Saturday, June 14, 2005

How to Discuss Religion and Not Ruin the Party

By Rabbi Mark S. Glickman

Special to The Seattle Times

Most Americans know perfectly well how to ruin a party – all you have to do is start talking about politics or religion.

To get a group of happy people to stop enjoying themselves, it seems, just get them to discuss either God or the fate of our nation. No two topics are more divisive and inflammatory than these.

And should religion and politics overlap in a discussion, the party will end even quicker. When religious leaders weigh-in on controversial issues, when believers have the "audacity" to suggest that their religion has a truth to teach us about war or poverty or justice, when a religion tries to foist itself on others, well, dress yourselves up in Kevlar, folks. It’s gonna get ugly real soon.

It doesn’t have to be like this, however, and it shouldn’t.

America today needs the truths that religion can offer. Desperately. Religion speaks to war; it speaks to our treatment of the needy. It speaks, in fact, to a broad spectrum of the challenges we face, and it therefore behooves us to take religion seriously. But if everyone keeps leaving the party as soon as the subject comes up, we will be unable to do so.

In this spirit, then, I offer you these simple guidelines for discussing religious perspectives on contemporary issues:

"Glickman’s Four Easy Rules for Discussing Religion and Not Ruining the Party"

1. Never Tell Anyone Sharing Religious Ideas to Shut up.

It may seem obvious – every discussion demands that we be open to hearing what others are saying. Unfortunately, this rule is the one most commonly broken, often in subtle ways.

We close our minds when we hear someone begin to share religious ideas; evidently, we already know all the religion we need to know. We tell people to stop shoving their religions down our throats, as if any moral system of value should have no effect on others. We hear any mention of God in political discourse as an attempt to establish tyrannical theocracy, and not as a way of seeking profoundly good democracy.

2. Don’t Obstruct The Dialogue; Enrich It.

Atheist critics make a valid point when they accuse religious people of using faith as a discussion-ender. "Why do I feel as I do about this issue? Well, it tells me to believe this way right there in Babloovians 12:39."

Such sentiments, though often heartfelt, do nothing to advance our public discourse. Don’t tell me that I should vote a certain way because of what it says in Babloovians; I don’t read Babloovians. Nor, for that matter do many other Americans.

As a result, slinging biblical one-liners at us just wastes our time and impedes constructive dialogue. The challenge here is to take the truths you know and translate them into language I can appreciate – even if my religion is different from yours.

3. Don’t Try to Pass off Your Ideas as God’s Ideas.

The biblical commandment, "Do not utter the name of the Lord your God in vain," is actually a mistranslation of the original text. The literal meaning of the Hebrew is, "Do not lift the Lord your God’s name for vanity."

In other words, "Don’t use God’s name to bolster your own vain, selfish, ideas and goals."

In other words, "Don’t take your own political agenda and try to defend it by saying that it’s actually God’s agenda, too."

In other words, "Don’t exploit God’s name."

Sadly, many on both the left and the right exploit God’s name all the time. We adopt a political ideology or agenda, try to find scriptural hooks on which to hang it, and then argue that God wants exactly what we want. Reluctant though I am to speak for the Divine, I have a feeling that God hates it when we do that.

Instead, our task is to approach sacred texts as sacred – we must challenge those texts, allow them to challenge us, and thoughtfully strive to elicit the truth in the process.

4. Most of All, Be Nice.

We will often disagree in these discussions. That’s OK. Just keep talking. Don’t scream and don’t attack; just keep talking. Civil discourse means not suggesting that those with whom you disagree are stupid, evil, or bound for hell. Even if you believe that they are.

In other times and places, religious disputes culminated in Crusades, Inquisitions, and a lot of dead people. Don’t you think that polite, impassioned, civil dialogue is a much better way to go?

Though engaging in it has proven difficult, we dare not give up. For when our efforts succeed, we won’t break up the party, we’ll make it better.