“When he (Jesus) came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him.” (Luke 4:16-17)
All the discussion of country singer Jason Aldean ’s song, “Try That in a Small Town” reminded me of Jesus’ return to preach in the small town where he grew up. I flunked my first sermon in seminary preaching class, but Jesus got a much harsher response to his first message that day in Nazareth. Luke tells us Jesus read from the prophet Isaiah, and that part of his Sabbath was very well received. Verse 11 says, “All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.”
But then Jesus goes ahead and interprets the text and tells his audience that the good news he brings to the captives, the blind and the oppressed is not just for them but for all of God’s children with examples of how the prophets Elijah and Elisha went specifically to minister to gentiles in Sidon and Syria instead of to those in Israel. And just like that the crowd does a 180 and turns on him. “When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage.” (Verse 28). And where the Gospels of Mark and Matthew just have Jesus leaving town at that point, Luke adds these words: “They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.” (Vss. 29-30)
I did a lot of research in graduate school on such negative reaction to public speaking and wrote a paper I titled “They Shoot Prophets Don’t They?” I had a personal interest in that topic having come of age in the last turbulence in American history which saw the assassinations of the two Kennedy brothers and Dr. King, all within a five year period. In my research, I became impressed with the work of Lawrence Kohlberg on moral development and the role of cognitive dissonance in persuasive communication. To my great pleasure that very research was mentioned by one of my favorite author’s, Father Richard Rohr, in his book, “Everything Belongs,” which I just happened to be listening to on the very day I started thinking about this topic again. I am humbled and thrilled that Fr. Rohr’s use of Kohlberg’s theory of moral development is almost verbatim what I wrote about that research in my Ph.D. dissertation 40 years ago. The application of Kohlberg’s theories about how to effectively communicate with people who have very different moral and ethical values formed the heart of my own theory of preaching which I shared with seminary students in preaching classes over a 20 year period from 1991-2012.
I believe that theory can help us understand and bridge some of the vast divide we are experiencing in our country today. The country song controversy is very illustrative of how volatile and dangerous that divide is and has been throughout American history. I grew up in a small town and can identify with the good, bad, and ugly aspects of what that experience was and still is like. There were many positive aspects to spending the first 20 years of my life in Wapakoneta, Ohio, a small, county-seat town in very rural, very white, and very conservative northwestern Ohio. It was a very safe place where kids were free to roam all over town on our bikes. Everyone knew everyone else; so people looked out for each other’s kids. I am grateful for that age of innocence and the freedom it provided for me to enjoy a carefree childhood and adolescence.
But I am also angry about the flip side of that experience. We didn’t know what we didn’t know about the broader world outside our comfort zone. Our fathers and uncles who were survivors of the Great Depression and/or veterans of World War II certainly knew more than they shared with us about issues of race and political divisions, at least in my family. All I remember being told about why there were no people of color in our town is that “we aren’t prejudiced; those people just don’t choose to live here.” It turns out there was good reason for that. I learned many years later that one of my great uncles was a leader in the local chapter of the KKK, and just this week heard from a high school classmate that for some time there was a sign outside our town that said something to the effect “Get Your Black Ass Out of Town Before Dark.” That’s the ugly kind of small town life Aldean certainly alludes to in his song and accompanying video.
One major factor in the political chasm threatening our democracy is the rural-urban divide Aldean sings about. The life experience of small town and rural people in this country is so different from urban life that it is like living in two different countries. I addressed some of that in my post on July 18, “Culture War Games While the Planet Burns,” but I want to focus here on how to approach that reality in a constructive way. In an oversimplified description, Kohlberg’s theory of moral development I mentioned above is that there are 6 stages of moral development numbered 1-6. Stage 1 is a very self-centered stage we all start out in because that kind of selfishness is necessary for infants to survive. People in stage 1 say what is morally good is whatever is good for me. Stage 6 is the other extreme where morality is defined in a universal way to mean that moral goodness is determined by what is good for everyone and for the whole world/universe. Only people like Jesus, Mohammad, Gandhi, Mother Teresa, and Dr. King ever come close to stage 6.
Most people, and this is just fact, not judgment, never grow beyond a stage 3 or 4 in moral development, and that’s the problem prophets like Jesus have in small towns like Nazareth. Kohlberg’s research found that when there is a gap of 2 stages or greater in moral development between a speaker and an audience there is a major breakdown in communication. That gap creates so much cognitive dissonance, which is the perception of contradictory information and the mental stress it causes, that we consistency-loving humans will do whatever we can to reduce that stress. That often means simply ignoring the one causing the cognitive dissonance or, as the gap widens, arguing, disparaging or insulting the speaker, and ultimately, if the gap is too great either driving the speaker out of town as happens to Jesus, or in the most tragic situations actually killing him or her, which again finally happens to Jesus on the cross.
The major lesson for us Americans right now is to turn down the heat in our political discourse by bridging the gaps in our cultural, moral, worldviews. Kohlberg concludes that we cannot communicate with each other until the gap between us is one stage of moral development or less. In other words a speaker who is a stage 4 trying to communicate with a stage 2 or 3 person must meet that person where he or she is and communicate respectfully with that person in ways that are not threatening to them. We must find common ground to stand on before we can hope to understand one another. For example, all humans have a basic need for what Abraham Maslow calls psychological and physical security and safety. People in small towns and big cities all share that need, and to understand that we all express that need in different ways goes a long way toward bridging our differences on other values and beliefs. And when our feeling of safety is threatened by people who look, act, and think differently than we do, we need to resist the temptation to attack, blame, ridicule, or judge them. The Golden Rule to treat others as we want to be treated is always a good first step in building a bridge or tearing down a wall that separates us from others.
Unfortunately it seems our human instinct is to do just the opposite when confronted with the discomfort of cognitive dissonance. Social media is full of memes these days making fun of small town people and calling each other names instead of trying to understand where others are coming from. We live in very scary times and most of us don’t know how to express that fear. To do so makes us feel vulnerable and cowardly. It’s much easier and more fun to attack those we disagree with, but it only turns up the heat and the fear on both sides.
I had a very simple example of a change of just one word making a huge difference just last week. I try to avoid debates on social media because they are often unproductive and can seem endless in their back and forth nature. I expressed that reluctance to a friend that I felt a need to respond to by saying that I hate “arguing.” Her very helpful response to me was, “This is not an argument, it’s a discussion.” That one shift in perspective moved the conversation from a win-lose situation to a productive exploration of where we could find common ground.
We need more discussion and less arguing, more willingness to meet others where they are in a spirit of understanding. From there we can both learn and grow from each other and help each other move to a higher stage of moral development where we all strive to do what is best for everyone. The alternative is to end up like “The two cats of Kilkenny. Each thought there was one cat too many. So they fought and they fit; they clawed and they bit, until except for their nails and the tips of their tails, instead of two cats there weren’t any.”