Finding Common Ground In A Time of Stark Division

"While we all want to believe that we are committed to truth rather than a narrative, our actions in conversation—how we mistreat evidence, mischaracterize opposing views and arguments, and attack the challenger rather than the challenge—often tell a different story."- Luke Nix

The Importance of Recognizing Common Ground

In these times of stark division, it is important that we not allow our disagreements to ultimately result in the destruction of our unity as a society, culture, and Church. There is nothing wrong with a society having a diversity of ideas, as long as those ideas are discussed and debated respectfully. When the wrong ideas are identified, such a respectful dialog can result in the dismissal of false ideas and the acceptance of true ideas. This is progress. Progress towards the objective goal of a society that has and lives according to the view of reality as it actually is and not some delusion. 

However, many times discussion is stifled because we do not recognize common ground with those in which we disagree. When we possess and recognize common ground, we have a connection to maintain a healthy relationship when we have stark disagreements and rigorously debate which view (if either) accurately reflect reality. Today I want to point out six different things that we all hold in common that, if recognized by even one side, can help keep relationships healthy despite disagreements. 

💬 52 Quotes- Dr. Os Guinness on the Crisis of Truth in Our Culture

"You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."- John 8:32

"America's tragedy today is that while that motto adorns the university walls, for many people it no longer animates the mind."- Os Guinness

"Far from being a naïve and reactionary notion, truth is one of the simplest, most precious gifts without which we would not be able to handle reality or negotiate life."

"Our challenge today is not to lament, protest, or simply talk about the crisis of truth in one of a hundred ways. Rather, it is to do something about it by becoming people of truth and learning to live free."

"Postmodernism, in fact, is the mirror image of modernism and is born of its deficiencies. It is therefore equally confused and equally confusing, but in a reverse way."

"If truth is truth, then differences make a difference — not just between truth and lies but between intimacy and alienation in relationships, between harmony and conflict in neighborhoods, between efficiency and incompetence in business, between reliability and fraud in science and journalism, between trust and suspicion in leadership, between freedom and tyranny in government, and even between life and death."

"When nothing can be judged except judgment itself— 'judgmentalism'—the barriers between the unthinkable, acceptable, and doable collapse entirely. And then, since life goes on and the sky doesn't fall, people draw the conclusion that the original concern was unfounded. Lighten up, the newly amoral say as they skip forward blithely, complicit in their own corruption."