Lost in Debate
It was March 2020 and my long-suffering husband’s world was turned upside down when three vessels of estrogen and education invaded his work space, our home. One afternoon we all came home, not for dinner, but to stay. School was online and jobs were on hold.
Let me introduce the players.
- Me: A fifty-ish woman learning about post-colonialism, systemic racism, post-modernism, and intersectionality as a Master of Divinity student at Portland Seminary.
- Firstborn Daughter: Freshman at Oregon State University. It is a public university in Oregon. If you know, you know.
- Second-born Daughter: Senior at the local Catholic high school on her way to the University of Oregon. See above.
- My spouse: Middle-aged white man who had leveled up on the socio-economic ladder. His conception of how to succeed at life was to work hard. He also believed the corollary; anyone can do it.
It was an election year and we all brought our awakening ideologies to the breakfast table, the lunch table, and the dinner table by discussing politics. The idea of political debate is fruitless. The sense of someone attempting to change us is perceived as a threat.[1] Relatedly, the more people tell us why we are wrong, the more entrenched we become.[2] I know my husband felt targeted for a while. He was working hard to provide for all of our educations and we were turning around and using them to bludgeon him. In hindsight, the man is a saint. Really, we were just four people trying to find our way through the pandemic and everything that happened after. We could have used better tools to help us dialog thorough our disagreements. We could have used a map.
The premise of Matthew Petrusek’s Evangelization and Ideology is that Catholic social thought provides a framework well suited for human flourishing. His goal is to demonstrate that deploying the right tools in political debate can lead people to a perspective on what is good that is actually good for all people.[3] Among these tools is a map which can be used to navigate a political argument in search of the actual location of disagreement, which is not politics, but on some other conceptual plane.
In one view of the map, politics is located in the center under the label applied morality. Moving outward through the rings, the concepts are morality, epistemology, anthropology, ontology and theology.[4] The trick to using the map is fully understanding what is included in each of the concepts and how they interact.
Another view of the map is as a pyramid with theology as the base and politics as the apex. The pyramid view demonstrates that with the removal of any layer, everything above it will crumble, but the layers below remain intact.[5] This simple idea of the concepts being foundational to one another made the map more approachable for me. Even though I understand everything I am reading, it would be difficult to use this map in real life, including the scenario above. First, epistemology and ontology are not words in my family vocabulary or in the vocabulary of any of the folks with whom I might toss political footballs.
For me to make use of the map, or the book in general, I would need to use a technique I recommend to ministerial students preparing for annual interviews. I have them reconstruct Articles of Faith into their own words as a means of internalizing the concepts. I would need to reconstruct large swaths of Evangelization and Ideology into everyday language to internalize the map and become proficient at locating the true source of disagreement on the fly.
Even if one has internalized the map, using it is more subtle than just pulling it out and showing someone. The real technique is through questioning.[6] By asking clarifying questions a lot of good can come. Waypoints of agreement may be found between people who disagree politically and from those locations, a skilled political evangelist may be able to lead a person through other connections to a new opinion on political issues and items of disagreement in their own thinking.
Another resource I would explore with more time is a series of videos called “Idolatry of Identity” produced by Word on Fire Institute, Petrusek’s current vocational home. The one I watched was engaging and the series package appears to be a more direct route to becoming better equipped as a questioner.[7]
If it all sounds complex, which it is, my key takeaway is this. The right questions, carefully applied, can lead people to change their own minds. It took time, and we are still clumsy, but we did learn to ask instead of tell. I hope to continue fertilizing the soil that may someday lead my daughter back to the God behind good on which both agree.[8]
[1] David Rock, Your Brain at Work: Strategies for Overcoming Distraction, Regaining Focus, and Working Smarter All Day Long, Revised and updated edition (New York, NY: Harper Business, 2020), 227.
[2] Bobby Duffy, Why We’re Wrong About Nearly Everything: A Theory of Human Misunderstanding, First US edition (New York: Basic Books, 2019), 64.
[3] Matthew R. Petrusek, Evangelization and Ideology: How to Understand and Respond to the Political Culture (Park Ridge, IL: published by the Word on Fire Institute, an imprint of Word on Fire, 2023), 17.
[4] Petrusek, Evangelization and Ideology, 49.
[5] Petrusek, Evangelization and Ideology, 66.
[6] Petrusek, Evangelization and Ideology, 466.
[7] Matthew Petrusek, “Word on Fire Institute,” Wokeism – The Frankenstein of Political Ideologies, 2023.
[8] Petrusek, Evangelization and Ideology, 77.
About the Author
Julie O'Hara
13 responses to “Lost in Debate”
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Julie, thank you for taking the time to explain all this to me! I was feeling overwhelmed by the tasks you describe, that is, turning Petrusek’s language into something we can actually use with people we meet every day. After all, isn’t that the idea of “make disciples of all people”? Petrusek seems to have the right ideas, but it would be more useful to explain the idea at a high level, then give everyday situations and questions for people to actually use.
Now that you’ve thought through all this, do you have a couple of go-to questions you either use, or might consider using when engaging with someone about how politics and faith intersect?
Hi Debbie,
Yes, one note I jotted down was, “show me the real world examples.” Honestly, I don’t have any go-to questions. Tonight at dinner my dinner was saying that playing the video game Minecraft helps her understand the underbelly of capitalism. “We are just pixels to them!” So we swung into politics a bit and did casually introduce the map idea from my post. She competely agreed with the concept and it seemed to give her something to think about…
Julie,
I can only imagine the turmoil in your house. Over Winter break I had two college students return and my parents visiting. Then, Tiktok made the college students more “knowledgeable” than everyone else regarding the Israeli conflict. They let everyone know what they believed over dinner. Turns, out it was a long dinner (and my wife quietly disappeared). It was good for them to learn how to ask questions and ask good questions. We might be asking lots of questions but if they are leading questions or simply to bolster our own view then they aren’t really good questions. Actually, in next weeks reading by Parrish, he does list some good questions.
Do you have some good go-to questions you use in your household?
Hi Adam, Yes, the genius group think of TikTok! My daughter convinced me to buy raised cat bowls to avoid “whisker fatigue” because of TikTok. My veterinarian literally laughed out loud. It was kind of embarrassing actually.
As for questions, for now, the best I can do is, “can you tell me more about that?” It is a good response when I don’t understand, or even when I think I do. With my daughter, the more I let her talk without interrupting her, she seems to surprise us both with her conclusions!
Hey Julie! That was some serious tension in the house. I am glad you all found a way to navigate it and return to level ground. I wonder from your post is there a question you would have posed differently looking back? Also what your key area of agreement with Petrusek?
Hi Daren, To be honest, I made lots of notes of things I did not agree with Petrusek about. However, I acknowledge that is because he has ‘tone’ in his writing that reminds me of the sarcastic hyperbolic talking heads on certain channels that make me want to throw rocks at the television. (p.s. I watched a couple videos of him and the sarcastic words were softened by his manner)
In the midst of a whole lot of talk with which I completely disagreed about Christians retreating and creating parallel marketplaces etc – he made a statement I fully endorse. He references that Christians have “have lost our collective spine in a half-virtuous effort not to be “offensive” to others. I find myself sometimes guilty of this behavior. I think a whole upside of this program is being able to overcome that tendency.
Petrusek, Matthew ; Collins, Cardinal Thomas . Evangelization and Ideology: How to Understand and Respond to the Political Culture (p. 472). Word on Fire. Kindle Edition.
Hi Julie,
Thanks so much for sharing your pandemic journey with a new member of the household.
You bring up some excellent points. First, the concept of having a map to navigate relationships and conversations is brilliant.
What are some questions you might ask someone who disagrees with you? Where would you start? Is it possible to have questions like that on your map that can be sort of a one-size-fits-all?
I find asking is a much better way to navigate conversations and it has been an invaluable tool for me.
May you all continue to fertilize and water the soil to raise up sturdy, meaningful conversations.
Hi Nancy,
Thanks for your question. Perhaps something like, “Can you tell me more about how you came to believe________?” Or what about, “Have you ever had a different point of view? And if so, what changed your perspective?” Answers to those questions might reveal a great deal about someone’s perspective on concepts from the map.
Hey Julie, great post!
Your key takeaway is: “The right questions, carefully applied, can lead people to change their own minds. It took time, and we are still clumsy, but we did learn to ask instead of tell. I hope to continue fertilizing the soil that may someday lead my daughter back to the God behind good, on which we both agree.” First, because you have a sales background (I still do), we both know that questions are the key to change—not trying to force something. Second – I used this in a post as well, but I thought it pertinent for this as well. I just had a long chat with a man who is way overzealous about trying to save people. Very much in your face, which I hate. He was complaining because his daughter wouldn’t listen to him or see the light. I told him to walk alongside her, not preach at her. Sounds like that is what you are doing. So here is my deal with you. I will pray for your daughter and her journey back to the Lord, and will ask that you will pray for my daughter Kelly who has not talked to me in about 11 years now, and I don’t know why. I live in eternal hope that we both serve a God of restoration and I will hope and pray that God will answer our prayers 🙂
Hi Chris,
I am honored to add Kelly’s name to the list of daughters I pray for besides my own. Let’s agree to just keeping ourselves available to whatever open doors come our way.
Amen and amen! thanks Julie!
Hi Julie, I agree with you concerning the challenge of using Petrusek’s concentric circle map in everyday life. I can envision myself getting lost somewhere in the ontological and anthropology rings. I also agree that asking clarifying questions is extremely important. It can be challenging to do this sincerely when the person is defending information that makes your mind feel it’s about to combust. When having tense family discussions, have you recognized patterns that allow you to locate the source of disagreement?
Hi Elysse, Thanks for your question. Reflecting on conversations with cousins, a friend-of-a-friend, and a couple of others who are not believers…it seems like the source is personal experience or repeating something from the media – would we classify that as epistemological? How do we know what we know? I suspect that with more skill a person could move further out on the map and locate actual agreement at a more foundational level.