“The missing ingredient in American politics right now is trust,” added Brazile, a Catholic who said she is “praying for everybody.” “Trust in one another, trust in our institutions, and the belief that we can still get through this.”
Cox asked the panel about approaches to civility, including by faith-based organizations.
“If we don’t encourage and teach and preach and pray and speak about the strength of institutions that can be gathering places for us, then we leave this generation and ourselves with nothing but the contempt and the hate,” said Ruth Okediji, a law professor at Harvard Law School and co-director of Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society.
She said there need to be alternatives to the “idols” of hate that can lead to clicks and followers on social media.
“There’s a place and a way of living that does not require you to debase yourself or your neighbor. These institutions are important, vitally important, because they give us hope.”
In a later discussion, between Joshua DuBois, a Pentecostal minister who became executive director of the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships during Barack Obama’s presidency, and Peter Wehner, a Trinity Forum fellow and former speechwriter for three Republican administrations, the two agreed that civility does not mean people should keep silent so as not to offend their listeners.
“We’ve got to find that sweet spot where you can still speak lovingly but prophetically when you see something that you just know in your gut is wrong,” said DuBois of preachers and other people of faith, citing the example of King’s critique of white moderates in his “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”
“I think we need an active, a lived civility that is not quiet, that doesn’t take a back seat but leans into the healing of this country.”
Wehner, a Protestant who identifies as a former evangelical and a “politically homeless” conservative, added that civility includes listening and refusing to speak in dehumanizing ways.
“I think that the confusion that there is with civility is that it is synonymous with lack of conviction, that it’s devoid of principles and it’s always backing down — I really don’t think that that is what civility means,” he said. “But you can’t give up on justice at the altar of civility and you certainly can’t, as a person of religious faith, do that.”
On Friday, during the National Governors Association’s winter meeting in Washington, Cox is set to continue his efforts toward civility.
He is scheduled to host a discussion with U.S. Supreme Court Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Amy Coney Barrett on “How to Disagree Agreeably.”
This article originally appeared here.
Sponsored“I think we need an active, a lived civility that is not quiet, that doesn’t take a back seat but leans into the healing of this country.”
Wehner, a Protestant who identifies as a former evangelical and a “politically homeless” conservative, added that civility includes listening and refusing to speak in dehumanizing ways.
“I think that the confusion that there is with civility is that it is synonymous with lack of conviction, that it’s devoid of principles and it’s always backing down — I really don’t think that that is what civility means,” he said. “But you can’t give up on justice at the altar of civility and you certainly can’t, as a person of religious faith, do that.”
On Friday, during the National Governors Association’s winter meeting in Washington, Cox is set to continue his efforts toward civility.
He is scheduled to host a discussion with U.S. Supreme Court Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Amy Coney Barrett on “How to Disagree Agreeably.”
“I think we need an active, a lived civility that is not quiet, that doesn’t take a back seat but leans into the healing of this country.”
Wehner, a Protestant who identifies as a former evangelical and a “politically homeless” conservative, added that civility includes listening and refusing to speak in dehumanizing ways.
“I think that the confusion that there is with civility is that it is synonymous with lack of conviction, that it’s devoid of principles and it’s always backing down — I really don’t think that that is what civility means,” he said. “But you can’t give up on justice at the altar of civility and you certainly can’t, as a person of religious faith, do that.”
On Friday, during the National Governors Association’s winter meeting in Washington, Cox is set to continue his efforts toward civility.
He is scheduled to host a discussion with U.S. Supreme Court Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Amy Coney Barrett on “How to Disagree Agreeably.”
