Answers to the complex social challenges facing America seem harder to find. Could asking more questions with honest curiosity help us all?
It’s easy for any of us to assume that people disagreeing with our own views are influenced by ill-will, dishonesty or callousness. But what if we didn’t?
Latter-day Saints see their faith as a receptacle of truth not just a dispenser of it, which explains the ease in finding so much that is “virtuous” and “lovely” in many traditions.
When issues are so important and feelings so intense and disagreements so profound, is it even possible to find unity again? Maybe if we take the lead from God’s own love for us.
Will admonitions to be kinder, nicer, more civil, and less hateful be enough to change our pained American discourse? Or have they become part of the problem?
When strong disagreements take place publicly, it’s no longer surprising when death threats occur – on both sides. Why is that? And what will it take to preserve space for productive disagreement in the days ahead?
Will we continue the patterns of contempt and division in this new America? Or will we reach for something better?
Tolerance must have its limits, but what should those limits be? Thinkers on the right and left have come to very different conclusions.
Along with scientific and historical reasons for concern, the words of modern prophets have consistently warned about the destructive potential of unbridled anger.
Despite the appearance of a sharp competition between coherent ideologies, could it be that America is divided by group loyalties and resentments more than anything else?
The anger of Bernie Sanders has often been discussed as a political liability. Could it actually be the very reason he’s doing so well?
Let’s make the Pilgrims proud by shedding any tendency towards intolerance across social, political, and religious differences.
