Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Why is common ground so uncommon?

There is very little dialogue these days. There is even less healthy public dialogue. What we have is a culture where talking heads speak to other talking heads. The idea seems to be if I yell enough and repeat myself enough then what I say must be correct or important.


An article about the movie Noah encourages Christians not to attend. They do so by labeling the director as an atheist. It would have been nice if they had dialogued with the actual content of the movie instead of labeling by libel.


Comedian Bill Maher calls God as a mass murderer. It is consistent with who he is and what he believes, but it was also great for ratings.


Where can a person find common ground for conversation when there is a lack of civility and courtesy? Have we lost the ability to listen? Have we lost the ability to allow someone the chance to be heard?


This now creeps its way into church life. We as Pastors find ourselves reviewing curriculum and setting guidelines for small group discussions in the church setting. It seems that common ground and courtesy have even lost their way in our local congregations.


I had someone share a story from a mega church this week. The Pastor was preaching on a fairly controversial political topic. I struggle to imagine what biblical text he used to justify preaching about it. An angered congregant stood up and called him a liar and stormed out of the building. Where did this person learn this behavior? I am not sure, but it was modeled for her a few years ago in our own congress.


Church should be a thermostat and not a thermometer. We should set the expectations for ethical behavior, discourse, and dialogue the way a thermostat determines the environment in a house. In stead we seem to reflect the behavior of our culture and we are no different than the world around us.


How we say what we say says as much about us as what we say.

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