After Trump’s election and his current popularity among people in our nation, people complained that Hillary Clinton was much more competent to be our President and now complain that he is such a terrible person that people should not follow him, but they still do. His short response was, “You, meaning me and others who think like me, put me here.” I believe he was right then and is still right today. Trump spoke to people who felt not listened to by elites and progressives and believed that Clinton would be more like her tone death predecessors.
But he did something more. He knew his behavior didn’t bother his base, so he also shook the core values at our center. He played off the confusion of the people in our nation and their despair, and he still does. This resulted in the axiom, “If you don’t stand for something, people will fall for anything.” Holding the diversity of our nation in homeostasis (a vital balance) was lost and discrimination against certain groups which was always there surfaced as well. William Butler Yeats expressed it with these words, “Things fall apart; the center cannot hold.” His phrase is an apt description of where we are today with our hyper partisan divisions.
Several things are needed to address this issue. They are answers that grow out of my own experience of being a chaplain at a very religiously diverse school for 38 years. We had every faith that you could think of present in our community as well as views represented by people on the conservative, middle, and liberal side. There is much more uniformity of perspective if you worship in a church, mosque, synagogue, or if you are searching for where you are with your doubts about any faith at all.
EA was not the Garden of Eden. That is a statement of the obvious, On any given day, I was too conservative for some, too liberal for others, and confusing to even others who tried to put me in a box. I had people who would keep track of when I had a conservative or liberal speakers address chapel. I was also informed when I didn’t have enough women or men speaking as well. I found all of this to be a blessing. Fortunately, I always had a group of students elected to guide the spiritual life of our school to work with me. They read the culture quickly and had respectful responses to criticism.
I was influenced by Dr. Diana Eck who was the founder of the Harvard Pluralism Project. She gave me the first guideline that I held fast to in my religiously diverse community. “If you don’t stand for something, you will fall for anything. If you are clear about your religious center, you can hold all the diversity in the community together. It is a paradox. If you try to be all things to all people, you will be nothing to anyone.
Second, if people attended chapel from outside of our school, I and the student leaders would always suggest that chapel which met every other day was like a family album. You need to come to each service to see the whole picture. People need to be respected by others for where they are in their religious journey. My stance was always to indicate that my faith should make your faith stronger, and your faith should deepen my faith as well.
What does this look like in real time? One of our students died. I was approached by three student leaders who wanted to craft a service to honor that person. When I asked them how they wanted to proceed, they said, “We want to do it the way you do it and personalize the experience specifically to this student’s death.” One leader was Muslim, another a Jewish person, and a third a Christian. We had a service which was done in a Christian context which met the needs of these three students and the school at large. Being the spiritual leader of a diverse community is not for everyone. We all have different gifts, but I loved every minute of my time at EA including the criticism that I received because I believe that there is a truth in another’s criticism. You don’t have to agree with it, but you should learn from it.
Last, in a diverse community, people need to know that you are on their side.
I believe these guidelines would be helpful to our nation. First, we need to identify and hold fast to our core beliefs. E Pluribus Unum, one out of many. We need to be clear on our common beliefs not are non-negotiable. I think that it is telling that the Republican Party has to call on Newt Gingrich to write their platform. They really didn’t have one at their convention. We have to admit that Joe Biden is wrong that we are “better than that.” Some aren’t. Acknowledge it!
You can have your beliefs but you can learn from the other side.
You can say anything to anyone if they know you are on their side. You can say nothing to anyone if they don’t sense that you have their best interests at heart. If people do sense that you are on their side, you will lessen the community of “injustice collectors” and folks who love to play “gotcha.”
There is a barometer that speaks to our current state and the fragile nature of our democracy. When a state bans a book on the Holocaust with a unanimous vote, we need to get moving fast as there was not enough outrage to that situation.
You have to admit when you are wrong and apologize to the person who you offended. Biden did this and has the right stuff to get us where we need to be. His comment about the reporter from Fox was quickly followed by an apology. Some say that this is the new tough guy Biden that we will see in the next year. A leader of a diverse community must be steady and not flip to the opposite side and back. It drives students crazy when they have to assess the mood of their teacher each day. That is a major flaw that cost Trump dearly. We need to learn from his and our mistakes if we will be E Pluribus Unum. We should never forget Trump’s one statement of truth. “You put me here!” We do so again at our own peril.
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