Column on Civility

I am fairly confident in knowing that Ron Mayhew’s title at Main Street Methodist is resident genius. He has challenged that status by inviting me to help lead a program on civility that starts there for the community at 7PM on  January 12.

It is obvious that our society is less civil and much more coarse than it once was.We make a laughingstock out of the civility of older television programs.  Part of the change I would attribute  to the expected baleful  influence of the baby boom generation. In prizing authenticity, in celebrating release of emotions, in demanding informality, we managed to  knock away the supports for courtesies in culture. We have made the boundary between public and private much more permeable and are willing to flaunt in public what was not acceptable even in private not long ago. So, we are lost even knowing where the lines are drawn when they are usually erased.

Second, the rise of social media has exacerbated the trend. People seem unwilling to  think through an issue and much prefer yelling by writing in all capital letters and personalizing issues.  Our president-elect leads the way in using the 140 character twitter feed as his preferred mode of discourse.  A commitment to self-expression and disregard for  its effect in private or public has lowered the bar dramatically in terms of merely being polite.

We are far too quick to personalize and label, even demonize, a person and not pay attention to the issue at hand. As it said years ago in Getting to Yes, we can separate the person from the issue. If someone dares to disagree with us, instead of being an unthinking echo of our preferences, let alone thoughtful positions, we go on the attack against them. Years ago, the Supreme Court had a fighting words category to limit the scope of free speech, but  those phrases routinely are hurled around.

Folks seem constantly aggrieved and quite sensitive. It is as if they are hoping that someone will knock away the invisible chip from their shoulder so that they have a reason to be  aggrieved. We seem to have equated incivility with passion for a cause.

What to do? One answer is reclaiming the word, respect. John Gottman, the noted marriage researcher,  sees signs of disdain as corrosive to a relationship.

Ron Mayhew strongly identifies listening as a core value. When we listen to someone, we are often merely waiting for our next response. “We rarely undergo the discipline of trying to understand as fully as we can what and why the other person may hold a particular view. Indeed actively not listening is a sign of disrespect. To listen carefully is a sign that you take the person seriously.

For Christians, part of the issue may be in our continuing refusal to follow the injunction of Jesus to judge not. We are more prone to be uncivil when we judge the person to be unworthy of the courtesy and respect due to them.

Fruits and gifts of the Spirit-One way for us to use a guide toward the virtues of civility would be a look at the fruit of the spirit in Gal. 5:22. To some degree these are virtues that permit the Golden Rule to flourish. I do wish to emphasize the words kindness (chrestos in NT Greek).  President Bush was vilified for speaking of a kinder, gentler nation a generation ago.

In Ephesians, the letter speaks of the dividing line of hostility being removed through Jesus Christ. In other words, a new community was being formed in our midst. We deserve better than the vulgarities claimed as personal rights. We need to be better in treating each other with the respect we are owed as creatures made in the image and likeness of God.