Interfaith Conversation Stoppers

I’m in a bit of a cynical mood lately (I know, what else is new), so let’s cover some of the no-nos of interfaith discussion.
Words and Phrases to Avoid
“cult” – It has a correct context, but overuse of it by vitriolic evangelicals has deflated the usefulness of the term. It’s a way of labeling another person’s religion as unworthy of serious consideration before a discussion has even begun.
“anti-Mormon” – It has a correct context, but overuse of it by paranoid Mormons has deflated the usefulness of the term. It’s a way of labeling another person’s position as unworthy of serious consideration before a discussion has even begun.
“spirit of contention” – This one can theoretically have a correct usage. Sometimes conversations do get overly contentious and stop being worth our time. However, more often a person probably senses that she is losing the argument and imprecates the other person for causing the “spirit of contention” as a means of dismissing herself from the conversation while saving face.
“the Spirit has departed” / “I don’t feel the Spirit here” – Another way of dismissing oneself from the conversation while self-righteously condemning those who disagree — probably because the person doing it senses that he is losing the argument.
“seeking signs” – Translation: “Please don’t cross-examine the supernatural claims that our religion makes. We don’t have very satisfactory explanations for them and your questions make us uncomfortable.”
“Discussing this issue = starting down the road to apostasy” – If reasoned discussion is bad for your faith, it’s probably the value of your faith that needs to be questioned, not the value of the conversation at hand.
“People are going to hate me for saying this — *say something outrageous or obviously bad*— Now have at me, haters” – It is the height of arrogance to force everyone to hear you out while preemptively shutting down those with opposing views. More often the people who do this know that they’re about to take a weak, indefensible position, but can’t resist the pleasure of hearing themselves talk just the same.
“Your intentions are XYZ” – Look, you don’t know anyone’s intentions but your own. Put your crystal ball down and stick to what you do know.
“you lack understanding” – Every single person who has ever used this phrase is a self-righteous, arrogant, condescending blowhard who is not worth your time. Exhibit A, Exhibit B.
“Stop attacking me/us” – Please be really, really sure that you are, in fact, under attack before accusing anyone of attacking you. Paranoia is just not conducive to healthy discussion.
Quoting Scripture – I’m not against quoting Scripture in interfaith dialogue or debate; in fact, I’m a fan of it. But tossing out a lot of Scripture citations with little context or commentary to explain how it supports your position is not effective and makes you sound self-righteous. It’s as if you’re saying, “Don’t you get that God is on my side on this topic and not yours?”
I find it much more effective to summarize and partially quote key Scripture passages as you explain how they make your point. Copying & pasting large chunks of Scripture is the worst. It’s like painting a big sign on your virtual face that says, “Hi, I’m lazy and ineffective at making my points, don’t waste your time listening to me.”
Excessive Reliance on Personal Anecdote – It is okay to offer up a personal anecdote as a limited sample of one person’s experience with the subject matter at hand. It is not okay to treat your experience as authoritative proof that everyone who has had a different experience is lying, abnormal or otherwise wrong. Besides, what can those who have had different experiences say in response other than, “Gawsh, that’s interesting, but my experience is entirely different”?
The other problem with people who do this is that they invariably force those who disagree with them to point out the problems with said anecdotes: bias, selective memory, the possibility that they are outliers, and just plain ol’ making-stuff-up. Since these are personal stories that may be near and dear to the subject’s heart, the subject will then complain of being personally attacked.
People who do this won’t get much sympathy though, at least not from me. Using personal anecdotes to make all of your points for you is a really, really good way to get personally attacked.
I used to be a member of religion XYZ, therefore I am automatically an expert on it – Actually, it’s entirely possible that the whole reason you are no longer a member of religion XYZ is precisely because you did not understand it very well. The bottom line being, if you really are an expert on your former religion, show us; don’t tell us.
I am a current member of religion XYZ, therefore I am automatically an expert on it – Same deal. It generally does not take very much knowledge, wisdom, and understanding just to claim membership in a religious tradition. If you want us to see you as an expert on your religion, show us; don’t tell us.
I am not a member of the demographic that is negatively affected, but I am going to offer them advice anyways – You know these people. It’s the man who lectures the women on why they ought not to feel marginalized by discriminatory religious practices. It’s the woman who got married at age 22 telling the woman who’s still single at age 31 why she should not have a problem with the status of singles in her religious community. It’s the white guy telling the black guy why he shouldn’t be bothered by historical religious racism. It’s the straight woman telling the lesbian that she doesn’t need the right to be married to her partner.
Of course there are times when we can offer advice to people in demographics that we don’t belong to, but we should do so considerately and with a nod to the fact that we can’t truly know what the other person is struggling with, especially when we’re members of a demographic that has been or is more privileged than others.
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Have I missed any good ones? Add yours below.

Comments

Interfaith Conversation Stoppers — 28 Comments

  1. I’m just saying this because I love you people.
    Mormons believe in a different Jesus.
    Mormons are polytheistic!
    “Joe Smith”
  3. Great list Jack. I agree with everything. Just want to add my personal favorite.
    person A: “I believe X”
    person B: “No you don’t”
  5. 1. Only someone who is (stupid, racist, apostate, sexist, ignorant, whatever) would believe something like that.
    2. Assuming the framework and/or assumptions of your religion applies (or should apply) to someone else’s. (E.g., if you don’t believe the universe was created in 144 hours you don’t believe the Bible. Since you don’t have the priesthood, you don’t have any real standards. Your prophets aren’t real prophets because they make mistakes, and true prophets are infallible.)
  7. From what I can see, the word “cult” is almost always used in a defamatory, hateful way. I can’t think of a single example where its use was accurate or helpful in any way. Even small, obscure groups are more properly called sects.
  9. “While your point is valid, I am going to disagree for the sake of being contrary.”
    I don’t think anyone has actually said this, but I’ve certainly seen it in essence!
    Arguing that anything without “evidence” is wrong because there is nothing to verify it, then turning around and saying that there is nothing wrong with believing something without having “evidence” of whatever it is.
    I’ve seen this happening a lot more lately, from all sides of the conversation.
  10. Maybe you are putting words in peoples’ mouths, Alex. Or maybe you just don’t get the difference.
    1. The Book of Mormon: there is no external corroborating evidenc e for it, at all. In general, people assume that historical events with no evidence did not happen. Like the stories of Conan: Howard implied that they were true tales of ancient times, but archaeologists aren’t obligated to even consider this in passing, because it is a claim backed by zero evidence. Howard can believe it if he wants, of course: it could still be true, despite the lack of external evidence. But he’s not going to convince anyone else.
    2. On the other hand, that doesn’t mean everything is false unless proven true by scientifically or statistically sound evidence. Anecdotes are evidence, just not conclusory evidence. Intuition is even arguably evidence, just not conclusory evidence. In the absence of compelling, rigorous proof, reasonable people can still reserve judgment. But that doesn’t mean everyone else is a moron.
  12. Uh oh. Tim just lost the argument! :)
    @Kullervo, that’s the space I find myself in about most things. I can’t tell if you’re right, and I have my doubts, but I’ll reserve judgement.
    But being contrary is a true-blue-mom-and-apple-pie American tradition! It’s sacred and sacrosanct! (Is there a difference between those two? Hah!)
    Thus, I reserve the right to be contrary and blow up your Sunday School Gospel Doctrine lesson, because it would be un-American not to!
    OK, I kid, I kid. But like Alex I see this in almost every arena these days. I just got off a stint as a Seminary teacher, where the students raison d’être was precisely that: Have fun by arguing about everything.
  13. Kullervo,
    I suspect that Alex is complaining about a depressingly common argument:
    “There is no scientific evidence for the Book of Mormon, so Mormonism must be false. Now leave that cult and come join me in worship of a resurrected Jew who will save your immortal soul if you accept Him in your heart.”
  15. Maintaining that your church’s doctrine is identical to your own idiosyncratic set of beliefs.
  16. I purposely avoided pointing any fingers. Interesting the response. FWIW, I do engage in interfaith dialogue outside teh Intrawebz, so I wasn’t specifically citing anyone.
    Sorry, kullervo, you aren’t the only one I argue with.
  17. Here’s another:
    “God wouldn’t do that/tell you to do that.”
    Not only does it totally show that you misunderstand God, but it totally shuts down the conversation.
  18. I purposely avoided pointing any fingers. Interesting the response. FWIW, I do engage in interfaith dialogue outside teh Intrawebz, so I wasn’t specifically citing anyone.
    Sorry, kullervo, you aren’t the only one I argue with.
    Well come on, given our recent back-and-forth, it was not completely narcissistic for me to assume that you were referring to that argument.
  20. …come join me in worship of a resurrected Jew who will save your immortal soul if you accept Him in your heart.
    So, charge out & believe in a being that is supposed to have been resurrected, but the only witnesses to that fact are the people who believed in him, or changed their minds about him, like Saul of Tarsus. No independent witnesses (non believers of him) of the resurrection around?
    And, the writings of those witnesses don’t even exist as original documents. The earliest such documents were decades well after the fact.
    Like I said before:
    “Don’t put my beliefs to the test I’m giving your beliefs!”
    And, if anyone uses “the proof is in the shear numbers of believers”, then we shouldn’t be Christians. Or Jews. Or Muslims. We should all become Hindus with that logic.
    I also get a slight snicker when white extremist hate Jews, but love Christianity. Jesus of Nazareth was a Jew by blood, and also in his early practice. Fulfill, not destroy.
  22. Holy moly.
    This LIST is an interfaith conversation stopper.
    OMG, I’m sure I’ve done at least half the things on there at some point… and learned from them, I hope… and will probably make more… wait, does that count as too much of a personal anecdote?
    Seriously, does one have to be an expert on church doctrine and theology and use all the appropriate scholarly language and debate etiquette to engage in what are called interfaith “conversations?”
    If so, the effort is going to lose from the start a lot of the people it seems to be trying to reach… everyday folks, who know little about either their own or another religion, but have developed beliefs about these things based on incomplete information.
    People are going to make those mistakes time and time again because that is what they have been taught. Most will learn differently if they are (gently, imo) taught differently. Isn’t that the goal?
  24. I never said we should be rude to the people who innocently make these mistakes, Clink.
    People who make them not-so-innocently or people who resist correction after they’ve been shown the problems with this kind of rhetoric are another story.
  25. I didn’t realize it was just a vent, I guess I read too much into it.
    I was quite into doctrinal nuances in my younger years, but keeping up with it nowdays is just too far down on my priority list to get any attention (thanks to my teenagers for keeping life interesting). Hard to keep up when the discussions degenerate (imo) to doctrinal minutiae (sp), but I know it can be fun for people, too.
    Anyway, my apologies!
  26. Gotta add my own pet peeve here:
    Say something douchebaggy, and then slap a smiley face on the end of it (if you’re a Mormon) or the obligatory “grace and peace in Jesus” (if you are Evangelical).
    Then when someone points out that you’re acting like a douchebag, claim that your feelings are hurt because people are being hostile when you were just being a precious little Christian follower of Jesus.
  27. People are going to hate me for saying this
    I once sat through a conference where every speaker seemed to start off with that phrase or a variant and then said something everybody greeted with rounds of thunderous applause.
    It was a conference on dispute resolution and peacemaking and the speakers were all endorsing physical violence by minority populations as a healthy part of dialog.
    Anyway, that phrase sure gets around ;)
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