Do the data points about polarization that Dr. Carter shares in his framing comments resonate with your experience in your congregation and community?
TOPIC The Church in a Nation Divided: Perspectives on Faithful Leadership Today
Or not? Are we always agents of polarization or depolarization? How much does where you get your information impact your formation? Why do we divide over some issues and not others? What kinds of issues are worth dividing over and why? Do you find yourself drawn to give disproportionate attention to national questions? How do we give the important work of making peace and forging unity right where we live? What kind of witness can dividing churches mount in our polarized society? What are the costs of hanging together? Where do you feel drawn as together we seek
VIDEO Link: https://youtu.be/6Aegyf0RuVo
beloved community? What does healthy unity look like and require of us all? In conversations with those who differ from you, how often are you aware of the ways in which you need to be transformed?
Length: 58 minutes, 33 seconds
Is there room within the church for different callings with respect to how we navigate difference? How do you reconcile the call to vulnerability and the call to persevere with even the most difficult people? Share an experience from your life of the mysterious power of breaking bread, ie. seeing people for more than their positions on divisive issues.
PANELISTS Rev. Melissa Florer-Bixler Lead Pastor of Raleigh Mennonite Church
Rev. Duke Kwon Lead Pastor of Grace Meridian Hill Church
How do we tear down the walls that divide us from one another? In what ways is your congregation working to take down walls? Which ones remain intact? How have you changed in the course of your own journey? Without naming name, reflect on the most difficult person you interact with in your congregation or community? Do you see them as a person also on a journey? Can you imagine creative, constructive, healthy ways to remain in some kind of dialogue with folks with whom you have deep disagreements?
Rev. Karen Oliveto Resident Bishop of the Mountain Sky Area of the United Methodist Church
Moderated by Dr. Heath W. Carter
ADDITIONAL READING RECOMMENDATIONS How to Have an Enemy: Righteous Anger and the Work of Peace, by Melissa Florer-Bixler Why We're Polarized, by Ezra Klein Reparations: A Christian Call for Repentance and Repair, by Duke Kwon and Gregory Thompson Together at the Table: Diversity Without Division in the United Methodist Church, by Karen Oliveto The Restructuring of American Religion: Society and Faith Since World War II, by Robert Wuthnow