Bridging Divides through Interfaith Partnerships
Danforth Center on Religion and Politics
St. Louis, Missouri

April 2011

What a pleasure to be back in St. Louis in the midst of an interfaith community that has contributed so much to my own understanding of constructive civility.  Simply to say the names Bob Jacobs, Allen Miller, Wahid Rana reminds us of the friendships and dialogue nurtured in this community over the past half century.  For this ongoing legacy, I want to say, “Thanks be to God!”  And it is always a pleasure to be on a program with one of my best friends in the world, a man I first met here in St. Louis, Rabbi Steve Gutow.  I cannot imagine a better colleague with whom to work in this era when interfaith relations are so vital to the common good. 

It is also an honor to be associated with the names of Michael and Barbara Newmark – friends who have done so much to help foster this positive interfaith climate, especially through the excellent Jewish Community Relations Council – and with the name of John Danforth, who has modeled civility during a lifetime of public service.  I welcome the new Danforth Center on Religion and Politics, here at Washington University, in part because its very name points to the intersection of two major trends of our time in this country:  1) a loss of confidence in political institutions, in the capacity of politics to address constructively the great issues of our day, in large part because contemporary political life is so evidently marked by partisan polarization rather than shared pursuit of the common good; and 2) the resurgent influence of religion in political life.  The second trend may be a function of the first, but the problem, of course, is that the religious communities garnering most media attention tend to be those that contribute to political, cultural polarization, not those that heal it.  And, beyond that, the religious landscape in the United States is so fragmented that religious communities are tempted to competition, not conciliation. 

This evening, with all of this in mind, I want to be evangelistic about a dialogical approach to religious faith, and to suggest – along with such scholars as James Calvin Davis, and my good friend, the late Lew Mudge – that politics needs this kind of religion in order to recover its own integrity. 

Later, during our time of interacting with one another, Steve and I will offer twelve “guidelines,” drawn from the experience of our working relationship, for maintaining constructive civility even when we may disagree about profoundly important issues.  But in this brief introductory presentation, I want to share two theological convictions that undergird my own ecumenical/interfaith ministry as General Secretary of the National Council of Churches.  These are convictions that are certainly held by many neighbors of other faiths; but for me they are grounded in my understanding of God as seen in the person of Jesus Christ.  These convictions are for me the basis of what I am calling “constructive civility” – that is, a civility that is not simply code for “let’s all get along” or “let’s not rock the boat,” but a civility that is the outward expression of an affirmation of otherness that, itself, witnesses to God’s will for right relationship. 

1.      The first conviction is familiar, even predictable, but cannot be said too often:  God is the universal Creator, a claim that underscores the fundamental interdependence of all things, including humanity.  Beyond that, scripture that is authoritative for both Christians and Jews contends that every neighbor is an infinitely-valued child of this one Creator, who, therefore, deserves to be treated with dignity – just as we would wish to be treated ourselves.  This principle alone should mitigate the vitriolic rhetoric of much political debate. 

Notice, however, that this theological claim also implies that our relationship with one another is not dependent on our agreement.  Christian scripture makes this point more than once with a vivid image:  “The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you’… If the foot would say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,’ that would not make it any less a part of the body.”  We are bound to one another, as it were, organically, by a covenant of God’s initiating, not our negotiating.  I used to tell students at Eden Seminary, “You may wish that God were a bit more discriminating, but there it is – these other jerks are also beloved children!” Which means that no matter how much we may disagree, we cannot be done with one another.  (This also means that the visible fracturing of our own communities – Christian from Christian, Jew from Jew, Muslim from Muslim – is nothing less than a counter-witness to the God we claim to follow.  That’s why I spend so much time urging Christians to be what they are – the one body of Christ.) 

This conviction also raises the potentially-difficult tension between civility and justice.  Saying “yes” to our neighbors as children of God surely compels us to say “no” to those ways of acting and thinking which threaten or demean those neighbors.  In other words, the very principle that enjoins us to civility also points in the direction of justice.  Otherwise, our civility simply masks what Herbert Marcuse called a “repressive tolerance” that allows racism and xenophobia and religious bigotry to flourish in the name of diversity. 

That’s why civility, born of respect for the other’s inherent dignity, a respect which should temper the tendency to caricature or belittle, cannot be equated with avoidance of conflict.  Issues of justice and peace are worth arguing about!  The form of the argument, however, must not undercut the essential message that every neighbor is a child of God – even those whose ideas seem insults to civility. 

2.      God is God, and we aren’t.  Or, to put it another way, all religious communities, being composed of humans, are infected with sin, fall short of fully expressing and living God’s will.  Which means that self-criticism and an openness to the perspectives of others are not just marks of good breeding but essential religious values.  This emphasis on self-critical humility runs throughout the Hebrew scripture and the Christian New Testament; but this theme has been subverted over the centuries by Christians who contend that such critique applies not to the church but to Judaism, the “failed” parental faith that Christianity is destined to replace.  That’s one reason I am convinced that a positive relationship with Jews and Judaism is crucial to the church’s spiritual well being. 

Let’s get even more pointed.  It has become clear to me from years of work in the Christian ecumenical movement that the biggest divide is not between liberals and conservatives, but between those of whatever ideological stripe who are convinced that they or their party have a near monopoly hold on truth, and those who acknowledge that their perceptions are inevitably partial and that they, therefore, need the input of those with whom they disagree.  (There is an obvious irony in saying that the world is divided into two types:  those who insist on dividing the world into two types, and those who don’t!  But I’m willing to live with it.) 

Again, there is great tension in such a position.  The National Council of Churches, to take that example, should not be reduced to a debating society.  At some point, we need to declare, “Here we stand!”  Otherwise, we are worthless allies in a world that cries out for bold action.  But even in such moments, there must be a recognition of our own sinfulness and partiality, an awareness that we can be wrong and are always in need of modification.  This, too, is a check on intemperate speech. 

Those of us engaged in interfaith work are sometimes accused of being weak-kneed compromisers who don’t take the truth of our faith tradition seriously.  I obviously reject this charge!  Civil listening to the other is not compromise; it is fidelity to the crucial insight that God is God and we aren’t.  It is a way of confessing that the One we worship as Creator and Redeemer is far greater than our theological formulations.  It is an acknowledgement, to borrow from H. Richard Niebuhr, that absolutizing relative perspectives may be the single greatest source of evil.  The interfaith movement, when it gets beyond polite tolerance, is a spiritual battle for truth – but it is a common battle against error, not a fight between partners based on the assumption that one is already right and the other wrong. 

I will end by returning to my earlier assertion: politics needs religion that takes to heart these two convictions.  I often hear it said around the NCC that religion needs politics, because that’s where influence and money are to be found.  And, in fact, a lot of my time is spent trying to get the ear of political leaders.  But surely, when religious communities are at their best, the reverse is also true. 

Charles Taylor – in his book, Sources of the Self – contends that religion can assist politics by making clear the often-hidden religious roots of “modern” notions such as human rights.   Lew Mudge, in The Gift of Responsibility, suggests that the Abrahamic religions can help modern democracies better understand the religious fundamentalisms that threaten their existence.  James Calvin Davis – in his study, entitled In Defense of Civility – argues that religions, if taken seriously, might force politicians to think in terms of historical and geographical interdependence (beyond our culture’s preoccupation with the self), and to recognize that political issues are usually about moral choices and, thus, require the language of morality to make sense of them. 

I affirm these insights; but, for me, the greatest contribution of religion to politics comes when we model community-in-diversity, even community-in-disagreement.  I can’t help but think that the U.S. Senate would recover some of its effectiveness and integrity if each new term started with a seminar on Rabbinic argumentation or a crash course in ecumenical dialogue!  Davis puts it this way:  “Ultimately, the habits of civil discourse that religious communities encourage are the real gifts they give to American public life.  In many ways, those habits of civil conversation are more important than any consensus we might hope to achieve on heretofore divisive issues … promoting conversation, not necessarily agreement, [is] religious communities’ most important moral achievement.” 

I give thanks for the work Steve and I are empowered to do on reducing poverty, ending torture, opposing climate change, promoting health care reform, calling for laws to reduce gun violence …. Political decisions about such things matter – here and now, to neighbors in need or under threat.  But, like Davis, I believe that the most lasting, consequential witness we can make together is our embodied willingness to live trustfully with differences because we know that the Creator’s will is always greater than our grasp of it. 

Michael Kinnamon
General Secretary
National Council of Churches