Ollie Jarvis is The Church Lab’s Pastoral Assistant. He writes this month about the ground rules that make TCL’s every-two-weeks dialogues a fertile ground for relationship-building and spiritual growth. He was inspired to write based on his participation in challenging conversations with people he loves but disagrees with.
In today’s fraught and uncertain times, one thing is clear: we do not agree with one another. When we hear something that runs counter to what we already believe, the new information often lands outside our ability to take it in and tends to further harden the opinions we already hold. Sometimes, we don’t agree in fundamental ways. Our beliefs are deep and can point to things that are core to our being.
When I’m talking to someone who’s never heard of TCL and tell them it’s centered around interfaith dialogue, they sometimes nod approvingly and move right on. One reason may be that they don’t realize that the discussions that occur during dialogue aren’t simply about the differences in religious traditions. The reality is, what we are doing in talking about a given topic among persons with varying faith traditions is exposing our deepest, most core selves to one another. What we are really doing is learning to care about someone with whom we deeply disagree.
As Carrie, our facilitator, likes to say, we play with fire every other Monday evening as we enter into fellowship together. Doing so successfully takes masterful guidance and a common understanding about how we will move through what we say out loud. Here are the ground rules we use to frame our dialogues:
Our facilitator doesn’t have an agenda. She doesn’t bring her own opinion to bear; she will not sum up the exchange into a neat bow at the end.
Our facilitator is everyone’s advocate. She wants anyone who cares to speak to have a chance to do so; she will help us repair any unintentional hurt that may occur to our hearts.
We speak only about faith traditions that are present in the room with us.
We only talk on behalf of our personal experience, not our entire faith tradition. There are as many shades of expression as there are people, and a wide range at that. We don’t take what others say as representative of everyone of that faith.
There is no proselytizing when we are gathered for dialogue. We are free to speak about this value openly, but we suspend its practice. No one tries to convince anyone that their own belief (about anything!) is superior to others’. No one can be there to win.
We seek to understand before being understood. This is the bottom line: we turn to wonder; we listen carefully; we yearn for a clear sense of what others are expressing over trying to express our own perspective.
It’s hard enough to maintain these parameters for two hours twice a month when everyone has previously agreed upon them! It’s even more difficult when we are engaging in an exchange with a faceless person on social media or with a family member whom we love but whose mind we desperately want to change. Not everyone is ready to dialogue, sometimes even ourselves! For the sake of our emotional health and in some cases the relationship itself, sometimes the best call is to suspend the exchange for the time being.
We have found, however, that the practice of exercising these muscles in dialogue allows us to carry new skills out into the world with hope. So feel free to try them on your own, or reach out to see if joining dialogues on Monday evenings would interest you. Either way, you may be surprised at the shift in your perspective over time as you practice a search for understanding those with whom you disagree, even when doing so means you both live with the difference.