By Jared Andersen

This post was prompted by the following question: How can those who have experienced a feminist “awakening” (for lack of a better term) communicate with those who have not? How can a feminist or skeptic express the harm they see in culture to those who feel happy and fulfilled as things are? Part of the answer, I believe, lies in valuing difference. The other part involves openness to alternatives. Because ethics—and decisions involving well-being—are all about options. Problem is, talking with someone who disagrees with you carries complication and consequence.

First, complications. Different worldviews divide more profoundly than different languages. How do we define good? Bad? Right? Wrong? Worthwhile? Harmful? And our psychology and anthropology do us no favors here. Our brains make us care about being right more than discovering what is right. Drawing lines between “us” and “them” seems inescapably hardwired into us. So given these limitations and obstacles, how do we make the best decisions for ourselves? How do we interact with those around us? And most challenging, how do we engage with communities and institutions when investment runs high?

I affirm the value of multiple perspectives and approaches. The “body of Christ” imagery teaches that we need each other in our differences, our complementary strengths and weaknesses, values and insights. Even more fundamentally, as different people we have different needs. How easily we forget, blind to horizons we ourselves have not approached, numb to needs we ourselves do not feel. One area where we can improve as online communities is to convert the monikers “liberal” and “conservative” to descriptions rather than judgments.

We need to own the reality that when we attempt to surmount ideological barriers, one of three things is likely to happen.

1) We continue to hurt, abrade, and offend in the process of trying to convince each other (I know, that is something completely foreign to online discourse).

2) We come to a point where we agree to disagree, affirming each other’s individuality and the value of other perspectives.

3) We are transformed through our engagement.

Now, option three is the “best answer” right? With option two merely a make do, consolation prize? Transformation good!

Not necessarily. It depends on who you are, and what you value. Though some degree of influence is unavoidable, change cannot be forced. When it comes to fundamentals of worldviews such as religion and identify, we cannot change without destroying as well. Jonathan Haidt has provided a useful framework for understanding liberal and conservative values. He suggests that there are five “taste buds” to the first draft of our moral mind: Harm, fairness, group loyalty, authority, and purity. The kicker is, liberals care mostly about the first two (minimize harm and life should be fair), while conservatives care about all five. Well, does that make conservatives better? Not necessarily. One way to sum up these differing values is that liberals are willing to sacrifice stability for fairness, while conservatives are willing to sacrifice fairness for stability. Conservatives risk not changing enough; liberals risk attempting change ineffectively or even harmfully. There is no easy answer. We need both perspectives.

Pants and prayer have become not only causes but lines in the sand and frames of reference. And sadly, sources of fracture and even hatred, as unbelievable as that should be. Though I fervently support the need for change in the Church, I am concerned about how we come to those changes. In a recent post on Peculiar People, Rachael brings up several points important to consider.

”Community “responsible for so much of the cultural codes and excess baggage we would do well to shrug off, is also the source of our profoundest spiritual growth and fulfillment… salvation is relational; [our] own growth and happiness is contingent, in so many ways, on how much charity and mercy [we] extend to other people.”

“Community has an element of order—rather than the organic nature of a circle of friends or the spontaneity of a neighborhood party. There are vertical lines of hierarchy that intersect with horizontal lines of brotherhood and sisterhood.”

And her words that struck me the most: “I just don’t think an adversarial approach works in a community that rests on trust more than rights, on shared weakness more than merit.”

When it comes time to be counted, I stand with the protesters. We cannot sit still when harm is being done. At the same time, I think agitation for change will be most effective when thoughtful concerns and alternatives are presented, and this is why I took Rachael’s words to heart.

And now we come to consequences. In addition to the challenge of communicating across chasms of thought and value, we face the real issue of defining and confronting harm. And this is where alternatives comes in.

We are bound by the blinders of our own worldview. Condemning “the other” comes easily. But what justifies injustices and atrocities? “Because this is what God wants” and perhaps most familiar, “This is just the way things are. The way things have to be.” When it comes to our own traditions and beliefs, familiarity too often blinds us. When we only know or consider one way of understanding the world, we can’t accurately evaluate what is right, good, or even our own well-being. As Goethe said about language and Max Muller said about religion, “if we know one, we know none.”

This ignorance and unawareness brings highest consequence. Both social and religious status quo rely upon truth claims. We can look at how religion functions without judging whether a particular religion is true or not. And one function of religion is to place the authority of God behind the status quo. This isn’t just the way culture dictates how we must live–it is the command of God! It is part of the eternal order. This point brings us to feminism and the issue of feminist awakenings and religious faith crises. God promises land to those able to take it. God commands “chosen people” to conquer, enslave, and of course convert. I would place the teachings of gender essentialism and male privilege in these same categories.

So how can we escape the prison of our preconceptions and judgments, the barriers of our own perspectives? I would propose two ways. First, we can practice opening ourselves to possibilities previously unconsidered. We can ask, What if I am wrong? What if there is a better way? Second, we can learn from others, seek to understand why they feel and act as they do instead of dismissing the unfamiliar.

I would submit we can’t make a moral decision until we open ourselves to alternatives. Not ideal decisions anyway. Even if we are confident in our beliefs and decisions, a powerful exercise is to ask: If reality turns out to be different than I believe, would I still make the same decisions? Problematically, religion promises joy and fulfillment in the afterlife. “No matter how bad things are here,” believers console us, “God will work out everything in the next life.” This is a comforting idea, so what is the problem? The problem is that these promises of afterlife blessings demand very real costs and sacrifices in this life. If we take seriously the possibility this life might be all we have, that life becomes infinitely more precious. Thus the Humanist aphorism, “We believe in life before death.” I am not saying we need to deny our faith–but at minimum, we can acknowledge that however sure we feel about the hereafter, we are more sure that we exist now! Thus I hold that the demands of religion must pay off here and now as well as in the hereafter. Education is a powerful force because it teaches that the way things are is not the way they need to be. How urgent is this message when religion also functions to sacralize the status quo, putting God’s will behind power imbalances.

Second, others can help us transcend or at least expand our limited perceptions. The humility and awareness of limitations found in academia and science at its best inspires me. Peer reviewed research says in effect “I have done my best to determine what is correct and useful. Please check my work, show me where I am wrong, and tell me what I can do better.” Being an academic is never being done with homework.

And thus we return to conversations about religion and feminism. Some discussions will never become productive, some minds never opened. But we can appeal to those close to us to try to understand where we are coming from, and we can try to do the same with them. We can ask, “is it possible this other perspective is true or helpful? Could this improve my life?” We can learn from each other, overcome the “natural man” or “natural woman” who loves the self above all else, and wants to be right more than to know what is right. At the same time, we can value others as they are rather than fashioning them into reflective shrines to our own opinions. This is what the “body of Christ” means to me–that we realize we are limited by ourselves, and that we need each other. We need each other to see, to understand, and to love more perfectly. And in a paradox of humility and meekness, the more open we are to being wrong, the closer to the truth together we will come.

Jared Anderson teaches Religion courses at Westminster College and the University of Utah while he finishes up his PhD at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is active in the online LDS community and currently runs the podcast Mormon Sunday School

