Moving Beyond "Us vs. Them"

 

In the 1980’s, a catchy ad campaign emerged from a beer company. The premise was simple. Two groups of people would shout back and forth the two features of the beer the company wanted us to remember:

“Tastes great!”

 “Less filling!” 

“Tastes great!”

“Less filling!”

As the campaign gained steam, the debate began to spontaneously emerge at sporting events. A couple of people would start the shouting, and it would spread like wildfire until it was half of the stadium versus the other half:

“Tastes great!”

“Less filling!”

“Tastes great!”

Less filling!”

The willingness of so many people to jump into the debate was a brilliant source of free advertising, and also a good lesson in crowd psychology. Many of the folks who were shouting never drank that brand of beer and had no actual opinion on the two choices set before them. It was just something fun to do at the ballgame. The debate could have been Mickey Mouse vs. Donald Duck, and people would have joined in just as gleefully.

The point is this: People are drawn to a clear “us vs. them” argument, and will readily conform to the two choices that are presented  – even when those choices are not very relevant or useful. It happens all the time in our national politics.

Conservative vs. liberal. Democrat vs. Republican. Socialism vs. free market. Gun control vs. gun rights. Pro-life vs. pro-choice.  Pro-Israel vs. Pro-Palestine. And so on and so forth. Every election, every issue, and every movement is forced into an oversimplified “us vs. them” duality where people can make their choice as easily as they decided whether to shout “Tastes great!” or “Less filling!” It’s a process which engages and inflames the American people against one another, but which does no justice to the amazingly complicated political and cultural landscape we find ourselves inhabiting.

As a result, we end up shouting at one another about which party is to blame for a manufactured government shutdown; or over a proposed gun control law that will do nothing to address our real problems with violence;  or over a new health care law that leaves untouched the fundamental structures of a broken system. And we eagerly jump into these largely irrelevant debates using the simple categories that are presented to us:

“Tastes great!”

“Less filling!”

“Tastes great!”

“Less filling!”

Unfortunately, it’s not much different in the church. As Christians move into a 21^st-century reality that is complicated, uncertain, and somewhat frightening, we find ourselves falling into the same types of “us vs. them” struggles.

Many of these struggles revolve around the “liberal vs. conservative” division that has defined the last few centuries of Protestant history. Most recently, this conflict has erupted around the issue of LGBT ordination, and its reality is a complicated mix of theological, cultural, political, and historical forces.

There are a lot more than two ways to think about the issue, depending on one’s context and personal experience. A conversation that is helpful and moves the issue forward will be sensitive to the multiplicity of perspectives and will not devolve an “us vs. them” shouting match.

Too easily, however, the conversation is about “those who love gays vs. those who hate gays,” or “those who believe in the Bible vs. those who don’t.” It’s a reductionism that inhibits the discovery of creative solutions, and it is reflected in the way church governing bodies tend to discuss issues - with a “for” microphone on one side and an “against” microphone on the other.

“Tastes great!”

“Less filling!”

“Tastes great!”

“Less filling!”

But beyond the hot-button political issues such as LGBT rights, the church falls into the “us vs. them” mentality on topics of the general future of the church, topics for which a simplistic duality is the least helpful way to think about things. Here’s an example:

In the last year, an emotional debate has erupted in the Presbyterian Church (USA) about changes being made to the medical and pension plans offered to clergy. The Board of Pensions, in response to rising medical costs and other pressures, announced that it would be ending the practice of fully covering all dependents. Essentially, this meant that younger clergy and smaller churches would be shouldering the burden of the changes. After an intense and focused outcry, the Board modified its change, reducing some of the additional burden, but not all of it.

What was telling about the controversy was not the details of the proposed changes, however.  It was the nature of the debate that ensued. It got quite polarized and quite ugly as insults like “uncaring, out of touch, and whiners” were hurled back and forth. Is was a clear reflection of the larger generational conflict happening in our culture.

And even though I strongly believe the changes are unfair to younger clergy, I am also disappointed that the conversation devolved into an “us vs. them” dynamic. There are many complicating factors to the Presbyterian pension situation, and there are multiple points of view that all have valid contributions to make.

Perhaps if we could set aside the compulsion to divide into warring factions, we would find that the ultimate answer to our pension woes is not found in an “us vs. them” debate about how we tinker with the current system. Perhaps we are being called to set aside the dualities that color our perceptions, and to seek to create together a very different sort of system. But because we are so programmed to line up on opposite sides of the river and throw rocks at one another, it is often difficult to get past the two simplistic categories that first present themselves.

“Tastes great!”

“Less filling!”

“Tastes great!”

“Less filling!”

It’s a lot of fun to do this at a baseball game.  But many of us have long since grown weary of trying to move forward in our nation and in the church in this fashion. There is another way.