Tonight we will try to watch and absorb the first Clinton-Trump debate
(or perhaps you feel you just can’t bear to watch). When I was in 8th grade I joined a
debate team, and there were pretty clear, reasonable rules regarding how to
proceed, how rational arguments were to be presented and weighed, heard, and
assessed – and oh my, how different the presidential debates (which have become
utterly un-presidential…) have become.
I have a fantasy – that once in
my life, during such a televised debate, one candidate will make a good point,
and the opponent will say “Hmm, good point, I need to rethink my
position.” Political suicide? This is what we need, and maybe even crave. For a debate shouldn’t be about crushing the
opponent, or embarrassing your foe, or being more smart alecky than the other
guy. A debate should be like a classroom
of eager students, guided by a wise teacher, sorting through various ideas,
diligently pursuing truth.
If the debates are disappointing
to you, if the debates are little more than a sideshow of barbs, insults and
gotchas, it may be because we ourselves do not know how to debate ideas that
matter. Jean Bethke Elshtain wrote that
the virtue of a democracy ought to be that we can disagree and not have to kill
one another. We have forgotten how to
disagree, and how even to learn and grow from the disagreement.
The idea of debate, for us,
should be a sought-after opportunity to learn, not how my foe is stupid, but
where I’ve missed the boat. I wonder if
we were all to hone our own debating skills, our ability to listen, suggest,
reiterate, and resolve, we might in a couple of decades have more intelligent
presidential debates. Christopher Lasch
wisely told us that “It is only by subjecting
our preferences to the test of debate that we come to understand what we know
and what we still need to learn. Until we have to defend our opinions in
public, they remain half-formed convictions based on random impressions and
unexamined assumptions."
Christians, of all people, have good cause to
be humble, to acknowledge we don’t have it all figured out, that we have
probably thought wrongly and self-indulgently and not very broadly on issues
that matter. So every opportunity to
receive critique, to hear other viewpoints, to broaden our perspective, are
welcomed, and even pursued zealously.
So watch the
debates, if you can. Believe you and I
can and will do better. Trust that an
honest, humble, passionate exchange of ideas is something that would be
productive within a democracy, and even pleasing to Jesus.
