Lexington | The rebirth of outrage | Economist.com

Worse, many partisans don’t accept the legitimacy of their opponents. Plenty of conservatives don’t just dislike liberals; they don’t regard them as real Americans. (“I never use the words Democrats and Republicans,” James Watt, Ronald Reagan’s secretary of the interior, once said. “It’s liberals and Americans.”) Many liberals don’t just dislike conservatives; they regard them as sexists, bigots and cheats (that 2000 election), not to mention liars and torturers.

What can I say but that this is, well…outrageous! Whatever happened to civility in public discourse? What is happening to us? The urge to denigrate has even spilled over into the church, with the political tags of “fundamentalist,” “evangelical,” “progressive,” and “liberal” taking on all sorts of nasty undertones that are very unbecoming of followers of Jesus Christ.

Before continuing this off-the-top-of-my-head rant (I should know better), I will make it clear that I am not advocating unthinking tolerance of all views or peace-at-any-price. The Bible teaches that we need to discern between what is essential and what is not. We need to know how to draw the line between truth and falsity without nastiness and resorting to character assassination, a skill that seems particularly rare nowadays within the church.

My personal models for such civility are the Lincoln-Douglas debates, some of which were held right here in Quincy, Illinois. They prove that argumentative, even hot and angry, words can be effectively fired away within the boundaries of mutual respect.

Dave, firing away every now and then.