Note: One of the most common and pervasive misconceptions of dialogue is that the overriding goal is to “maintain peace” – aka to make sure that everyone feels comfortable. This kind of perception can create…
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Note: As detailed elsewhere, children’s art invokes the curiosity, wonder, and “beginner’s mind” that makes for an especially productive conversation across difference. “As children we fall in love with the wonder of being alive,”…
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“We need to be able to hear and express [a question or idea] without the instant commencement of political warfare, without superimposing particular causes and constituencies over the narrative, as if every new development…
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Central to the LGBT/religious conservative conversation is a question that’s been earnestly explored by human beings since their beginnings (whether in a garden or a cave) and continuing today in full force: Who are we?! (And…
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I’ve been thinking about something John Gustav-Wrathall shared with me recently, a man whose insight I’ve come to appreciate and respect. He wrote about people’s sense of feeling invalidated in the current LGBT/religious conservative…
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Elder David Bednar, an apostle in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was recently asked a question about “homosexual Mormons.” As part of his explanation for why he’d prefer re-framing the question, Elder…
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“It is not a slight thing, gentlemen, [for] a man to say what he is, or what he believes himself to be; for that supreme word of man, that single expression which he utters…
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So I have an idea…something to help make this LGBT-Religious Conservative conversation a whole lot less painful. Have you ever been in a long, drawn out conversation with someone close to you that just gets uglier…
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Note: The following questions and thoughts are my own, Jacob Hess, and not necessarily representing the larger writing team, which is currently collaborating on various “maps” for this and other issues arising out of…
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“Dialogue cannot be reduced to the act of one person’s depositing’ ideas in another, nor can it become a simple exchange of ideas to be ‘consumed’ by the discussants” – Paulo Freire I’ve always known…