Embracing Understanding: Overcoming Dismissal and Division

and it is the problem of dismissing people with whom i disagree, of rejecting them of even wanting to reject them without seeking to deeply understand them of closing my heart off to people, and ironically very often i do this we do this because there's another group of people that i think of as attractive or powerful or influential and i want to identify with them i want to be a part of their tribe so i don't want to be a part of that tribe now that notion of us versus them [00:00:30]

but really it simply means the system of human thought and behavior when it is set up in opposition to god, apart from the way that god wants things to be the world is kind of anti-shalom and that desire to exclude people to reject people without thoughtfulness as a deep part of worldliness i i talked not too long ago about c.s lewis's essay the inner ring and how the desire to be a part of the inner ring amen you're out prompts people to do very bad things [00:01:25]

and she writes about how in our day the term puritan has just become a standard insult for somebody but it's not based on knowledge that actually the puritans were quite a vibrant people they did not go around dressed in black they didn't carry crosses they were actually less theocratic she writes then anglicans and catholics who were in charge of much of europe they had a looser set of rules they were in fact she said the most progressive people on the earth until the end of the 19th century [00:03:55]

and yet ironically in our day puritan has become a term of disparagement to imply that somebody is rigid, narrow-minded, joyless, and she notes that actually when we use the term puritan in that way we are exhibiting the very characteristics that we mistakenly accuse the puritans of, so she asks why do we do that, well she says we disparage people about whom we have little or no information or knowledge [00:04:28]

because we look forward to the reward of expressing a socially approved opinion that is jacob's rights we deploy the accusation of puritanism because we know the people we're talking to will share our disparagement of puritanism and will approve of us for invoking it whether the term is we use it has any significant relationship to the reality of puritan actions and beliefs is totally irrelevant the word doesn't have any meaning as such [00:04:56]

and the reason for it she says is because of the existence of what she calls the culturally repugnant other the culturally repugnant other the person with whom i disagree so that i simply want to dismiss them without seeking to understand them because it makes me feel superior and that is a huge problem in our world and it's not just the left that does it towards fundamentalism or with words like puritan that have been redefined in destructive ways [00:07:12]

and how often do people do that he said in that case people were talking about things like critical race theory it was not clear that any of them have ever actually read marks or could actually name a single scholar or a single scholarly article on critical race theory and might there be something to learn from that we just simply want to disparage people because of the reward that we know awaits us for expressing a socially approved opinion [00:08:16]

and so we pause to remember that jesus himself was the great culturally repugnant other that's what got him crucified and he constantly broke down that wall and he would tell stories about culturally repugnant others like the good samaritan to build a little community of people who stopped dismissing others even others with whom they disagreed who would seek to love not just their neighbor but their enemy [00:08:57]

and at first the listener didn't like that response at all but then he realized the wisdom of it he realized that he had gone into what he calls refutation mode where rather than trying to think rather than seek to understand he was just busy generating reasons that would sustain his disagreement and his sense of superiority and that's become kind of a mantra now give it five minutes whereas jesus brother james put it let everyone be slow to speak slow to anger quick to listen give it five minutes today [00:10:00]

for me maybe for you instead of just dismissing people instead of just unthinkingly critiquing and feeling superior over anybody with whom i disagree give it five minutes today when there's that hard voice when there is that difficult person instead of wishing that they did not exist or thinking how glad you are that you are not they i thank you god that i am not instead give it five minutes slow to speak slow to anger quick to listen [00:10:31]

and a thoughtful mind [00:11:11]