Panel discussion designed to promote healthy dialogue in turbulent political times

With just one week to go before Election Day, negative ads, heated campaign rhetoric and more have contributed to a particularly fraught political season. Tonight, in Winston-Salem, a panel conversation will take place to provide some practical tools to take down the temperature before, on and after November 5.

“Off the Defensive: Cultivating Healthy Dialogue in Political Conflict” begins tonight at 6 p.m. in Wait Chapel on the campus of Wake Forest University. The event is free and open to the public. The idea for the workshop began with conversations at Wake Forest University’s School of Divinity between religious leaders from across the region. Looking ahead to the days after the election, they imagined the kinds of issues — fears, tensions, anxieties — people in their faith communities will be faced with in this highly polarized society.

Panelist Jill Crainshaw is the Vice Dean for Faculty Development and Academic Initiatives and Professor of Worship and Liturgical Theology at Wake Forest School of Divinity. She says often political allegiances and the moral and faith values people attach to them can work against our ability to handle conflict in a compassionate way.

"If we move toward political discussion, sometimes people's outrage or frustration or annoyance with one another just comes out —something that's built up over time," says Crainshaw. "And it can break relationships and lead to unhealthy and toxic kinds of environments in our families, in our churches and other places too."

Panelist Erica Still is an Associate Professor of English and Associate Dean for Faculty Recruitment, Diversity, and Inclusion at Wake Forest. She says learning how to engage in a productive way with people who may push our buttons is vitally important, and there are practical tools that can help make that happen: being willing to listen, asking questions with sincere curiosity, and giving the other person space to work through their ideas and fully explain themselves.       

"One of the biggest things we can do is learn how to pause; how to give ourselves time after we've listened, to then respond; to give ourselves a chance to slow down and not feel the need to win," says Still.

Another important tool she says is knowing when to say when: ending the conversation intentionally rather than allowing it to devolve to a point where it does irreparable harm to the relationship. Still and Crainshaw will be joined on the panel by Elizabeth Whiting, Director for Leadership and Character Formation in the School of Medicine.