about, what's going to happen to the pregnancy? And then we get into all of the divisions and the debates, and that's really important. We do need to talk about what's going to happen to the pregnancy and what that means.
Denise Stein:
Sure, sure.
Laura McAlpine:
But if the starting point is, we believe that the woman is the center of our work, then we can find common ground.
So in talking to the two of you, I started to realize how much common ground we have, because I completely agreed with your approach that a woman facing an unplanned pregnancy needs support. And for some women, they actually need professional counseling or at least something beyond what you get in the doctor's office when you're going for an appointment.
Denise Stein:
Exactly, right.
Laura McAlpine:
So, and I understood how the abortion debate and the political divide about this topic was actually preventing people from entering into the best way to provide practice to the women. Keeping the women in the center, not the debate.
Amy Peeler:
Because our church experience is all over map because that's humans, right? Humans can be great and not so great, but the biblical text we share, even across denominations. Now, our interpretations would be different, but the words, we share the words, and that's a powerful place where we can come together. I love being in situations where I've sat across the table from Catholic brothers and sisters, Orthodox brothers and sisters. We have a lot of theological church history, church differences, but we share the story. And so, how could we find those places of agreement? Let's get back to the Bible.
Angela Weszely:
Yep.
Christy Vines:
When we know that we are going into a conversation, that that could be heated or where somebody who has a very different opinion or perspective than us, our brains immediately can switch into defense mode. And in fact, there's so much interesting language around this. We talk about our blood boiling and we get heated. That's a physiological response-
Angela Weszely:
Wow.
Christy Vines:
... that's already being primed the minute that we know we are going to debate somebody on a topic we care deeply about. And so the idea of coming in to a challenging conversation and thinking, my job is to debate this, we immediately go into defensive mode and we start to in our brains, immediately start to look at the other person as the enemy. And we immediately start to think about and focus on, what is it that makes us different from one another? So we immediately focus on the differences.
There is no way to go from that position to a positive, healthy outcome if that's the starting point. And so we immediately have people seek common ground with somebody who they don't even realize is on the polar opposite end from them on an issue they care deeply about because what happens is, when our brains know that we're not here to win a war, we're not here to find the differences, we're actually here to find the commonality, our brains start to seek things that make us alike. And so the defensive posture, that defensiveness goes down, and you actually see physical cues where people shoulders drop, we had people like breathe sighs of relief, you can see smiles. You don't normally see that if you're going in defensive mode. Right? So that's why we start there because you actually lay, you prime the brain to start looking and seeking something different, seeking out-
Angela Weszely:
Wow.
Christy Vines:
... the positive, rather than negative.
The next step going into our deep listening, so listening without the idea or even the responsibility of defense or debate, is probably one of our most powerful exercises because this is something we don't learn. Most of us don't learn, especially in western civilization, and in particular in America. We are taught from birth to communicate, to influence, to inform, and to win.
Angela Weszely:
Wait, say that again. Stop it. So this isn't just Christians, because I thought this was, had to do with my Christian upbringing, but you're saying all of us as Americans, say those three again.
Christy Vines:
So [inaudible 00:37:26] influence, to inform, and to win.
Angela Weszely:
Wow.
Christy Vines:
Right, I even ask, we've worked with college students, and I often ask how many of them are communications, have either taken a communications class or are communications majors. And so I'll get hands that go up and I go, "In your coursework, how much emphasis has there been placed on just listening?" And very few will raise their hands. I'm like, from the moment we speak our first word or scream and cry, our brain starts recognizing that when we talk, we have an impact. We get people to move, we influence people, and so the more effective we can become, the more influential, and sometimes even exploitive we can become in our communication. So if we have years and sometimes decades of our brains starting to recognize that there is a positive, something positive that comes from our one-way defensive debate style of communication, why would we ever stop and listen?
But if you notice in the documentary, when we ask, when we tell people that and their instructions were, you are to enter into this conversation without letting the other person know what your position is on the issue that you guys are having a conversation about. In fact, your only job is to ask questions. You actually never have to debate or defend or even give hints or tips about what your position is. And so the majority of the groups actually got it and they did it, but it's so interesting because when we are primed not to have to debate or defend our position... So when our brains are wired for debate and defense, it's basically closed off to any information that doesn't support that goal. Right?
So my only job is to debate and defend this and to influence you and try to win. Everything I do is in support of that, is in service of that outcome. But if I don't have to debate and defend, a filter actually goes down, our brain actually changes its job, which means it becomes curious and it actually seeks to get more information and to learn and actually lessen the distance between the two individuals. And so in the film, there's one moment where there's an individual who is asking questions, but then actually asks a question that very much shows his posture, his position on the issue. And if you notice, there's a micro movement of him moving forward. It's an aggressive posture and it's micro, and I didn't see it until about the third time watching it through, but the minute he catches himself and goes, "Oh wait, I'm not supposed to be, I'm not here to actually talk about my position. I'm here to listen and ask you questions." All of a sudden he sits back and his shoulders just slightly go down.
Angela Weszely:
Wow.
Christy Vines:
And it's just again, a physiological response in our bodies that says, "Oh, we're not in defense mode. I don't have to be aggressive. I don't have to be the aggressor. I just get to sit and listen and learn," and it's a completely different job for the brain.
Angela Weszely:
Wow.
Christy Vines:
And so everything then is in service of just learning and listening, which makes us so much more effective. But it allows us then to actually learn enough to be curious and respond, because most of us just don't sit and listen, respond, recognizing that there are stories and reasons beyond just the position that people hold.
Angela Weszely:
I just realized I forgot to identify where Christi Vines was. The first place she talked was where we talked about being like Jesus being our most important driver. So we heard from Christy a lot here at the end, and all of these podcasts would encourage you to go back and listen to them in their entirety. We will make a note of where they are in the show notes.
But as we close out our time today, I just wanted you to know that I do have hope. I am praying for each of us in the ProGrace community. Love that there are more and more new people joining us, and we have also some resources for you. So we have a conversation guide that we will make available to you, and that will be in the show notes how you can access that, a place where you can go download that, specifically for our podcast listeners, as well as the Transform Leaders cohort I talked about. How you can get on our interest list and be notified when we start our next cohort.
Because I would say this, and we all know this, in three weeks, this isn't all going away. In fact, the longer this goes on, the more complex and complicated the political narrative is becoming. I think we're not going to see any solution on the political side for a very long time. We know that God takes the long view of this. And so that's part of these last three weeks, is we don't have to panic. We can say, what do we do after the election, God? What do we do after the election? And so having this conversation guide, as well as the cohort interest list, those are some next steps that we can take after the election. As well, we'll have a podcast right after the election to go through that, and again, set us up for, what do we do now? So for these next three weeks, be blessed and I can't wait to hear how your conversations go.
We're so grateful for you and are here to support you. To provide a community where you feel understood and safe and in which you know you're not alone in wanting more from the Christian response to abortion, unintended pregnancy, and other divisive issues. How can we help you have better conversations? We would love to hear from you about anything that's on your mind. Email us at [email protected] to let us know how we can support you. Thank you.
