Stop the Polarizing! Have a conversation.

I don't like to discuss politics outside of the circle of my closest friends, because in casual conversations, it doesn't seem like most people are interested in dialogue. Politics and Religion are polarizing issues. When either Politics or Religion come into the discussion, we quickly lose the ability to listen. We either commend them for their intelligence or we start tuning them out, depending on whether or not they agree with us.

Sarah was telling me about how on a street corner in Anacortes on Sunday afternoons, the "anti-war" people stand on 3 street corners, and the "support our troops" people stand on another corner. They have posters and banners and megaphones. What's so fascinating to me is that those two groups of people are shouting on different street corners, thinking that they're on opposite sides of a battle. If they sat down to have a discussion, I wonder if that would still be true.

If they sat down to talk, maybe they'd find out that there are people with the "anti-war" signs that have sons and daughters in the military, and they are supporting troops by opposing what they feel is an unjust war. They oppose the military leaders putting their sons and daughters at risk in a war that they've never felt was justified. Maybe we'd find out that the "support our troops" people have been hurt by crazy "anti-war" people who discredit their son or daughter's service to the country, and that it's become easy to assume that the people who are "anti-war" are "anti-troops." They believe they're passionately defending their childrens' honor. Maybe if they sat down and had a conversation, they'd find out they had more in common than they thought--and that they share a commitment to care about our country's use of force. (This is idealistic, I know. Maybe they'd actually discover they were all mutually crazy to be standing on a street corner in the 40 degree rain in October when they could be inside watching the Seahawks lose.)

I work in a conservative community in the midst of an liberal region, and I've discovered that it's hard to have these discussions. Liberal Seattle and conservative Christians in/near Seattle don't spend a lot of time talking to each other. They coexist, but they don't dialogue.

I'd love to share dialogue, to tell you why I'm voting for a candidate I really believe in. I'd love to talk about what we believe the church's engagement with politics should be and what it should not be. I'd love to hear why you're choosing the person you're choosing, because I learn so much about you in hearing why you're voting the way you are...and I learn to see the issues from a new perspective.

If you're interested in starting a dialogue, here are some questions I've been pondering...maybe they'll help you bridge the gap instead of increasing the polarization:

• Why does opposing war imply someone does not support troops? What values do these two groups actually share, and where do they actually differ?
  
• What is there a difference between being pro-choice and pro-abortion?
  
• Should our government legislate morality?
  
• Where are the "anti-American" parts of our country? Why are they considered to be so?
  
• Why does the media spin a scenario into the rhetoric of scandal by attaching "gate" to the end, i.e. "troopergate"? What's the fascination with scandal?
  
• Why do the campaigns spend so much money buying advertisements and making robotized phone calls that no one listens to?
• What if Obama was a Muslim? Would that mean he was less American or less capable of the duties of President?
• Why is "muslim" a dirty word?