Building Bridges in the “Mist” of Dissonant Discourse

Truth appears different when housed in different frameworks. In this universe, 100+100=1000 is just as true a statement as 100+100=8 and 4+4=8. Think I’m unhinged? The first equation uses a binary framework. The second equation adds binary numbers to come up with the decimal equivalent for the answer. And the third equation uses decimal terms for the same quantities as the first two equations. But if as a reader, if I’m not versed in binary language, I will think that the authors of the first two equations are outrageously off their rockers. I have to dig deeper to find the bridges between the frameworks that allow me to reorient myself and understand. If you’re the one that wants others to understand you, digging deep and building bridges is your job. 

How do we build those bridges? How do we share our ideas and engage in discourse with people with whom we disagree? How do we write powerful, transformative words that contribute to the common good and glorify God? It won’t work if we look at truth as a binary, a dichotomy: “If I’m right, others are wrong.” It won’t work if we talk over other people, if we just shout our opinions and say, “Follow me, I’m leading the way.” But, of course, isn’t that what we do as writers? We say every day, “Listen to me. I have something to say.” That’s what we do as social media influencers: “Hear me out. Follow me. Like me.” 

What if, instead of coming at the process with the attitude of “listen to me,” we come with the demeanor of “I’ve been listening to you”? What if instead of writing, “Let me tell you what you’re doing wrong,” we say, “Help me understand how we can do this thing better”? Then we will have the foundation for a bridge. We don’t have to agree. We don’t even have to meet in the middle. But at least we will have deciphered how the different languages of our hearts fit together in an equation.

I usually continue on in an essay like this one to give you my perspective on issues in arts and theology. This month, I want to honor the spirit of these first paragraphs that I’m asking you to consider by, instead, offering to you some of the voices I am currently listening to and asking, “How can we do better?”

Dr. Esther Lighthouse Meek, Loving to Know

Esther Lighthouse Meek, a professor of philosophy and Makoto Fujimura Institute Scholar, pushes back in her books Loving to Know and A Little Manual for Knowing against the way we generally conceive of gaining knowledge and responding to it. She writes,

We do not know in order to love. We love in order to know.[1]

Dan B. Allender, in his endorsement of Loving to Know helps us unpack this part of Dr. Meek’s premise:

Esther Meek argues that we become what we love and that if we love truth then we must love to engage in the interpersonal dialogue of seeing the world well through the prism of another’s heart.

Dr. Emerson Eggerichs, Love and Respect

Former pastor Emerson Eggerichs, in his book Love and Respect, gives a brilliant analogy for how we get ourselves into such hot water relationally: we’re all wearing oxygen masks connected by an air hose to some of our greatest core needs, love and respect. When you come to me with your perspective and language out of sync with mine, you accidentally step on my air hose. Unable to breath, I swing my arms to push you away and detach your air hose from its source as well. As long as we keep going at each other in this manner, the cycle of conflict and pain never stops. We suffocate.[2]

We will always step on each other’s air hoses to some degree, but if we can pause the “crazy cycle” for a moment and reassess our snap judgments about what is happening, we can better judge intentions. He writes, regarding our conflicts for what “good” to pursue and how to pursue it, that immediately

impugning an evil motive . . . is too drastic a judgment.[3]

In fact, if we can just get a breath, we might be able to translate each other’s language and build a bridge.

Dr. Tony Evans, Oneness Embraced

Many scientists, neurologists, and ethics scholars have frequently raised the issue of our cognitive biases that help us navigate our world but create dissonance between what we think we believe and what we actually believe or default to. Scholar and Pastor Tony Evans doesn’t mention cognitive bias by name but instead discusses what happens to the church when we ignore how we give more weight to data that appeals to our emotions and confirms what we already believe or what we want to be true.

As an egregious example, Dr. Evans illustrates how slaveholding Christians assumed the inferiority of the black race and defended their actions as biblical by leaning on a few passages such as the “curse of Ham” (Gen. 9:20–27; actually, only Ham’s son Canaan was cursed) and the parallel exhortations for bondservants to obey their masters in Ephesians 6:5–8 and Colossians 3:22. They failed to give any weight to the plethora of passages that decried slavery, condemned kidnapping and enslaving (Ex. 21:16), allowed slaves to try to change their status (1 Cor. 7:21), told masters to treat Christian slaves as equal brothers (Phlm. 1:15–16), and judged those who persisted in elevating one class, culture, or race over another (Jas. 2:9–13).[4]

He also discusses how the “myth of inferiority is as much psychological as it is theological, because myths affect the way people think.” In fact, “as recently as April 2010,” a study showed that regarding racial perception (assigning labels of “nice” and “bad”), “white children had an overwhelming bias toward white, and black children also had a bias toward white.” And both groups of people are frequently ignorant of the ways people of color have contributed mightily to our world.

White children left history classes knowing countries and names of white heroes and heroines. On the other hand, black children left history classes without educators or textbooks acknowledging the accomplishments in Africa at all, which include producing clocks and calendars, maps, gears, great architecture, engineering, medicine, and mathematics. For example, Africans were the first ones who named and mapped the stars, and were the first to teach students from Greece on African soil.[5]

How does our perspective change when we have more information that challenges preconceived notions? How does the way that we tell our stories affect how we perceive truth?

Dr. Daniel B. Wallace, my memory of a personal communication

I’ve had the privilege of studying the Greek syntax of the book of Romans in a course taught by Daniel B. Wallace, a brilliant Greek and biblical scholar who also traverses the globe seeking to preserve as many ancient New Testament manuscripts as possible through high-res photography. He loves God. He loves the Bible. He has devoted himself to them. But as we sat ready to work through Paul’s letter to the Romans, arguably the capstone of the apostle’s theological understanding of the Christ and of God’s mission in this world, Dr. Wallace took a moment to share a bit of how he approaches the text. He said that he presses into the syntax every year he teaches it, looking for the thread that will unravel not only his own theological beliefs but, indeed, the entire fabric of Christianity and God himself. Because if we don’t enter an endeavor willing to be wrong, we aren’t pursuing truth; we’re pursuing power, preference, and the privilege of being “right.” Dr. Wallace could teach this course in his sleep. But every year he pushes his presuppositions under the microscope to see where he’s gone wrong. Such examination, rather than breeding doubt, causes his faith to grow as every year the true God—and not his caricature of God—withstands his most rigorous inquiry.

What truths do you cling to that you are afraid to come at from different angles to look for holes? What new understanding would be the undoing of all you hold dear? Fear prevents us from entertaining and chewing on the arguments of the opposition with respectfulness and integrity. But we can combat this fear and the biases that affect our perception, and we must, if we as writers and thinkers and artists want to reach ears beyond the ones already listening in our own circles. We can build bridges in the mist and midst of dissonant discourse.

[1] Esther L. Meek, Loving to Know: Introducing Covenant Epistemology (Eugene, Ore: Cascade Books, 2011), 419.

[2] Emerson Eggerichs, Love and Respect: The Love She Most Desires; The Respect He Desperately Needs (Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, 2004), 37–38.

[3] Eggerich, Love and Respect, 188.

[4] Tony Evans, Oneness Embraced: Reconciliation, the Kingdom, and How We Are Stronger Together (Chicago: Moody, 2011), 92.

[5] Evans, Oneness Embraced, 93–97,