End the Stalemate: Move Past Cancel Culture to Meaningful Conversations

Introduction

Differences of opinion have always been part of life. Spouses, family members, coworkers, neighbors, and even church members have always had spirited conversations about politics, theology, social issues, and even sports. When college students were asked to keep a journal of how many arguments they’d had with friends in a week, the average was seven. A leading expert in family communication recorded dinnertime conversations of fifty-two families and identified an average of 3.3 occurrences of disagreements or arguments during every meal. Some research finds that competition, differences of opinion, and even conflict can enhance a relationship.

There are two interesting facts about the studies you’ve just read about. First, while the individuals in these studies had regular disagreements, they continued to talk. They may not have liked what a friend or coworker said, but they didn’t sever ties. Second, the studies were all done between 1987 and 2011.[1] How times have changed.

In today’s argument culture, we handle disagreements differently. Consider these sobering trends:

Since the 2016 presidential election, nearly a third of people report they have stopped talking to a friend or a family member due to political disagreements.[2]

Nearly two-thirds of Americans say they stay quiet about their political beliefs due to the fear of offending coworkers or managers, resulting in losing their job. They have good reason to worry. In the same study, nearly 31 percent of respondents favored firing business executives if it became known they donated to the Trump campaign, and 22 percent if to Biden.[3]

In a comprehensive survey of college students, a large number of students believe it is acceptable to act—including resorting to violence—to shut down expression of opinions they consider offensive.[4]

A nationally syndicated cartoonist argues it’s okay to be white and labels Black people as a hate group. The solution? It’s time Blacks and whites permanently separate.[5]

A member of Congress argues differences are too great between Americans and calls for a national divorce.[6]

Sadly, there’s evidence that silencing and division have affected the church:

Practicing Christians (47 percent) fear being shamed for expressing religious beliefs and thus are afraid to speak up.[7]

When surveyed, 42 percent of pastors have seriously considered quitting. When asked why, a top answer is bitter division within the church, where factions believe the congregation would be better off without the other group.[8]

What’s happened? Why have we decided to cancel each other or separate rather than talk? It’s not that the past was some idyllic time where no relationships were severed, but it seems there was a different attitude. Could it be that what changed is we are angrier? According to Harvard researcher Arthur Brooks, We don’t have an anger problem in American politics. We have a contempt problem.[9] Brooks has spent years researching and interviewing experts trying to answer the what happened question. His answer is that recently contempt has entered our communication, which he describes as anger mixed with disgust. What’s the difference between anger and contempt? As the older studies indicate, we can be angry or disagree with a spouse, coworker, or church member but still want to protect the relationship. Families may not see eye to eye at the dinner table, but they still eat dinner together. Contempt is saying not only I am angry but also "I no longer care if the relationship ends. I’ll state my position and then shake the dust off my feet as I leave."

It’s important to note that the sobering facts you’ve just read don’t mean we are no longer talking. Ironically, we are talking more than ever. In fact, researchers have coined a term—talkaholism—to describe our propensity for extreme overtalking.[10] The problem is, we are only talking to people with whom we already agree, our insulated in-group. Those outside the group have been mocked online or excluded altogether.

AN ALTERNATIVE

What if you don’t want to end the relationship? The person with whom you disagree is a family member or boss, and you can’t simply end it. Yes, you want to share your views, but you don’t want to ruin the relationship. And you don’t want to isolate from those with differing opinions; you just want to end the uneasy stalemate that keeps you fearful or silent. What now?

Three areas provide hope. First, you are not alone in wanting to both speak your mind and preserve the relationship. Scholars have identified an exhausted majority who are tired of canceling or shouting down each other. They want to find productive ways to engage that don’t ignore differences but rather seek to address them with charity. Second, communication experts provide invaluable insight into what derails our conversations. They note that we mistakenly think of communication as existing on merely the content level (our convictions, beliefs, and opinions). For sure, what we believe is an important part of who we are and what we value. However, communication also exists on the relational level (amount of respect, compassion, and empathy between people). Here’s the key insight: if you violate the relational level, then people don’t care about your content.

Last, the balance between the content and relational level was articulated long before being noticed by communication gurus. The apostle Paul asserts we should always speak truth (content) with love (relational) to those inside and outside the church (see Ephesians 4:15). Peter commands all of us to be ready to give an explanation of what we believe (content) but to root it in the relational, which will be evidenced by a gentle and respectful answer (1 Peter 3:15-16).

Today’s argument culture provides Christian communicators an opportunity to model how to hold firm to convictions while still engaging others with compassion, empathy, and perspective-taking—ideas that form the bulk of this book. Paul informs believers at Philippi that if they set aside arguing and an overly critical spirit, they will shine like bright lights in a broken world (Philippians 2:14-15). Sadly, we may be missing this opportunity to be different. Remember, one of the top reasons pastors want to quit is observing how bitterly divided fellow Christ followers have become.

We hope End the Stalemate will provide a blueprint not for avoiding conflict but for approaching difficult conversations by speaking truth in love. Here are several features of this book we think you’ll find helpful:

Readers will be exposed not only to communication insights that explore how we can better approach differences, but also to how these insights are powerfully undergirded by biblical truth.

The authors are not merely educators but practitioners. We have traveled to high schools, universities, and organizations in the United States and abroad engaging diverse perspectives. Sean is the host of a popular YouTube channel where he interacts with atheists, liberal Christians, and those who have walked away from the faith.[11] Tim cohosts the Winsome Conviction podcast designed to explore divergent views inside and outside the church.[12] You’ll read both the successes and failures that have shaped our approach to communication.

We focus on spiritual formation. We aren’t called to merely tolerate our neighbors but to love them as expressed in the second great commandment (see Matthew 22:39-40). End the Stalemate takes seriously this command and provides ways to address our communication at the heart level. What you say, asserts Jesus, flows from what is in your heart (Luke 6:45).

There are many ways to cowrite a book. Sometimes authors hire a ghostwriter, and sometimes one of the authors carries most of the load. For this book, we decided to split up the chapters so you know exactly who is speaking. While we maintain continuity through the book, this will allow you to recognize our individual voices.

There are two chapters at the end of the book in which we ask one another tough questions from each other’s chapters. We even flesh out our differences on the use of preferred gender pronouns. But don’t skip ahead! The earlier chapters lay vital groundwork.

You have access to the End the Stalemate interactive website (endthestalemate.com). Where can you go to practice addressing potentially explosive issues without the risk of damaging a relationship? After all, once you have a conversation, you can’t take it back. This website gives you a safe place to explore complex issues and also allows you to engage in perspective-taking exercises.

GETTING STARTED

I am so tired of waiting, / Aren’t you, / For the world to become good / And beautiful and kind? These words, written by poet Langston Hughes, express the weariness many of us feel in today’s divisive world. We long for communication to be kinder. While they could easily apply to our current communication climate, they were penned at the height of the racial tension and segregation of the 1930s. Hughes’s solution was to advocate for a type of collective introspection as we cut open our world to see what worms are eating / At the rind.[13] That’s good advice for today. How did we arrive at the conclusion that no longer talking is the best option? What current worms are eating away at civility and community? Our journey begins by considering the perfect storm that gave rise to our disagreements, how it’s influenced our approach to communication, and how we, as Christ followers, can hold to our convictions yet productively engage others.

We applaud Hughes’s call for introspection and the insight it would certainly yield. Understanding the social factors that shape us is key if we want to make lasting change. Yet, as Christian communicators, we place our ultimate confidence in a wisdom from above that is peace loving, gentle at all times, and willing to yield to others (James 3:17). With the Spirit to guide us and with communication strategies rooted in the Scriptures, let’s adopt Paul’s confidence that despite extreme differences and the desire to pull away from each other, God is able through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think (Ephesians 3:20).

[1] In order, Rachel M. Reznik and Michael E. Roloff, Getting Off to a Bad Start: The Relationship between Communication during an Initial Episode of a Serial Argument and Argument Frequency, Communication Studies 62, no. 3 (2011): 291–306; Samuel Vuchinich, Starting and Stopping Spontaneous Family Conflicts, Journal of Marriage and Family 49, no. 3 (August 1987): 591–601; Susan J. Messman and Rebecca L. Mikesell, Competition and Interpersonal Conflict in Dating Relationships, Communication Reports 13, no. 1 (2000): 21–34.

[2] Jeremy W. Peters, In a Divided Era, One Thing Seems to Unite: Political Anger, New York Times, August 17, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/17/us/politics/political-fights.html?smid=url-share.

[3] Emily Ekins, Poll: 62 Percent of Americans Say They Have Political Views They’re Afraid to Share, Cato Institute, July 22, 2020, www.cato.org/survey-reports/poll-62-americans-say-they-have-political-views-theyre-afraid-share.

[4] John Villasenor, Views among College Students Regarding the First Amendment: Results from a New Survey, Brookings Institution, September 18, 2017, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2017/09/18/views-among-college-students-regarding-the-first-amendment-results-from-a-new-survey/.

[5] Mandalit del Barco, Distributor, Newspapers Drop ‘Dilbert’ Comic Strip after Creator’s Racist Rant, NPR, February 27, 2023, https://www.npr.org/2023/02/26/1159580425/newspapers-have-dropped-the-dilbert-comic-strip-after-a-racist-rant-by-its-creat.

[6] Shannon Pettypiece, Marjorie Taylor Greene Calls for a ‘National Divorce’ between Liberal and Conservative States, NBC News, February 20, 2023, https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/marjorie-taylor-greene-calls-national-divorce-liberal-conservative-sta-rcna71464.

[7] Spiritual Conversations in the Digital Age: How Christians’ Approach to Sharing Their Faith Has Changed in 25 Years (Ventura, CA: Barna Group, 2018), 10.

[8] Ashleigh Banfield, Losing the Faith: The Great ‘Pastor Resignation,’ NewsNation, September 4, 2022, https://www.newsnationnow.com/banfield/losing-the-faith-the-great-pastor-resignation/.

[9] Arthur C. Brooks, Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt (New York: Broadside Books, 2019), 11.

[10] Dan Lyons, Talking Less Will Get You More Time, January 19, 2023, https://time.com/6248092/talking-less-will-get-you-more/.

[11] You can find Sean’s YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/@SeanMcDowell.

[12] You can find Tim’s podcast at the Winsome Conviction Project, Winsomeconviction.com.

[13] Langston Hughes, Tired, in The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, ed. Arnold Rampersad and David Roessel (New York: Vintage Books, 1995), 135.

Section 1

Setting the Stage

We are about to explore how to engage the perspectives of people with whom we disagree. This can often lead us to think or say things like "How in the world did they come to that conclusion? I don’t get how we both read the same Bible yet come up with different convictions. We can’t even agree on the facts surrounding this issue! I don’t mean to offend, but your take on things seems crazy!" When engaging viewpoints that differ from or are contradictory to our own, perhaps the place to start is understanding how people come to create their worldview. What factors have shaped how we see the people and issues around us? Is there more than one way to communicate? Most importantly, how can we temporarily enter someone else’s view to gain understanding and perhaps empathy?

1

Divided and Angry:

How Did We Get Here?

Sean

In 1991, the Andrea Gail disappeared off the coast of Canada’s Grand Banks. The fishing vessel was in its fortieth day of an extended commercial swordfishing venture when three massive storms coalesced to form a megastorm with waves as high as 100 feet and winds reaching ninety-two miles per hour. The six-man crew never made it home.[1] The Perfect Storm movie was made in 2000 to chronicle the tragedy.

According to Merriam-Webster, a perfect storm is a critical or disastrous situation created by a powerful concurrence of factors.[2] Similar to the physical storm that sank the Andrea Gail, our culture is experiencing a perfect storm of cultural factors that foster anger and division.

Think about it: If you were going to describe American culture today, what words might you use? While there are undoubtedly some remarkable things about America that we cherish, words like angry and divided would likely come to mind. We see it in the news. We see it on social media. We encounter it at work. We experience it in our personal lives. There is little doubt that our culture is increasingly angry and divided. Angry American seems to be a real phenomenon in our personal lives and in the broader culture.

As the anger and division increase, our ability to understand and engage one another decreases. As a result, we struggle to have meaningful dialogue and relationships with people who see the world differently. And the division grows wider.

The first step to changing today’s toxic communication climate—and to learning how to meaningfully engage our neighbors—is to understand how we got here. How have we become so angry? Why are we so divided? Once we understand the storms that contribute to our angry and divided culture, then we can begin to explore the tools that will help us end the stalemate and engage one another meaningfully. While we will consider four individual storms, don’t lose track of their collective force.

STORM #1: PEOPLE ARE HURTING

Loneliness. Depression. Anxiety. Stress. Fatherlessness. Divorce. It’s no secret that people are emotionally and relationally hurting today. And this is true both inside and outside the church.

In iGen, one of the first books written about Generation Z (those born between 1995 and 2012), psychology professor Jean Twenge describes a generation on the precipice of the greatest mental health crisis in decades. She describes how this generation looks happy online, but if we peer under the surface, they are on the verge of the most severe mental health crisis for young people in decades.[3]

Twenge wrote this book before the COVID-19 pandemic.

While the pandemic certainly didn’t cause the current mental health crisis, it undoubtedly exacerbated it. Over the past few years, as I’ve traveled and spoken, I have heard a common theme from youth pastors, camp directors, high school principals, and other leaders who work closely with students: young people today are experiencing a mental health crisis unlike any recent generation. And the data backs this up. One study found that 42 percent have a diagnosed mental health condition.[4] In another study, 42 percent of high school students felt so sad or hopeless daily for at least two weeks in a row that they stopped normal activities.[5] According to the CDC, while the increase in depression has been particularly steep for girls, this trend cuts across racial demographics.[6]

And yet the mental health crisis is not just among young people today. Loneliness, depression, anxiety, and other mental health issues affect all generations. Whether personally or with those we love, mental health concerns touch each one of us. There is also a relational health crisis. Divorce. Fatherlessness. Rampant pornography. All of these negatively affect our ability to be in healthy relationships with one another.

How does this contribute to the anger and division in our culture? This famous aphorism perhaps captures it best: Hurt people hurt people.[7] When people are hurting relationally or emotionally, it is natural for them to react from that hurt and (intentionally or not) act in a way that can hurt others. When we are in an unhealthy emotional state, or in an unhealthy relational state, we are at a disadvantage to truly love others. Why? When our own needs aren’t being met, we lack the strength to focus sacrificially on caring for others. It is difficult to love others when we have our own emotional and relational deficits.

Jesus said that the greatest commandment is to love God and the second is to love your neighbor as yourself (Mark 12:31). The apostle Paul commanded husbands to "love their wives