An excellent, thoughtful op-ed by David Gushee

 

My column this week is anchored by the wise insights of Professor Alan Brownstein, a constitutional law and church-state expert from the University of California at Davis. Professor Brownstein spoke at Mercer University the week of April 6 under the rubric of the Shurden Lectures, co-sponsored by the Baptist Joint Committee on Religious Liberty.

Professor Brownstein, a practicing Jew, spoke with gravity and grace about how Americans ought to think about the cultural, political and legal clashes in our land between religious believers and unbelievers, and between the principles of religious liberty and LGBT equality. More broadly, he spoke movingly of two ways of approaching such situations: winner-take-all vs. seeking common ground. I paraphrase from my notes taken during his riveting lecture.

Dr. Brownstein began by saying there are two kinds of public speech in situations of conflict. Speech can be deployed as a weapon in a power struggle against the threatening “other.” Or speech can be a tool for building bridges and settling disputes between “us” and “them.” In the first case, the goal is essentially to destroy the adversary, using speech as one weapon among many. In the second, the goal is to find workable common ground, based on the recognition of the fellow humanity of the adversary, their real interests and needs, and the pragmatic realization that the “other” is not going away any time soon.

Professor Brownstein strongly urged us listeners to take the second path, for the good of American democracy and in keeping with the best teachings of our religious traditions. (Do unto others ….)

Dr. Brownstein said that if we take that second path, if we attempt to be in dialogue with the “other,” certain ground rules will be necessary for everyone to observe…