From The FAIR Conference – Good Stuff

I am not a FAIR follower. I could complain about them for hours but this piece gave me chills of hope. Enjoy.

http://www.sltrib.com/lifestyle/faith/4196348-155/is-it-always-us-vs-them” class=”bbcode_url”>http://www.sltrib.com/lifestyle/faith/4196348-155/is-it-always-us-vs-them

“Do we recognize battlefield vernacular in the way we talk about issues? Do we label people as evil who simply see things differently?” the media specialist asked about 400 conference attendees in an hourlong address that was part sermon, part speech. “Have we inadvertently turned every issue and every conversation into a zero-sum game where we all lose? Is it always us versus them?”

Isom invited her listeners to stop placing people in such opposing categories — “female and male, Democrat and Republican, LGBTQ and Christian, active and less active, black and white, Israeli and Palestinian, Batman and Superman” — and instead to see them as “complementary.”

In any heated conversation, she said, “words matter.”

Until people of faith “know each other’s heart — who they really are, where they’ve been, what they’ve experienced, how they are hurting, what they love,” the media specialist said, “until you know their context … you will not know what words mean to them.”

This doesn’t mean “glossing over differences … [or compromising] principles,” she said. “When we tackle a really tough policy challenge, there are viable solutions that honor the principles of all sides.”

What if, she asked, “the truest meaning in any arena is not in being right, but in becoming true? True disciples.”