Dialogue and Tolerance
Fr. Paul Stemn
Originally posted on 7/25/2010

This past week, Shirley Sherrod, an African-American official for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, was forced to resign from her job. Someone released an edited & misleading video of Sherrod giving a speech. The video was taken out of context and portrays her as being racist. But when one views the entire speech, when one looks at the context, it’s clear that she was not being racist.

Instead of reviewing the whole speech, asking her what happened, & listening to her, officials pressured her to resign, which she did last week. She was fired for, quote, "zero tolerance for discrimination at [the] USDA."

Interestingly, people who were initially condemning Sherrod for her comments are now actually defending her. Some have suggested that those people initially didn’t defend her because they didn’t want to look like hypocrites. After all, it is said, those groups also engage in character assassination by taking people’s words out of context.

Often, sensitive issues, such as racism, become politicized. When that happens, people often throw context and common sense out the window. The person is condemned and is said to be a racist or insensitive, or whatever the case might be—that’s what happened to Shirley Sherrod last week.

Sherrod is not alone; this is standard operating procedure in the world of politics, in both political parties. We can ask ourselves today: “Is this the way that Christians dialogue?” Are there different sets of rules of dialogue? One set of rules for dealing with people in our everyday lives, and another set of rules allowing for political and religious scapegoats?

These questions are critical because if we accept the methods that led to Sherrod’s resignation, then there is absolutely no possibility for any meaningful dialogue whatsoever. The very basis of communication is gone. What we are left with is censorship—and that’s a recipe for disaster.

The 18th chapter of the Book of Genesis, contains an emotionally charged scene in which God is righteously angered by the wickedness in the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. As righteously angry as God is, God nevertheless listens to Abraham.

And Abraham can dialogue with God: he knows God. He knows that God is furious BUT because Abraham has a relationship with God, he not only knows that God is just, but that God is also merciful and forgiving. Abraham uses his personal understanding of God to dialogue with Him. That’s why Abraham can dialogue with God: because he knows, understands and communicates with God.

When people dialogue, misunderstandings are bound to occur, especially if both parties have very different views. But like the persistent neighbor knocking on his friend’s door in the parable in the 11th chapter of St. Luke's Gospel, we must be persistent in trying to first understand others when we dialogue with them. I think of a verse from the famous peace prayer of St. Francis: O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be understood, as to understand.

True dialogue takes place when both parties can articulate the other person’s point of view to the other’s satisfaction, even if they totally disagree with each other. That’s the goal of dialogue.

But is dialogue always a losing battle? No. For one reason, Jesus Christ. Others might misunderstand us, but not Jesus Christ. We can go before His real presence and dialogue with Him. He’ll never fall asleep on us; He’ll never condemn us by taking our prayers out of context.

Catholic theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar wrote a book titled The Theology of Karl Barth. It has over 400 pages! Karl Barth was a Protestant theologian. Balthasar and Barth became life-long friends even though they had different religious beliefs. Balthasar actually dialogued with, and listened to, Karl Barth to such an extent that he could write an entire book about Karl Barth’s theology.

Balthasar’s conversations with Karl Barth are considered to be an example of ecumenical dialogue at its best. Balthasar himself states that the split in Christianity that occurred during the Reformation happened because both sides, Catholics and Protestants, weren’t dialoguing; both sides were being polemical and simply attacking each other.

We live in a world in which we need respectful and honest dialogue now more than ever. People may politicize issues so that they may demonize others. People may take things out of context so that they may destroy someone else’s name or political career.

We may not be able to stop them, but we don’t have to follow their example, and above all, we don’t have to legitimize and approve of such sinful, despicable behavior. If we see people using these methods, we should politely point out to them: what if that were you? How would you like to be treated?

We take people at their word; if someone says that they're not racist or that they did not intend to offend someone with their words, we give people the benefit of the doubt; innocent until proven guilty. After all, God dialogued with Abraham, even though He was very angry. God listens to us; we should listen to each other.