Religion

Grange is a 28-year-old employee of Enterprise Rent-A-Car (and a kick boxing coach) living in Salt Lake City, Utah. Having grown up the son of an Army officer and as a devout Mormon, his perspective on the strengths and weaknesses of the church and civic life were unique.

His good citizenship has limitations:

I have a pretty strong belief local elections are more important than national ones. But I’m a citizen of Colorado, not Utah, so I’m not as active as I could be. I often think I should move my citizenship to Utah so that I could be more involved in this community. On the other hand, my vote has more sway in Colorado, so I’ve left my vote there. It does impact my ability to be a good citizen, though.

His broad idea of citizenship:

Politics is a part of it. But citizenship is really about the impact you’re having on those around you.

How he thinks about political disagreement:

You can disagree with someone, but you can both be passionately helping the community.

I like to think about it this way. I feel passionately about helping the homeless population, so I put a little extra money into it every year. My family cares a lot about education, so they give a little extra to schools every year. Just because I want to support the homeless and they want to support education, just because we disagree with where we are putting our money, does that mean either of us has bad intentions? I don’t think so. We both want to help the community. We just have different ways of getting there.

How schools fail students:

A lot of time in schools we learn there are right answers and wrong answers. Students need to learn that people have different options, which is good so long as they’re thoughtful opinions.

What the Mormon church taught him:

The church attached a lot of importance to family and service. Growing up, I was a boy scout. At least one weekend a month I was volunteering. It instilled a sense of service, gave me good values. I’m still close with my family.

Why he left it:

For me, a big part of why I left related to wrestling with my sexuality. I’m gay, and there just weren’t a lot of options within the church. I explored the celibacy option. I told the church I wanted a family, but would go the celibacy route if I could work with the boy scouts or have a calling that worked with kids. I was told that because I had expressed feelings of attraction to men, I couldn’t do that. So for me, who grew up really valuing family because of the church, not being able to work with or have kids opened a lot of questions for me.

 He doesn’t think the church has an acceptance problem:

I do think the Mormon church is good right now about acceptance and embracing family members of the church. High members of the church are telling people not to shame kids and not to kick them out if they are gay. I don’t think that the church has a problem accepting. It just wasn’t the right fit for me.

His conflicted feelings about critiques of religion and religious people:

When I first left the church, I felt a lot of bitterness towards it. At first, it was easy to fall in with liberals who criticized the thing I was questioning. But it was hard. Most of my family is Mormon and LDS. I still think they’re great people, and I love them. Talking too negatively about the church bothers me because of that. While I agree with the critiques of the philosophy of Church, I had to draw a line when people began to say things like “all Mormons are crazy.”

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I had a chance to speak with Bob Driscoll, a former member of the Department of Justice during George W. Bush’s administration. Our conversation covered our duty to society, the limits of government, and what each side of the political aisle needs to learn. I also recommend reading an article he wrote on many of these topics for the New Boston Post.

What his family taught him:

My dad was a great citizen. My Grandad was a postman. My dad went to college on a military scholarship, then was in the Marines, and then became a lawyer. He asked us every night at dinner, “What are you going to do for society today?” He emphasized that it wasn’t about us. It was about the greater community. We did service at the church. My parents were active with setting up housing for Vietnamese refugees. There was always this notion that we had to be contributing something beyond our family unit.

He thinks American life has changed in the last twenty years:

Coming from a conservative perspective, I feel like because of maybe social media, or media saturation, people have lost any sense of limited government. Every problem today is a government problem. We place too much of our hopes in our federal leaders to fix our problems. That’s a cause of anxiety for both sides, depending on who’s in office. I read a piece from a psychologist that talked about how when we feel like we don’t control our lives, we are anxious. We have an outsized notion of any given impact that a federal leader has on them. People’s angst about their government is greater than the impact of the government itself.

I think what’s unique about the American experience is that we’re a society of negative rights, not positive rights. The Bill of Rights is a list of things the government cannot do to you. That’s good because it restrains government. But for others, it’s not enough. We don’t have a right to healthcare (at least legally speaking). People look to government to solve more problems, rather than the government setting the parameters by which government can solve your life.

How Democrats can improve as citizens:

People are so quick to go to motives these days. I think Democrats are, in general, a little bit quicker to do this. “If you don’t want gun control, you’re responsible for this shooting.” What I feel like saying is, “If someone calls you a baby killer, is that gonna make you pro-life?” Are you ever going to say, “I’ve never thought about it that way! Now that you put it that way, I’m going to change!” It’s the late night comedy phenomenon: everyone who disagrees with me is stupid.

How Republicans can improve:

Conservatives put things too simplistically sometimes. Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. Just because political correctness can bother you doesn’t mean you should be an a**hole. Pissing the right people off and being an a**hole has become a substitute for ideas. I’m halfway to the point that thinking that this is all about culture. I joked to a friend, “If Trump nationalized the energy industry overnight, no one would care so long as he tweeted something insulting about Rosie O’Donnell.”

What he thinks the average Democrat and Republican would say about one another:

It kind of depends what you mean by average. The average, meaning we randomly pick someone out of the phone book, you would think people of different political leanings are good citizens. In the real world, people aren’t that politically active, nor do they care that much about others’ politics.

But among politically active people, I don’t think they’d say people of the other side are good citizens at all. Republicans would say Democrats are f***ing communists who want the government controlling everything. And Democrats think all Republicans are racist bigots who are secretly Bull Connor.

What he’d say to a Trump voter:

To the average Trump voter, I’d say anger, even justifiable anger, is not a policy. Think about what governing means instead of just making a statement.

What he’d say to a Clinton voter:

To the average Democratic voter, I’d say get outside the bubble and make an effort to understand religious people. There’s a not unfounded perception for religious people that there’s no place for them in the Democratic Party.

Religion has informed his ideas about society:

We don’t have the idea that “if we had the right policy in place, we can fix this.” Policies help on the margins. But religious people see the sin of man. I understand that government can’t fix that. Understanding their value in the world brings them happiness. People who are more secular, democratic, liberal think “if only we could do this thing, it’d be great.” It still won’t work. Someone will take a bribe. Someone will fall on hard times. Someone will become an alcoholic.

What it means to be an America:

It just means to live in America and benefit from the freedom of structure of government. America needs people with those values of freedom and equality. But you can be a communist in America, and you’re no less American.

The thing that concerns him most about American politics:

I’m constantly amazed that no one has written about all the things that happen with (politicians’ finances). Maybe it’s because everyone is a part of the game. Bernie Sanders has been in government for 40 straight years and has three house. Same with Harry Reid. He only ever worked in government, and now he owns a suite in the Ritz. Ted Stevens, a Republican from Alaska, was investigated for corruption. His defense was two million bucks. That’s way more than he made in his career.

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Terri is the owner of a Christian candle shop in Waukesha, WI. Our interview covered the importance of God’s plan and listening.

How she’s involved in her community:

I work a lot with the non-profits. I’m on the downtown Waukesha Business Foundation and am involved with the Waukesha Farmer’s Market. Also, I serve on a committee that plans family friendly events.

God has impacted her as a citizen:

I do believe that the Bible is the true, inspired word of God. I try to live according to what God tells us. That relationship with God adds a dimension to things. It requires me to have patience, to be a good listener. The biggest part of communication is listening and not judging others. I try to do that, to understand other people’s life experiences. God makes you look at things in a different way. It’s not about me. It’s about something bigger than me. Continue reading God’s Plan

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This interview is the third in a series of interviews from Mishawaka, Indiana (you can find the first here and the second here). I’m not revealing any information about these interviewees until the end of the series in order to highlight the similarities of what they say (and so as not to bias readers about what their political leanings might be).

His thoughts on the media:

I try to stay up on current events, but I try not to watch the news because it jades my view of community. I never know what to trust. The inaccuracies and political bias on both sides are absurd. I’m not smart enough to know what’s true or what’s not.

On his efforts to stay informed:

I try to watch BBC World. It gives more of a broad spectrum globally of what’s important. It gives an understanding of how the world sees America. I was in India during the last election, and it was crazy to see the reactions when Trump won. BBC World doesn’t feel as jaded. I do also pick up the local newspaper. Because I’m a nerd, I’ll even go on the city’s website to read the minutes about hot topics such as education. I don’t do that all the time. Continue reading Mishawaka Interview 3: BBC World, Christ, and Love

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For this set of interviews from Mishawaka, I am going to post the interviews with no information about the interviewees. After I’ve published all four, I am going to reveal their name, gender, age, and who they voted for. I found in these interviews that people of very different political leanings had very similar ideas and messages. Hopefully, readers will be surprised by people’s political leanings at the end, or, at the least, see how similar many peoples’ civic ideas are regardless of politics.

How this person could improve as a citizen:

I could do a better job of being involved in my community. I have three teenagers, and I’m not actively involved in their high school. I could also be better at being aware of my community and city. I am pretty good at being aware at the national level, and even the state level, but for my actual city, I just check out. We don’t have the best school board here, and I’m aware of it, but I need to think about what I need to do to fix it, and then do it.

On how religion impacts him/her as a citizen:

A part of community for me is understanding my identity in Christ and God, and that’s tied to my identity as a citizen at large. Continue reading Mishawaka Interview 1: Christ, Community, and Listening

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Last week, I wrote about stepping out of my educational bubble and how much it taught me. This week, I spent 4.5 days in Detroit and 2.5 days in Mishawaka, Indiana. During this time, I got a crash course in how both race and religion impact people as citizens.

During college, at home, and the news I often find that many people don’t recognize how much race and racism still affect so many Americans’ lives. Admittedly, as a white person, I will never fully understand. My time in Detroit, though, gave me needed insight into the personal ways racism still harms many African-Americans every day.

In my conversations with people from the coasts, I also frequently find they don’t quite understand the positive role that religion and the Church play in other’s lives. Admittedly, I don’t either. But in the last few days, I feel like I have come to see why religion matters so much to people

Structural Racism:

For those who don’t know, Detroit is 83% black. Due to white flight and the government policies that encouraged it, many of the Detroit’s black population has remained in the city, even while its economy struggled tremendously. Contrastingly, many white, affluent people in the area live in the suburbs and work downtown. They don’t pay the property taxes the city has desperately needed and don’t necessarily have an investment in Detroit’s schools or community well-being. As Detroit’s schools have struggled, the people who have been hurt are disproportionately black and disproportionately low-income. This sort of structural racism didn’t surprise me. I’ve seen it in Boston, Philadelphia, and Chicago. It shows up in the civic learning gaps of students nationwide and the wealth gaps in cities such as Boston. It’s a civic problem, as well as a moral one, one that hurts democracy and makes equal engagement difficult.

Personal Racism:

But this recognition about structural problems often doesn’t create an emotional reaction for people. Statistics often don’t tell our stories or convince people to change. This week, I heard the more personal side of racism, one that as a white person who grew up in the suburbs, I heard very little about in my life.  One of my interviewees told me a story that brought tears to my eyes. He talked about when he was twelve and at a little league baseball game. Out of nowhere, a man in his mid-thirties – the parent of another play – screamed out from the crowd, “You little (n-word).” This man is now forty. Twenty-eight years later, he points to this moment as pivotal in his childhood and his ideas about America.

This story was just the beginning. Nicholas told me about how people used to cross the street when they saw him with dreadlocks, even though, he’s “the biggest nerd in the world.” Later that day, in an Uber, the driver, who was black, told me that recently, a rider referred to him as a “gorilla.” He said it took all of his self-control not to kick the man out of the car and curse him out.

The next day, Aisha told me about how growing up, neighbors would scribble racial epithets across her mailbox. Her parents put her in a different school district to avoid the people who did these sorts of things. And Adriel told me about when he realized that the three-fifths compromise existed, and how that undermined his feelings about our country. I spoke with eight black people in Detroit, and each had a story about racism hurting them.

Hearing these stories and learning about Detroit’s structural inequality in no way makes make me an expert. I have the luxury of not worrying about hearing these types of insults. I don’t have a childhood marred by the racist behavior of a grown man. But the last few days have underscored for me that when we talk about citizenship, when we talk about being a good community member, when we talk about respecting each other, we need to take race into account. We need to fight racism. Otherwise, the communities I’ve heard people describe and hope for can’t exist.

Religion and Community: 

Before this week, I knew even less about religion and the role it plays in our country than I did about racism’s impact on American life. In Mishawaka, I saw firsthand how much God shapes people’s lives. And, even more than that, I saw how important the community the church provides for people is.

I spent Sunday at Granger Community Church (GCC), a mega church in Granger, Indiana. When I drove in, I was stunned that the place was a church. It looked like a massive, modern school. At Granger, I sensed the same connection and community there that I often felt in my high school. When I walked in, people greeted me and my hosts, asking us how we were and how we were feeling. In the atrium, I saw a cafe and a bookstore, where people talked to each other and found texts that helped them think about their lives. I watched as people streamed into the auditorium to pray. Downstairs, there were classrooms, play areas, and praying spaces for children of all different ages.

Two hours later, after speaking with congregants about the role God plays in their life as citizens, I sat through a service. The topic was marriage. Certainly, there were aspects of the conversation that I disagreed with. When the Pastor said that having Christ at the center of marriage is key, I felt myself push back. But, at the same time, much of what he talked about resonated with me. He discussed the importance of good, healthy habits in relationships. Then, he used passages from the Bible to illustrate good and bad habits. He showed a video of a couple who used religion to heal their relationship after an affair. Just as countless articles have helped me in my relationships, countless bible verses had helped this couple and many others.

The Religious Divide: 

A conversation I had later that night confirmed the impact the Church has on people as citizens. One person I spoke with, an Evangelical Christian, talked about how God has shaped his idea of citizenship. He said, “Following what God has said naturally will make you a good citizen. The morals, ethics, and values that make a good citizen come from the Bible.”

We agreed on these ethics: hard work, honesty, love for others. When he later asked me my beliefs on God, I was frank with him. I told I him have struggled to find faith in my life. I explained, though, that I’ve turned to other sources, such as history and the classroom, to learn the lessons God taught him. He smiled and nodded, and then we talked about education reform.

The differences between me and this man were numerous. I’m an Agnostic from the East Coast who hasn’t attended a religious service in years. He was an Evangelical Christian from the Mid-West, whose goal is to raise children who love God. But we could still understand each other, understand we both wanted to be the best people we could be. I traveled America to learn about its people. For a lot of people, God, Christ, and their teachings have shaped their values and their communities. I wouldn’t be able to fully understand citizenship in America without talking to them.

Confronting Our Blind Spots: 

When I spent time at Findlay Community College, I realized why I need to leave my bubble more. In learning so much about race in Detroit and religion in Mishawaka, I recognized that I have blind spots. I would define blind spots as aspects of society I don’t understand as well as I should, often because of who I am, racially, educationally, and socioeconomically. Blind spots and bubbles are closely related. But I think blind spots, in some ways, are easier to fill. We can read about issues we don’t understand. We can reach out to people in our communities who may be different from us. For example, I could have learned about religion in college by talking to religious groups.

I do think, though, that part of being a good citizen is at least recognizing one’s blind spots. If we at least recognize what we don’t understand about others, we will be more likely to listen. Listening is something that many people I’ve spoken with have mentioned we all need to do better. As one person at GCC said to me, “We could be better Americans if we shut up, quit talking, and start listening. Western culture fosters that.  We (need to) stop debating for a minute, and listen to something on the other side, and see where they’re coming from. Then we can allow that to either bolster what we already believe or morph and change it for the better. Because we don’t have it all figured out.”

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