“Christians are called to treat everyone with respect and dignity, because we are all created in the image of God.”

What are the civic aspirations necessary to the flourishing of confident pluralism in modern life? How can Christians seek to treat others in a way that is consistent with scripture and that helps maintain a free and fair society? Professor Inazu outlines three aspirations for civic life and provides insight on how to keep our relationships across difference open and constructive.

Key Terms

Humility: A reminder of the limits of translation, and the difficulty of proving our deeply held values to one another.

Patience: Restraint not to project harmful assumptions on others and persistence and endurance when there are differences that seem like they cannot be overcome.

Tolerance: The recognition that people are for the most part free to pursue their own beliefs and practices, even those beliefs and practices we find morally objectionable.

Conversation Stoppers: Speech that breeds social intolerance by stigmatizing people instead of challenging ideas.

Main Points

• We can have humility while also maintaining our convictions.
• We can be patient with others while not remaining passive.
• Tolerance enables us to engage with different ideas while avoiding stigmatizing other people.
• Hurtful insults and conversation stoppers run contrary to these civic aspirations.
• Institutions set limits on speech, but must be generous across differences.

Content Questions

• When have words wounded you in your own life?
• What are the words that you’ve said to others that have harmed them, perhaps unknowingly?
• Thinking about the institutions that you belong to, how do they embody a kind of living speech true to their purpose and norms while also facilitating and allowing disagreement within their purposes?
• What are the labels that you are quick to put on other people, and what are the ways that you don’t want people to label you?

Application Questions

• How have you seen insults and conversation stoppers get in the way of a healthy public dialogue? Online? At home? In church? How can you help your Christian community to cultivate living institutional speech that recognizes its limitations while being generous across difference?
• With regards to today’s divisive issues, what conversation stoppers have you observed your side using in that debate? How might those points be better framed?