Conversations that Bridge Divides

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Greetings, friends. It's great to see all of you today. My name is Marshall McKnight. On behalf of the Adult Education Committee and Nassau Presbyterian Church, welcome on this beautiful fall morning for the last installment of our series that we've been doing this fall, what Kind of Christian and we are so pleased to have Lauren Herb Davis who will be with us today to talk about the conversations that Bridge Divides. I will introduce her in a moment, but first, let's pray. Please pray with me. Gracious God, thank you for this gift of time together. Thank you for our friends who are with us today or listening later from home. Thank you for Lauren Herb Davis who is sharing her gifts with us this morning. We invite you into our presence for this conversation this morning. We ask that you open our hearts and our minds so that we may draw nearer to each other and nearer to you. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. Lauren Herb Davis recently taught systemic thinking and public policy at Princeton University and has worked with the RAND Corporation. She was raised in Georgia and educated at conservative Southern Baptist College. She brings a lifetime of experience navigating faith and politically sensitive conversations. Her work focuses on strengthening support systems in the US and she is passionate about bridging divides through faith and policy. Please welcome Lauren Herb Davis. [00:01:55] Speaker B: I hope this is on. Can you guys hear me? Great. Well, thank you for that introduction, Marshall. And actually a quick funny story is at Halloween we ran into each other and I explained to him all about the adult education series and what I would be talking about. And then he was like, you know, is it the chair? I'm the chair of the adult education series. So. So it's great that I already knew Marshall outside of the church context. Anyway, thank you for the introduction. I do have my PhD in public policy and so I'm going to I guess give you a two for one. So I'm going to talk about how we currently unpack policy issues with our students and with stakeholders and I'm going to apply it to this current Christian nationalist topic. And then in that we're going to have a large discussion with each other about how we talk to other Christians. And so I apologize in advance to any introverts. We will be talking today. So yeah, so as Marshall said, I was raised in Atlanta, Georgia. I was actually raised in a Presbyterian USA church. My grandparents were Presbyterian USA members. And then I went to a Southern Baptist college which was very eye opening and different. So I had this experience of having Christian conversations in that atmosphere. And then my husband and I moved to Nashville and There was a completely different culture there. And then we moved to Los Angeles and I began to work with people in policy. And as my, as being in policy, I learned to have these conversations almost daily. And so I wanted to bring that, I guess, experience to this talk. So the goals for this talk is to build the systems thinking understanding of the 4.0 ecosystem. I'm using Heath's language here to improve our bridge building conversations and then learn how to build bridges among Christian community and different types of conversations. And I should say here that I am not a Christian nationalist expert. So if we have people that are more knowledgeable on this topic, please, please feel free to contribute to this conversation. And I also want to say that although I have my own political bent, I really tried hard to make this a non partisan conversation. And I worked with my relatives that are on the complete opposite side of the political spectrum on this presentation to make sure that we're encompassing like a wide variety of views here. So if you do have any concerns with anything I say, please come and talk to me afterwards. And I'd love to have a bridge building conversation. So I'll have to say, because this is a charged topic. Right. So today we'll talk about what is Christian nationalism and 2025, how does this ecosystem operate? How can we change the system? How can we as Christians respond faithfully, how can we have healthier conversations and how can we begin to repair relationships? So systems thinking, you might have heard this in the news if you have applied to jobs. Sometimes this is asked as questions nowadays. So what is systems thinking? Well, systems thinking is just a way we unpack policy problems today. So first in this methodology we define the boundaries of the system. So today we're going to unpack the term Christian nationalism as it's used in 2025. I think Keith did a great job of explaining how it's been used over time. And then last week he did start to unpack how it's being used today. Then we'll define the scope of Christian nationalism. We'll determine information and power and how it's flowing through the system. There's another big piece of this that we do when we're working with stakeholders and it's mapping out all the stakeholders and their relationships. So if you happen to be in a role or a position where you could make an impact in that way, I'd love to talk to you afterwards. But today we'll focus on what just the average everyday Christian can do. And then we're gonna determine are there mechanisms that we can do as everyday Christians to begin to change the system. And so hint, the big bulk of this conversation is bridge building. And it's with the twist that we're focusing on the conversation around Christian nationalism. So these definitions come from leading scholars. We're going to talk about how we define Christian nationalism. We'll read them descriptively. It's not accusatorily and we can understand so we can better understand the system and not label people. So, so this is by two men that are self described Christian nationalists. They wrote a book called Christian A Biblical Guide for Taking Dominion and Discipling Nations. So they describe Christian nationalism as a spiritual, political and cultural movement comprised of Christians who are working to build a Christian society grounded in a biblical worldview. And then they go on to say they seek to re establish states that recognize Jesus Christ as king, the general Christian faith as the foundation of the state government and state laws that reflect in every way possible and reasonable Christian morality and charity. So this is from a Christian nationalist. And then I did read, I actually read a student from Liberty University's dissertation on how you define Christian nationalists. And I thought it was interesting. There wasn't a bite that I could put in here. But he said that it was hard to separate Christian nationalists from conservative Christianism or Christianity and that it was largely a sociology construct that was being ascribed to a group of people. And so they kind of, I guess, you know, took a little bit of issue with us even trying to define it in the first place. So now we go more to people who are not part of the Christian nationalist movement and how they described Christian nationalism. So, so in the book Taking Back America for Christian Nationalism in the United States, they describe Christian nationalism as a cultural framework that idealizes and advocates a fusion of Christianity with American civic life. And this might be unlike what Heath had mentioned over the last few weeks, but the part where it's different is it describes here the specific type of civic life that they see. So it carries with it assumptions about nativism, white supremacy, authoritarianism, patriarchy and militarism. So again, this is somebody that's not part of the movement. Another author in Theology of Control, Christian Nationalist violence and hostility. This is actually in an academic journal article In March of 2024, they said that the Christian nationalist movement strives to establish a Christian democracy that intentionally seeks to limit the power of democracy and the Constitution within the United States so that it can eliminate religious liberty and the protection of other religious and secular groups. So this begins to describe a more detailed version of American civic Life. This definition I think I had the most difficulty with. But there was one piece that I thought was interesting. It says a political ideology that seeks to merge Christian and American identities. And identities, I think is the piece that I want to string through this entire presentation. The next part says they are distorting both the Christian faith and America's constitutional democracy. And I think that this is very strong language. And I think that maybe Christian nationalists, that people that I've known that are Christian nationalists do have a strong faith in Christ. And so they might take offense to this. There's also this book called the Flag and the Cross. And here he begins to try to other Christian nationalists from Christians. So he's defining the term Christian. So he says Christian refers less to theology than an ancestral identity that you can keep even if you don't keep the faith. And so this is similar to maybe the Jewish faith. And they're saying that Christians are moving and the Jewish faith and that you could be culturally Jewish or you could be a participant in that faith. And they're saying that Christians are moving from being just faith to this cultural. And so they have some data to back this up. So they're saying more than 20% of respondents who wanted the government to declare the US a Christian nation also described themselves as being secular or adherent of a non Christian faith. And the more than 15% of self identified Christians also identified as being secular. And then Dr. Greg Harry, I tried to find someone, I was like, is there a moderate in here, in this space? Someone that's trying to bridge between these two groups? And he's not part of the Christian nationalist movement. In fact, he speaks out against it, but he pushed against some of these other definitions, saying, you know, they are indeed Christian, they're not necessarily nationalistic, they're more focused on this dominion over the seven mountains of culture. I think that's using their language in any country. So not just the United States. They're not monolithic, they're not necessarily white. That was also something in the Student from Liberty. He pointed out that he thought it was not just a white movement. And then they both seem to say, actually the Liberty student and Dr. Greg Carey, that they're not necessarily preaching women's subordination, but they did nod that they are preaching more women having specific roles in society. So I think even in modern Christian nationalism, just like any movement, there's a diversity of members ascribing to this attribute. And I think if you, if you've ever participated in going to some kind of rally or protest. You might not exactly know why the person who put on that protest was putting on what are their demands. And you might have gone for a very specific reason that might be different from the friend that you brought with them. I know my coworkers went to the women's movement in Los Angeles shortly after Trump was elected. And one of them was Catholic in a very against abortion. But he was frustrated with the rhetoric that was happening in the conversation during that political period. And so he wanted to show his support for women, whereas other women that were going were really against some of the conversation around abortion. And so you can have so many people showing up in these movements with so many different beliefs that it's hard to really pigeonhole, especially when you're thinking about talking with somebody that is a Christian nationalist, that you know exactly what they believe or why they're there or why they're showing up for it. So now we're going to define the scope of Christian nationalism. And I'm going to do this kind of briefly, but there's a survey that was done in 2022 and 2024 that shows about 10% of Americans qualified as Christian nationalists. An additional 20% qualified as sympathizers. And in my small group, we had a conversation, well, this is a minority of the population. I thought it was a surprisingly large number, but other people can see it as a small number. I think it's great to hear that feedback. And so we talked about, well, is it the size of the adherence and sympathizers or is it the size of the power that they're having within the system that we have? And so I think that's something, I didn't find a good metric, but maybe it's more something someone's putting their hands up, so maybe it's okay. So then the other, the next piece. So when we're unpacking a problem or a policy issue, we'll normally map out all the stakeholders. And I think Heath has done a great job. So we're not going to go into that piece. But then we want to look at how is information and power flowing through this system. And so when we think about mainline Christianity, we're thinking about information is really flowing from the top down. It's rooted in denominational institutions, institutions, it's rooted in clergy formation, it's rooted in theological tradition. And much like this, conservative Christianity is the same. It's a top down doctrinal formation. But the slight difference is it's combined with this hybrid horizontal network that circulates cultural and political identity content. So you can think of conservative media, you can think of podcasts and TikTok and social media. And then Christian nationalism is primarily horizontal peer to peer information flow. This is my opinion. I believe it's driven by identity first and faith second. But they may disagree. And it's largely outside the institutional church structures. So you can see how these three groups are overlapping and it's a very, very difficult situation to kind of try to get traction in because there is so much overlap. So how can we begin to think about making changes in this system? I think that there are some levers for people in positions of power, but if we're talking about everyday Christians, this might not surprise you. But civic engagement and bridge building conversations. So this is civic engagement for both the left and and the right. So the mechanisms of power here is that it's a small but intensely committed identity group that is able to dominate a political party's behavior by voting in primaries, organizing relentlessly, demanding loyalty, controlling communication channels and punishing defection. This has happened before, but we know that systemic change can happen. And the best way you can do it, especially if you're on the right, is voting in primaries, knowing your candidates. Because before we get to the primaries, volunteering for campaigns in the primaries, donating to campaigns, and educating and encouraging like minded Christian friends to engage in the process. And then also on the left, engaging in primaries, knowing your candidates, volunteering for campaigns, and educating and encouraging your like minded Christian friends to engage. But how do we do this? How do we educate and encourage like minded Christian friends to engage? This is difficult. I found it difficult even just now to read you what other people bull wrote about Christian nationalism. It's a bit awkward. Building bridges is a hard thing to do. But we want to take some of this mechanics that we've now picked out using systems, thinking about the way information is flowing through systems to Christian nationalists. So information about Christian nationalism flows horizontally through the system using messages around identity and the fear identity. So identity is a set of meanings people attach themselves. So I am a Christian, I am an American. And then fear. Identity is a structure built around the belief that your group is under threat, such as cultural, political or existential threat. So Christian values are under threat. But there's an opportunity for systemic change if we know that identity is how this information is being passed. Because we know that identity spreads faster than faith. If you think about your own faith journey, it is something that ebbs and flows throughout your entire life. But identity, I am a mother, I am a wife. I am an academic. That comes easily. And fear identity spreads even faster. So it is difficult to give up an identity. It is easier to gain a new identity or replace the identity that you have. The way that we begin to get new identities or replace identities is first through education and also through your social networks. These are the tools we use to cultivate and replace new identities. If I think about my own identity journey, every time that I've gotten a new degree or moved to a new location, I've brought on new identities or I've evolved my existing ones. And what my identities are now look so much different than what they were when I grew up. So we can be a part of this, helping to grow identities and evolve. And the starting ingredients to this is how do we begin to bridge or sorry to start doing this. We want to bridge building conversations. So I was originally going to start with a self reflection. What are the ingredients you bring or would like to bring to a bridge Building conversation. But when I presented this to my relatives, they said, wait, stop. You should give an example. So I'll add here curiosity. So for me, I bring curiosity about the other person's beliefs. I think it's easy because I'm in public policy. So I am genuinely curious to know how someone else believes that piece isn't hard. But I think if that's not part of your job, then that's something that we could push to grow the other big piece. And I think this is something I discovered when writing this and thinking about really, how does Jesus have difficult conversations because he has many, is that you have to approach these conversations with love, a connection for the other person. And I think this is what I did wrong so many times when I was younger is I was arguing on behalf of somebody else. That wasn't part of the conversation. I was arguing for their rights or their benefits. And I wasn't. I wanted to win on behalf of this other person. And I didn't care about the person. Not that I didn't care about the person that I was talking to, but that wasn't the goal. And I think when you shift the goal to building a relationship, deepening the relationship with the person you're talking to, then the entire way you approach that conversation changes and you can start to build connections. The other part, and this is where my mom really laughed when I read her this presentation is to be prepared. Are you calm? Are you open? Is your goal or intention to bring each other closer? Because I know sometimes you might read something and you'll just immediately pop up. Can you believe that? But I think what she did say I am good at doing is taking a pause right after and saying, you know what, let's come back and talk about this later. So you can still make mistakes, but you can start becoming aware and then saying, how am I going to. What is the next thing that I'm going to say? So I want to pause here and ask, what are other ingredients you bring or would like to bring to the bridge building conversation? Are there any. [00:20:43] Speaker C: Patience? [00:20:44] Speaker B: Patience? Yeah. [00:20:52] Speaker C: We have the question again. [00:20:53] Speaker B: Oh yeah. What are other. What are other ingredients you bring or would like to bring to bridge building conversations? So I mentioned curiosity, love, preparation. We have patience. Yeah. [00:21:07] Speaker C: Less judgment and more listening. [00:21:09] Speaker B: Great. Yes. What? [00:21:11] Speaker C: Less judgment and more listening. [00:21:13] Speaker B: Yeah. Empathy. Yeah. Yeah. So I looked at. These are all great. And there's so many, I think it's hard to pick. It's what works for you. And there's also some, a lot of research, honestly online in this area. And so I tried to pull at least one group, they had the National Institute for Civil Discourses Principles and Practices of Civil Discourse. And they said the first step is recognizing that engaging in bridge building makes a difference. Civil discourse starts with an appreciation of its essential role. And then the second piece is engaging constructively, treating others with dignity and respect. And then I think this one, this one is for me was important. So respecting our own view civil discourse requires that we advance our sincerely held beliefs. I think I've been in a lot of conversations where I've quietly nodded and they might have walked away thinking I agreed when I didn't. And I don't know that I was honoring myself or my beliefs. And I think there's two parts to that. Knowing when you should have that conversation and when it's okay to nod. But I think respecting your own view is important and then emphasize what we have in common. So a successful navigation of differences is aided by keeping sight of the shared values and experiences. And I added here identity. So we all share the same identity as Christians in this room, which will always make our bridge building conversations easier. So here I'm going to go through a few scenarios I don't have. My clock is not on yours. I'm hoping I don't know how. Oh, okay. I'm not sure how we're doing on time. Okay. So depending on how we're doing on time, we can have more or less conversation. So occasionally you might have disagreements with like minded friends. So I'm going to go through a couple of different scenarios. So here you generally share the same political outlook as your church, family or friends. But once in a while a political issue comes up where you disagree. How should you approach these disagreements? And I wanted to tell a brief story here. So my research so I use systems thinking, but I work on snap, federal food assistance policy. And some of you might be surprised and others might not be surprised that when I mention this, nearly every other week, someone will say something about how they disagree with federal food assistance policy. And I always find this an amazing opportunity for bridge building. And so I've actually had this conversation in this room many times. And so I'll mention it's a natural thing. What do you do? I say what I do and then they'll say something against food policy. And I love it. It's an opportunity for me to hear someone else's perspective on this. And I'll listen and I'll say, oh, why? Why do you feel that way? And they'll tell me a story normally, and then I'll say, oh, well, actually my research is bridging between the left and the right on food assistance policy and finding places where we agree or disagree. And then normally they'll come back with, well, this is where I've heard of food assistance being a blessing, and we can find that commonality almost always, and I've had the same conversation many times, is that food assistance, when needed, can be a blessing. And I think as Christians, we can all agree on that. We might disagree on whether or not it should come from the federal government or from a charity or another institution. But it's great to have these conversations because it's important that we know the other's opinion and that we begin building that information. So I want you to think about, have you had any conversations with people at church or in your family, friends, and what happens when you disagree and how should you approach these disagreements? And maybe I thought if we have time, if you want to turn to someone next to you and talk about it briefly for a minute and then we'll come to the group. Ideally not your spouse, but I know most of you are sitting next to your spouses. Okay, if we can come back, We're going to go through four of these scenarios. So we'll have. [00:27:35] Speaker A: Thank you, everybody. Thank you for your conversations. We're going to head back up to the front now. [00:27:42] Speaker B: Did anyone have any insights that they discovered or they talked about that they want to share with the group? [00:27:52] Speaker C: Yeah, One here. Thanks to my good friend Dave Boyd. Your slide where you talked about the objective is to Discuss and to learn not to convert. [00:28:09] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Oh, Martha. Martha. [00:28:22] Speaker C: So I was trying to bring together with my husband that we must agree to disagree and it's fine to do that. [00:28:30] Speaker B: Yeah, I think, I think my husband might agree. We always, we thought we needed to agree when we first got married. And yeah, now I think over time you learn that, you know, you can disagree with the people you love. That's okay. So. And trying to find some evidence based information about how you might approach these conversations, and these are with people that, you know, generally agree with. You listen to understand, not to refute. So examples that they use are like, what experiences led you to that view or what matters most to you about this issue. And then focusing on the underlying values. So I see, like in this example, it's safety. So I see we both value safety, but have different opinions on this specific policy. That's okay. Using I statements. I feel concerned about this issue because of my personal experience in X, Y and Z. And then setting boundaries. Here's an explicit boundary. I value this friendship and feel that this is getting tense. So let's chat about something else. I'm more like a soft boundary. And it's so easy with a little kid like, oh, we need to go fix lunch or you know, I heard you had a trip. Like a casual change of topic is always, always appropriate too. And then when we think about it and this Christian nationalist, maybe a friend has heard something scary in the news on TikTok or on social media. Staying connected, not thinking, oh, they have a slightly different view from me, so I'm gonna. They're not, they shouldn't be. In my close friend group, like staying trust moves through these close relationships and stories actually spread faster than correcting their information. So telling a story is helpful. Being a calm voice in a time of fear, maybe they're repeating something that sounds scary. So just fear fuels misinformation and calming it begins to interrupt it. And then being an example of a healthy Christian identity and then encouraging local voices, not national voices. I know because I work in national policies, I always go to the national voices. But we have so many great voices here. Heath and his conversation the last four weeks was amazing. And our pastors here have so much great information that's online that you can share and spread that way too. So the next conversation that I wanted us to have is these discussions with family and friends who hold the opposite political views. So maybe that doesn't apply to some of you and maybe it does to others. So in this scenario, you love your Childhood friends and relatives. But you sit on the opposite side of the political spectrum. How do you have a bridge building conversation with those people? So I'll give you time to talk with your neighbor again. And if you don't have that, you know, hypothetically family, It's. Okay if we want to come back together. Were there any. Were there any site insights that you had about how you have these conversations? Yeah. Avoid bombing the bridge. [00:33:06] Speaker C: Avoid bombing the bridge. [00:33:07] Speaker B: What does that mean? [00:33:10] Speaker C: That can just create chaos. [00:33:11] Speaker B: Oh, right, right, right. Yeah. [00:33:17] Speaker C: We had already talked about this in response to the earlier question. And so one thing that came up though, in this conversation was a book called how to Change Minds and how canvassers go to doors, they see who might be open, and then they basically let the person they're talking to do the talking and just offer constructive prompts that get them to where they want them to be, which, I don't know is exactly what you're talking about here. [00:33:54] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. But, yeah, interesting. This is a book I've read too. [00:34:02] Speaker A: I wonder if it's possible to. I wonder if it's possible to start those conversations with. How did you come to that point of view? [00:34:12] Speaker B: Oh, right, yeah, that's correct. [00:34:13] Speaker A: What brought you to the place where you are today? Because sometimes I think over the course of a lifetime, we start at one place and for whatever reason, we end up at a different place. And I think because we don't know what that journey looks like or how we got there, we can't bridge those gaps without that. [00:34:35] Speaker B: That's a great point. I think this is something I do actually with my son. I haven't tried it with another person, but when he seems to have a couple of things that they're just like blocks for him. And I was like, when was the first time you felt that way? Like, let's unpack. Was it a friend said something? Was it something we said? And then how can we decide? Maybe some kind of negative thought that's coming from that first point. I think they talk about that in that book. I'm not sure. Yeah. [00:35:07] Speaker C: I have an acquaintance in Illinois who is on the opposite side of me politically, but he has cancer and he went through a long series of serious chemotherapy. So I tried to remember to send him an encouraging note every once in a while, not addressing anything political. And I'm not trying to convert him to my point of view, but let him know that I care for him as a human being. [00:35:41] Speaker B: Oh, that's great. [00:35:49] Speaker C: Thank you. I just wanted to underline the point that Bob Revell just made about asking about the journey because the thing that struck me about the examples you gave was asking the person about how did your experience help you to or lead you to this point of view. But I was thinking if you just say that directly, I'm not going to get anywhere but thinking about, thinking about journey rather than a specific point really would be, I think really useful. And you gave another example of it with your family. [00:36:23] Speaker B: Yeah, that's great. So yeah, these are all great points. My strategy, I think someone mentioned it, the goal is agreement for me and the main goal is relationship and understanding. So I'm not. I think that's a change from when I was younger. I always wanted them to. We had to agree especially if they're family members. We have to agree, we're family. But now it's, you know, we have to stay in relationship with one another and I want to understand you more asking really curious and non confrontational questions using our family and common friendship identity. So bringing in that identity to strengthen our relationship. So in our family we like to volunteer, we like to help our neighbors. So even if we disagree on policy, we still remind each other of these parts of our identity. Sharing calm and hopeful narratives. You know, it doesn't always help to go to the other side with like a scary, scary news article and then reaffirming their faith. I never want to threaten their faith or anything in that realm. So there is if you are going into. It's Thanksgiving week. So if you're potentially going into a difficult Thanksgiving dinner. I found a course. Someone has actually, you know, spent a lot of time thinking about this. It's called braverangels.org they have an E course on skills for family discourse. It's 45 minutes. It may be worth taking the 45 minutes before you go into a difficulty family Thanksgiving. But they have these personality types and maybe you might have found yourself being one of these personality types or maybe you know someone. So the gladiator. This is someone that initiates battles with relatives they believe are wrong about politics and they give these examples. So you know, they might say I'm going to straighten you out on politics. The defender. They have counter attacks and misrepresent others positions to make a point so they might say something. So you want to open the borders to everyone or you want to shut down the borders and keep the country for people who look like you. These are examples they give. So then you might have the sniper. They make cutting remarks and group settings to revoke a reaction and then Retreat. So something they might say is, so what does our family, socialist or trust Trump lover think about that? And then the peacekeeper, they attempt to shut down all political or religious conversations. So they might say let's stay away from politics and talk about religion or in religion. Yeah. And then the bystander withdrawals or disengages, stay quiet or absorbed in something else. And then of course, the engager is what we all strive to be when we're at our best. And that seeking respectful, curious conversations across differences. So this course goes into like if you know somebody in your family that is one of these personalities, like preparing how you will respond in advance and if you happen to be one of these personalities, how you might move to a more engager position. So then the next piece is reconnecting with estranged family members. And I want to pause here. I'm talking my. I don't know if there's lighter estrangement, but if you have something serious, you know, not every relationship should be reopened. This is a disclaimer. And emotional physical safety comes first. And I would encourage you to talk to a pastor or a trained professional, but just in kind of more of a lighter version of estrangement. Maybe you had a difficult political conversation with a relative and then you've moved away from them over time. This would be a conversation of how do you bring that relationship back together. And I was actually going to tell my own story of one of my best friends who she and I became so far on opposite sides of political spectrum. We had just our relationship went down to just text messaging on our birthdays and she recently developed breast cancer. Cancer. And there's like you mentioned, there's nothing like having a friend have cancer to make you realize how unimportant any political conversation can be. And our relationship is so much better and almost instantly better because we've spent so much time on the phone as she goes through chemotherapy and we've never once talked about politics and it wasn't necessary. And I've remembered all the beautiful things I loved about her and all the ways that she can make me laugh. And I just was very sad almost that we had let our relationship basically come to an end because of politics. So if you have an estrangement, maybe this is a call for reaching out if that makes sense for you. But I wanted to give you an opportunity to do this Self reflection. Past political fights may have led to a cut off communication or avoidance with a family member altogether. Now you want to rebuild the relationship. How do you even begin to Bridge that rift. And I think if we're coming up close to time, maybe if anyone wants to raise their hand and then I can just go through the next steps. So my strategy, and actually some of you have already started to bring these up, starting with a soft, low pressure opening. I think when you have a friend with cancer, it expedites it. But I've had a cousin with difficult conversations too. And I just started with, we both have done some stuff in real estate. So for us, he just reached out a quick text like, hey, I have a question about a repair. Like, do you, do you have any advice for me? Something soft, low pressure, nothing political. So beginning then we talked on the phone again. It was related to our common interest in real estate and doing house repairs. For some relationships you need like a clearing conversation, they might call it. There are some resources online for that. But owning your side of the fallout, not trying to resolve deep issues too soon, are important steps I've been reading about and then creating new positive interactions for this cousin I'm mentioning. We both grew up going to Disney World. Our grandmother lived next to Disney and we now have sons that are old enough to go. And so we're talking about taking a trip to Disney together where we will not be talking about politics and setting gentle boundaries. Sometimes he'll have conversations with me, he'll try to bring up politics and I just say, oh, I need to go, or I'd rather not talk about that, or I haven't really read about that because to me the most important thing is rebuilding the relationship at this point and then always bringing in our shared identity, our shared identity, our sons. We have maybe a strange identity of loving Disney and then also our family. There's a lot of family values that we have. And I have not read this book, but this came up in so many of the articles that I read on this. So I just wanted to put this here. If you are in an estrangement situation and want to read more information. So the book is called Fault Lines, Fractured Families and How to mend them by Dr. Carl Pilmer. So the other big piece of this is online, and since we are getting close to time, I'll read through this. So how do you contribute to the digital world? And this is not just social media, but how are you forwarding emails? How are you having conversation in emails? How are you having conversation in text? Because so in this study, I wanted to mention this piece, there were 200 academic publications on discourse that were studied and they found that the problem is less political polarization and more partisan animosity. And this was in large part due to our way we are communicating online. So politics haven't grown further apart, but there's just more animosity there. And social media really distorts these political conversations and how we perceive each other. So again, using this braverangels.org they have another media E course that might be worth it. If you are online a lot. They say when you're on, especially on social media, don't set out to change someone's minds with your posts. Don't share personal negative feelings, amplify posts from exemplary people. Post what you're doing personally to try to stay open and then following people that you disagree with to kind of disrupt your own algorithm. And then if we tie this back to this Christian nationalist conversation, especially since we're saying that it's a horizontal, the information is flowing horizontally through media, then using this hopeful non fearful language is helpful. Reaffirming religious freedom for everyone. Affirming democratic principles for everyone. Highlighting the role at the global church. Modeling humility and listening as you're participating in conversations online and promoting a common Christian identity. And so I just wanted to end here with a quick prayer as we move forward. Dear God, help us to place our deepest identity in Christ. Help us to embody humility, curiosity and love. Help us to reject fear based identity narratives. Help us to bridge, build it, bridge, build bridges and a divided world and help us to bear witness to God's reconciling work. Amen. [00:46:09] Speaker A: Thank you, Lauren. Herb Davis, that was great. This conversation reminded me of a Saturday Night Live skit where everyone was gathered around the table arguing and generally after what I now know as a sniper remark, Adele songs would cut in and they would all sing the Adele song together. So we have ended this wonderful series and let's give Lauren Herb Davis another hand. [00:46:38] Speaker B: Thank you. [00:46:42] Speaker A: That was awesome. Thank you so much. Next week, believe it or not, we're there. We're at Advent. We will begin our Advent series with a poetry workshop with Thais Carter and Virginia Kerr. So we hope you'll join us. Really looking forward to it. Thanks everyone.