Seeing Eye To Eye

OK, Dave, so we're living in a culture that's more divided than it's ever been.

Oh, yeah. Are you surprised by that? Yeah, in some ways. I think one of my surprises would be the division in the church.

And the hostility toward one another, I think, is what's been surprising to me. I mean, we've seen it in our own family. Where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Ann Wilson. And I'm Dave Wilson. And you can find us at familylifetoday.com or on our Family Life app. This is Family Life Today. I don't think there'd be unity on most things.

That's a naive assumption. But, you know, so it's like we need direction. We need guidance.

We need some smart people to help us understand. Some men that have their doctorates. Yeah, like Ph.D.s. Have we ever had two Ph.D.s in the studio besides ourselves?

I can hardly contain my joy and anticipation. Have we got our Ph.D.s yet? No. I heard they just give them out to anybody. No, the truth is, Ph.D.s are not honorary, right? And we've got Tim Muehlhoff and Rick Langer in our studio. And by the way, you guys are laughing over there. But I mean, to do the work you've done to get a Ph.D. is a real deal. Our wives can attest to that. A wives can attest, yeah. So we are really in the presence of some real wisdom. I mean, we've been teasing about that, but we appreciate what you've done.

You've written a book called Winsome Conviction. Yeah, so welcome to Family Life Today. Well, it is great to be here. Thanks so much for letting us come and join you.

Yeah, you flew all the way here from sunny California. We did. Right? And this book, I love the subtitle, Disagreeing Without Dividing the Church. So we get to talk about that and especially even dividing our families in our home. So Tim and Noreen have been speakers on the Family Life Weekend to Remember team for what, 20? Almost 27 years. 27 years. We started speaking when we didn't know anything about marriage. So do we.

We are right on the same page with you. How long have you spoken for Family Life? 31 years. Hey, Tim, this is our interview. Oh, sorry.

Just in case you're wondering. Why do you think conflict within the church is so? We'll get to that. But both of you guys are at Biola, which, you know, Tim had us come out a few years ago and through your marriage in, what do you call it, the marriage center? The Center for Marriage and Relationship.

And Rick's out there as well. You're in biblical studies? That's your degree in theology? So my PhD is in philosophy, but I was a pastor for 20 years. I have a background in theology as well. And so about 15 years ago, I went from a pastor to being a professor at Biola and deal with the integration of faith and learning, how our faith intersects kind of the best of human learning.

It's a great thing to do at a university. And how did you guys come together to write this book? You know, we did a lot of things together actually just at Biola. So you like each other, huh? Well, we wrote a book on conflict based on experience.

What can you say? No, Tim and I worked a lot with doing classes and things like that. We co-taught various classes.

And one of the things that we really enjoyed was thinking through some of the challenges we faced. And we wrote an earlier book called Winsome Persuasion about how we communicate to the non-Christian world about Christian conviction. Coming out of that, we were talking to people as we were talking about the book and people saying, yeah, you know, this isn't a problem. It's just out there.

This is a problem within the church. And that's what got us thinking about this follow-up book called Winsome Conviction. Yeah. Well, let's talk about that.

I mean, even the title tells you a lot. Winsome Conviction. So define that a little bit like convictions, winsome, how do we do it? Because in some ways that's where we get in trouble, right? We have a conviction and we end up in a fight. We're not always winsome.

Yeah. And, you know, Americans feel this. A national survey was done last year, 98 percent of Americans, think about that, at a time we don't agree on anything. Ninety-eight percent of Americans will say incivility is a problem in our country. Sixty-eight percent say it's at crisis levels.

And 42 percent say I do not feel safe sharing my perspective about politics, immigration, whatever, publicly. Now, we all hear that and say, well, of course, when non-Christians talk, yeah, of course incivility is going to be a big issue, but it has absolutely come into the church. Oh, yeah. I know a Christian who loves the Lord, is in full-time Christian ministry, and we had to hang up on the phone because it just got heated and we finally just agreed to cut it off, which is a good, you know, technique we know in marriage is let's call a time out.

Yeah. And we needed to do that. But that's why we wrote the book. And Rick's been a pastor for 20 years. You know, you guys, your work in the church.

I was an interim teaching pastor for two years at two different churches, and I got a chance to dip my big toe in it. And I was shocked, Dave, just like you, not that the arguments would be there, but the intensity. And I'm not even talking to you anymore when we cross paths going into church. And we've got to address that. Right. And what we've experienced, and it's what you're just saying, is there are topics that we don't bring up in our family. I mean, seriously.

You just avoid them. Oh, absolutely. And it's because it's like we're going to hang up the phone or we're going to have to walk out of the room because we've gone there enough times to know it doesn't end well. And so when I pick up your book, Winsome Conviction, I'm like, maybe we're doing this wrong. Maybe we're not winsome. Maybe it's, you know, of course we think it's their fault. It's got to be their fault. But maybe it's our fault.

So help us understand that, because that is too common. We're hanging up the phone. We're slamming down our fists. We're walking out of the room, not just in the workplace, but in our churches and in our homes. And let's just say this, the social media today. Oh, totally. I mean, we are just attacking one another and the church is attacking one another.

And it's like, what's the solution? Well, let me begin by just pointing out, we come up with a lot of things that we look at Christians doing badly and we're just like the world. So we'll talk about this with divorce or with premarital sex in our teenagers or whatever, like, oh, it shouldn't be this way. The interesting thing with our quarrels about convictions is in some ways I think Christians actually have a bigger challenge when it comes to convictions in the non-Christian world. And let me explain, especially between Christians.

Here's the deal. A non-Christian who's thinking of their convictions says, well, what do I think about this? And they might read this book or that book. And basically you develop your conviction to please yourself, not to necessarily make you happy, but just to what you find to be reasonable, good and right. To make sense of everything.

To make sense of the world. And I'm the end of that. I can decide.

You are the court of appeal that it goes to. So a Christian decides to form a conviction. And honestly, I don't care what I think. I care what Jesus thinks. So I have inconvenient convictions, convictions I don't like particularly.

Oh, that's a good way to say it. I believe in hell. But I'm like, look, I don't really have a choice. And there's all kinds of things I read in the Bible that I wouldn't have thought up.

Many of them over the course of years I've learned to treasure. I realize, oh, that was a problem that I couldn't have thought that up. But it doesn't change the fact that I'm looking to please Jesus. So if you have the audacity to have a different conviction than I do, what you're really telling me is not you disagree with my conviction, but you disagree with my vision of Jesus. You're telling me I got my God whom I worship wrong.

Well, how's that going to go over? And so you realize, man, this upscales significantly. And we do the same thing biblically because we're appealing not just to a book, but the book. A book of absolutes. So you read your Bible and think that we should care for the poor. I read my Bible and think that we should be preaching the gospel to tribes across the world. And suddenly we see these things differently. And it's like, oh, but if you're telling me the Bible says that and I'm telling you it says something different, one of the other verses is a false prophet.

So you can just see the whole thing ramping up. And my observation is this isn't an indictment of Christians. This is an observation about the way we navigate these things. But it makes it way harder to have a disagreement about our convictions.

Yeah, so that's reality. I mean, we're holding on our heads going, oh, yeah, oh, yeah. And we do have the book and all of us hold it in high esteem.

So we want to honor the truth in that book. So what do we do? You've described the problem. You know, so here we are.

We're sitting at a dinner table. We find a person with a Ph.D. in communication to solve it for you. So you know how you have these marital disagreements?

We haven't ever had one, Tim, but I'm sure you and Noreen have. Yes, sorry. And you just go, wait a minute, that is not what I said. I just, no, you said that.

Or I said it, but that's not what I meant. Two Christians can go to the exact same passage. Let's take Romans 9, 10, and 11, some of the most controversial chapters of the New Testament because it deals with sovereignty, predestination, words like that. You can have two scholars who know their Greek better than you can ever imagine. They will both look at 9, 10, 11 and say, Paul actually means the exact opposite of what you're saying.

And the Greek does not mean what you say it means or you're using it in a way that I totally disagree with. So now you both look at the same passage and you're like, we're speaking an alien language because Paul did not mean that. That's what's so hard when it's families because you both are quoting the Bible, which we used to think is like a mic drop, right? Hey, I'm going to quote a passage.

Boom. But when it's your spouse, child, coworker and they go, yeah, my Jesus doesn't believe in that. That's when it gets hard. So one of the things we're going to have to do is we're going to have to affirm their relationship. We're going to have to step back and say, listen, we're a married couple and we seek first Jesus's kingdom.

We're committed to Jesus's purposes. Now, what we're doing is probably ranking these differently is where the tension is going to be. So I do think it's important to step back and say, hey, we really do like each other as coworkers.

I love you as my son or daughter. We're just having a bona fide disagreement. And we think at the Winsome Conviction Project, that's not always bad to have what, Rick, why don't you describe a little bit where you say an authentic disagreement?

Yeah. One of the biggest problems we have in these sorts of areas is the failure to actually achieve disagreement because we don't really understand what the other person is saying. And until I can articulate it in a way that you nod your head and say, yep, that's it.

And also you've captured my feeling about it. You know, if I'm all charged about it and you give me this flat statement of it, it's like, no, you haven't gotten it. So can I actually articulate the viewpoint of a person who I do not hold in a way that they say, yeah, you understand? And I tell people, look, until you can do that, you haven't actually disagreed because you don't know what they think. And you can't disagree if you don't know what they're thinking. So make the effort to actually understand that that involves listening. Often the hardest part is actually empathizing. People on the opposite side of these contentious issues, you have a hard time wanting to feel what they're feeling. What you find them feeling is unsavory to you.

Well, I was going to say, because you could be listening and I've heard a lot of people, I could say something and they'll say, well, that's stupid. Right. Yeah. So listening doesn't solve it, right? Exactly. And then you feel rejected, so you pull back and then that animosity builds up. See, that's the winsome part.

That's what we mean by winsome. So communication is always on two levels, not one. There's the content, which would be, that's my interpreting Jesus this way.

My content is I vote this direction. But the relational level is the amount of respect between two individuals, the amount of acknowledgement and the amount of compassion. When Deborah Tannen, a Georgetown linguist, describes today as the argument culture, she's mostly saying we failed on the relational level. Americans have always disagreed with each other.

The church has always had disagreements. She feels like it's a failure of acknowledgement, compassion, empathy, because you're right. And people respond like, well, that's stupid or you got to vote or you have to do this. And it's like, well, no, I don't have to do anything. And that's where the tension comes in. So we want to slow people down, give them a speed bump. So we work with a large Christian high school in California to help teachers know how to talk about the upcoming election.

This was before the election, how to talk about it with themselves and with students. So we came up with a four step method and as we would really get going, you know, one guy said to me, can I just say what I want to say? And it's like, yes, but you got to do these four steps. Well, that's interesting because in marriage, people say the same thing. My friend used to say to me, I just want to I don't want to have to just put it in this beautiful little package.

I'm like, well, you don't have to, but you're going to suffer the consequences if you just let it all out. And you're saying this is true in conflict. And there's a ton of biblical warrant. I mean, think about Paul. Paul says, speak the truth. Content. Do it in love. Peter says, yes, I want you to be ready to give a reason for the hope that is in you. Content.

Do it with all gentleness and reverence. Wow. I think that's fascinating. So you see content relational everywhere in the themes of the New Testament.

I want to get to the four steps of the book, but I also want to make one comment that is so genius of you guys. I mean, you know this because, you know, you're geniuses, but it's like these guys. This is just simple because when you're talking about listening, empathy, restating to me, to my satisfaction that you heard me and you understand me, that's relationship. Oh, yeah. You know, I mean, when that happens, even when a person does that and it could be your spouse, because everything you said is like, oh, does that have to happen in the family room with your spouse every day and your kids?

Yeah. But when my wife or my kid or when I can restate and the person's nodding, something happens there where you're like, OK, I trust you. You cared enough to listen well. You're even capturing my emotion.

You don't agree, but you've captured it. OK, we have a relationship that's building. It could be a total stranger, but something just right. I'm starting to trust you.

And now we can go somewhere. But if you don't do that, it's the relationship's not there. And now we're both sort of isolated walking away.

But anyway, that's just a comment, because I'm thinking there's couples right now that are estranged. And part of it is your spouse feels like you never really listened. Or you could say the words back to them, but you never captured how... And it could be their tone. Like, so you're saying that, you know... And you know why she's doing that? Because she's seen me do that a thousand times.

She even did my look. That's the problem, right? Within a marriage, they know all of your tells. So they know that, oh, that's Dave's funny little smile when he's saying, I don't believe a single word you're saying, you know? And I wouldn't know that.

I don't know that about Dave, but Ann could clear that up in a heartbeat. So this is a challenge. And to do the thing, say, OK, I'm going to take a deep breath. I'm actually going to replay it. I'm going to replay it with feeling. And you said it perfectly, David. It's what rebuilds trust. You're like, OK, OK, now we can take the next step.

But until you take that first step, the other people are like, yeah, I'm done. I'm just not taking this trip. You know what my favorite tell is? You know what my tell is? I wish Noreen were here. So when Noreen's saying something, again, I teach communication. I know... Hey, Tim, you don't have to keep telling us that. We get it. You're good.

He's telling him something. I'm good at this. I'm good at this.

I know not to say to Noreen, honey, come on, that's just kind of ridiculous. Or can you just wrap this up? Because I'm about to rebut you.

I'm about to rebut your argument. I got the drop the mic moment. Here's what I do. I raise my glasses up. I squeeze my eye and I just say something. But you can't really understand. Like, I just... Tim, that's horrible. You know what I love about it, though, Ann?

It has perfect deniability. If Noreen goes, what did you just say? I said, I'm praying for you. I'm praying for us.

I'm just kind of praying. Noreen knows that's a tell, right? Like, oh, he just dismissed. He's not even... We use a great quote in the book. A Baptist said of an Episcopalian, I can't listen to you because of what I think you're about to say. Oh, wow, that's great.

Isn't that a great quote? So maybe we should talk about these four... And again, these four steps aren't revolutionary, but they were meant to be a speed bump before we talk about anything. Super simple.

So it's basically just say, hey, here's what I heard you say. Here's what I thought. Oh, is this number one? That's number one. I have my pen. Do you see me?

I love it. Write it down. Okay, structure. And you know what?

She really needs this, so give it to me. Okay, I'm ready. So first thing and just say it. Here's what I heard you saying. Second thing, what did I agree with? And almost always there should be some point of contact there. I won't get into quibbles about whether or not that's technically true or whatever.

I'm just saying, look, lean in. Third thing is what did you resonate with? And that's really interestingly different than what I agreed with. So, for example, a person might tell you about a story about their dad who came in as an immigrant and all the challenges he faced and all that. And they're making a case for open borders sorts of immigration policies.

Well, we might disagree with that policy, but you can still resonate with the feeling of what was it like for your dad to live in a country as a 13-year-old where he didn't speak the language and didn't have a place to belong. And you go, oh, so I resonate with that. And then you get to add your part. So first, let me play back what I heard. Second, here's what I agree with. Third, here's what I kind of resonated with, what struck me.

And then fourth, here's what I'd like to add to the conversation. And so we're doing this. It became the moderator.

We called it the speed bump. But what it really was was a self-moderation tool. And all that the people we kind of instantly appointed to be group leaders had to do is just in effect when the person said, I don't want to do this. I just want to respond, say, you can respond. We let you respond after you've said the other three things. And so it made them pause, opens up the opportunity for hearing. The other thing it does is a reflex response is very emotive. So this gives you a pause to let your reason kick in. And without that pause, you just, you flame. And this basically is a little regulator.

It turns down your pilot light so you don't ignite the gas quite so quickly. Yeah, and the thing about speed bumps for me, I hate them. Oh, yeah. You know, it's like when I see what I fly over. And the stuff's flying to the ceiling.

And Anne's like, what are you doing? I'm like, what's this, this speed bump? But the truth is, they're needed. They're needed. They protect the neighborhood. Yes.

They protect, like you said. Relationships. It's like, I don't always want to do this, but I need, so I'd like you to do this.

Apply the speed bump. I was going to say that. Okay, let her go. Like, will you give us an example? So let me, I'll do my position. I came out with this. And again, we should say this right away.

The views represented here do not necessarily represent those of Biola University. Or a family like that. Or a family like that. Or maybe they don't even represent you guys.

Maybe this is just ethereal. Oh no. I'm willing to go with one.

I'm willing to go with one. That got me into a lot of trouble. And you can do that because you're a doctor. Okay, so I did not vote for president. You voted, but not for president. I voted for the down ticket, all the props, all that kind of stuff. But when it came to president, I felt I was stewarding my vote by not giving it. Like, if you're too lazy to vote, shame on you. People died for your right to vote. But people died for my right to steward my vote. And I simply don't think that these two, this is just me, these two candidates, I just couldn't vote for either for different kind of reasons. And so I purposely offered a non-vote. Because to me, the narrative will never change if we just, well, I'm locked into two parties, I have to vote. No, you don't have to vote. You have to steward your vote.

So believe it or not, there's a bazillion people who disagree with that and actually have gotten mad at me. So Rick? So if Tim were to say that, let me just give my flame response. Oh, great. Random shot, Tim floats his spine and you go, Tim, if you don't vote, no one knows, your vote just simply vanishes. So it's great to say, hey, my rhetorical strategy is to withhold my vote, but no one knows that you withheld it. It's like saying, I'm not going to say this on Twitter and you don't even have a Twitter account. No one knows that you're not saying anything.

You've conveyed nothing. So that would tick me off. It would tick me off because it won the tone.

Did you notice that? Like, well, then you blah, blah, blah. And Rick and I are friends.

But if I got hit with that right out of the gates, that just won't work. Right. So let me wind it back.

Okay. Option two is say, okay, Tim, I think I hear what you're saying on this thing. And partly is you're frustrated because you feel like you can't vote for either of the two viable candidates we have. And presumably, if you'd voted for a third party, that's as good as wasting something. Or you're actually endorsing something you actually disagree with because you don't favor the third party either. So you're feeling trapped with this thing. And I kind of agree with you on that point.

I don't feel really comfortable with either of these candidates either. So I'm feeling that. And there's your resonating. You're resonating with him. The other thing I was going to say is that- Was the agreeing part. He's agreeing. I'm agreeing right now. And here's the thing, and I said, you know, honestly, Tim, I have lost sleep over this matter.

I have lost sleep over this. This really concerns me. So I hear you. But let me say what I'd like to add on this topic, is I understand that you just don't want to vote. But the bottom line is you know ahead of time one person or the other is going to become president. And why not at least make the effort to tip it in the direction of whomever you feel is best?

Because your silence just doesn't end up counting. So that's what I'm going to do. And I'm going to go ahead and vote for a candidate that I find less objectionable. Now, quick point on that is notice we have a vivid disagreement at the end. And this is why we don't just say winsome kumbaya is the name, but rather winsome conviction.

Because we do not want to do anything to dismantle conviction. If anything, I worry that we live in the whatever generation. And what you have done by creating a speed bump is you've taken the fists down because you're ready for a fight, but you've come at it with peace as a person of peace. And so the fists go down and you're willing to hear.

But it won't work if I ignore it. Now we're going to respond. This is a conversation, not a debate where it's timed and my response, your response. So I'm going to respond to what Rick just said. But if I toss out the method and just say, well, no, no, I totally disagree that my vote disappeared. Are you kidding me?

It did not disappear. Right now we're back to the argument culture. So I have to force myself to go speed bump, speed bump. Okay. Here's what I'm hearing you say.

Right. And then I do it. And then he throws the ball back to me. I throw it back to him and you just keep in this. Now we feel like it's learning how to play scales on a piano, but a good jazz musician at the end, he just plays.

So after a while, we hope that this becomes in a marriage with your kids. This is just the normal part. And now we can kind of mentally go through it instead of go, okay, one, I got to say what I said to resonate. Right.

Hopefully it becomes like jazz. Well, as I'm listening to you, I'm thinking, oh, it's the fruit of the spirit. It's Galatians. It's love. It's joy. It's peace, patience, kindness.

Like if we would apply these goodness, faithfulness and self-control. Yeah. I would just end with this. I can picture homes all around the country listening to this broadcast and having different conversations tonight in their family room. As parents say, here, let me teach my kids how to do a speed bump modeling of let's have a winsome conversation, not throw our convictions away and our really strong passionate beliefs, but now hold onto those and let's dialogue. I mean, that can change a marriage.

I mean, you just modeled, obviously, what the Bible would teach about how to resolve a conflict. It's like this, and it can be winsome. Doesn't mean it's not hard. Doesn't mean it might not get really ugly.

You might have to walk out of the room and go bring that speed bump back in and start over, right? I mean, that's where it's going to be. We've got to be honest. But, man, if couples are doing that, families are doing that, man, I have hope. You brought hope into this room. Way to go.

Seriously. Thank you, guys, for being with us today. Our pleasure.

I am thinking, maybe you are too, about conversations I've had in recent days where a speed bump would have helped slow things down, de-escalate a situation, have a more reasonable interaction and conversation. And that starts with us being committed to have a more winsome conversation. Tim Muehlhoff and Rick Langer have joined us today to talk about a book they've written called Winsome Conviction, Disagreeing Without Dividing the Church. And it's a book we've got in our Family Life Today Resource Center. You can go to our website, familylifetoday.com, to get more information about the book. You can order it from us online, or you can call to order, 1-800-FL-TODAY is our number.

Again, the title of the book is Winsome Conviction, Disagreeing Without Dividing the Church. Order it online at familylifetoday.com, or order by calling 1-800-358-6329. That's 1-800-F as in Family, L as in Life, and then the word TODAY. Our goal here at Family Life is to provide for you practical, biblical help and hope for your marriage and your family, conversations like the one we've listened to today.

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And thanks in advance for partnering with us and helping extend the reach of family life today to more and more people. And we hope you can join us again tomorrow. Rick Langer and Tim Muehlhoff will be here again. We're going to hear about what the Bible says in Romans 14 about how we can have personal convictions, but we need to be careful that we don't turn those into absolute truth for everybody. That's a tricky thing to manage, and we'll hear more about that tomorrow. I hope you can join us for that. On behalf of our hosts, Dave and Ann Wilson, I'm Bob Lapine. We'll see you back next time for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a production of Family Life, a crew ministry helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.