KINGDOM ETHICS D a v id p. G u shee
A Theology of Common Ground Since my boyhood in the ’60s and early ’70s, I have witnessed a change in this country’s approach to public life.Where political adversaries could once debate stark differences without demonizing one another, today demonization is accepted as a routine feature of American life. My father worked in Washington at the Congressional Research Service on energy and environmental policy while I was growing up. He would come home and talk about how much fun it was to help Congress hammer out that first round of environmental legislation. He admired how leaders could clash strongly over one issue but then work together on a different one. In those days Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, could disagree without turning each other into mortal enemies. That’s what demonization is: viewing those we disagree with as if they are the embodiment of evil. It involves a profound loss of perspective on the humanity of our opponents, who stop being people just like us and instead become a kind of sinister force let loose in the world. A number of factors seem to have contributed to a national slide from civility over the last 40 years. Redistricting has given us more and more politicians who come from overwhelmingly “blue” or “red” districts and who represent extreme views.The voracious 24-hour news cycle thrives on conflict and spectacle, and cable TV talking heads become famous for their incendiary rhetoric. But I think it was the 1973 Roe v. Wade abortion decision and the ensuing religious mobilization into political combat that made the most difference. The Roe decision, which overturned
all state abortion laws to establish a very permissive national legal framework, became the centerpiece for religious right organizing.Within a few years, abortion policy became viewed not just as another difficult arena where differences could be debated in good faith but instead as a life-or-death struggle between the forces of good and evil. Shades of gray disappeared. Activist groups built their empires on absolutist stances and aggressive postures toward their foes. The response and counter-response to Roe have distorted our culture over the years by creating the habit of demonization in American public life. If abortion was the seed, the fruit has blossomed with many other issues; everything from gay rights to immigration to energy policy has become fair game. The pattern remains most obvious
er they agree with me or not. Since every human being is made in the image of God and loved by God, each is worthy of being treated with basic human decency and respect. Each also shares humanity’s common pool of frailties and is capable of error and sin, so when people get things wrong I am not surprised. And whatever is true of others is also true of me. As Alexander Solzhenitsyn said, “The line separating good and evil passes...right through every human heart.” A society is in deep trouble when people begin to think that “we” are “the good” and “they” are “the demonic.” Religious people may be especially susceptible to this delusion. I try to look for the God-given goodness in people. I try to recognize the need of others for full voice in decisions that affect all of us. I try to understand the viewpoints of others and to dialogue respectfully with them even where the The Roe v. Wade decision disagreements are sharp. ushered in the demonization I cultivate a sense of gratitude about we see today. living in America and about the democwhenever anything related to abortion is racy we have developed over the centuries. under consideration — as with healthcare Reading history and looking around the reform, in which abortion has become a world makes it abundantly clear that what central part of the debate despite the efforts we have here is a huge achievement in of some Democratic leaders to keep the human civilization. Christians need to legislation abortion-neutral. The entire celebrate this achievement rather than healthcare reform effort has become an toying with language that comes right up episode in demonization; even arcane to or over the threshold of endorsing policy decision related to the best way to violence. To play with fire in this way is keep down health insurance costs evokes unconscionable. wild denunciations. I dare to think that it’s still not too I am an evangelical Christian who late to be the kind of nation in which thinks Roe is bad law, but I am also drawn differences are debated honestly, votes are toward any effort to find common ground, cast, decisions are made, and we move whether on abortion reduction strategies forward together as one people. I would or on other issues. For this, I myself have like to see Christians contribute to that been demonized, which has led me to kind of society, rather than to the reflect a bit on why, as a Christian, I am so demonization that undermines it at its committed to the effort to find common foundations. n ground — and why I seek to resist demonizing others, although I am sometimes David P. Gushee is Distinguished University very tempted. Professor of Christian Ethics at Mercer University. I start by recognizing the shared A version of this was published as an op-ed humanity of everyone I encounter, wheth- in USAToday, September 28, 2009. PRISM 2009
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