蓝莓视频

 

On this segment of Reports From The Front, two of Tim鈥檚 students, Helena and Carson, who are studying Communications at 蓝莓视频, discuss their recent experience on Unify America. They seized the opportunity to speak with their political opposites on contested issues, including abortion, and they speak with Tim and Rick about what it was like. Over the course of the conversation they also consider why it would be good for churches to take part in these Unify America discussions.

If this episode generates interest in Unify America, visit , and check out episode 90 where we speak with Abby Ferguson of Unify America.

Transcript

Rick Langer: Welcome to the Winsome Conviction podcast. My name's Rick Langer. I'm a professor here at Biola, as well as in the Biblical Studies and Theology Department. I'm also the director of the Office of Faith and Learning. But what brings me here today is that I'm also the co-director of the Winsome Conviction Project, and a co-host of the Winsome Conviction podcast with my good friend Tim Muehlhoff.

Tim Muehlhoff: Rick, it's always great to do this podcast with you. One of our favorite segments that we do is called Reports from the Front, People Doing It Right.

Rick Langer: Because believe it or not, some people are actually doing it right. It's wonderful.

Tim Muehlhoff: And we never get that in the national headlines.

Rick Langer: Yep.

Tim Muehlhoff: Because we're dominated by the argument culture. Sensationalism really does sell newspapers, magazines, it gets you clicks. But behind the scenes, there are groups and organizations that we feel like absolutely are modeling Winsome Conviction principles. If you go back and archive our podcast, you'll see we did one entire podcast about a group called Unify America. We had on Abby Ferguson, who heads up with Unify the college division, partnerships with different universities. The cool thing about Unify America is our students would go fill out a very quick questionnaire, then they get paired with their political opposite somewhere in the United States. They set up a Zoom conversation, a one-hour Zoom conversation, where they talk about their differences, but also explore commonalities. You did it in one of your classes, right?

Rick Langer: Yeah. This is a great thing, because we so often talk about people kind of living in an echo chamber, where the people they hang out with are people who are like-minded. Our country has become more this way, where people are living in like-minded geographical regions. The other side, when you don't know them, it's really easy to objectify and demonize them. Then you have an incredible fear about what would happen if I actually had to talk to them. It's one of those things where in the darkness, all your fears, all your anxieties or whatever, seem larger. Unify America has put together this thing saying, "Hey. Let's bring it out into the light. Let's have a conversation with one of these people." One of the things that I know my students found as they did this was that it was way more positive than they thought it might be. A lot of the fears were just not that well-founded.

Tim Muehlhoff: What was the actual class? What was it called?

Rick Langer: I did it in my money, sex and power class.

Tim Muehlhoff: Wow. What a boring class.

Rick Langer: Yeah.

Tim Muehlhoff: Money, sex and power. That's amazing, Rick.

Rick Langer: In all cases, what I'm doing is saying money, sex and power are actually all things that derive from good gifts of God. If we hear those things as a vice list, then somehow Satan's already half won the battle. Right?

Tim Muehlhoff: Yeah. That's very good.

Rick Langer: Our only imagination for these good gifts are bad things. But the way you make them good is actually by cultivating convictions. I have this whole big area in the class where they're cultivating convictions about issues related to money, sex and power, and how they can use those and enjoy those in a successful way. So the Unify America Challenge worked great for me, because there's a bunch of these kind of topics that come up in our political life, where we're disagreeing on what we do with money, sex and power.

Tim Muehlhoff: Oh, that's great.

Rick Langer: So it was a great way for it to work for me.

Tim Muehlhoff: Well, I get to teach in the comm department these senior seminars, independent topics. One that I've picked is marriage, which is just near and dear to my heart. Biola has a Center for Marriage & Relationships, and I've spoken at FamilyLife marriage conferences.

Rick Langer: Well, and I've heard you've had controversy over marriage in recent years in marriage-

Tim Muehlhoff: Controversy over how to define marriage and what makes it work. I so appreciate our communication department, that we dedicate a whole semester to talking to our students about marriage. One, how to define it from God's perspective. But then also like, what goes into picking a life partner? What is the purpose of marriage? Then very practical things like, how do you resolve conflict? How do you set out to forgive, and things like that? It was a great class, Rick. It was one of the most enjoyable classes, honestly, in my 19 years here at 蓝莓视频.

So when we were approached by Unify America, I immediately thought, "Well, this is perfect for the class, because of all the disagreements today about the nature of marriage, and how do you define it?" Right? So I went to my students and said, "Listen, I just think this is perfect for communication majors. I think this is what we really ought to do." They were willing. They were a little bit nervous. But it went really, really well, and so well that we wanted to invite two of those students. Instead of us talking about them, let's let them talk about their own perspective.

Rick Langer: There's a good idea.

Tim Muehlhoff: There's a great idea. Yeah.

Rick Langer: I love it. Let's hear it.

Tim Muehlhoff: I want to introduce to the podcast Helena West and Carson Cody. Helena, tell us a little bit about what year you are, where you're from. Then, Carson, why don't you follow up after Helena?

Helena: Yeah. I'm a junior at Biola, a comm major. I'm originally from California. I grew up in Hungary for a little while. My parents are missionaries. But now I'm back in California, going to school.

Tim Muehlhoff: That's great. Carson.

Carson: I'm from Corona, California. This is actually my fifth year at Biola now, and it's just been a joy every single year I've been there.

Tim Muehlhoff: That's great. Okay. So you took a class on marriage. I want to hear just a little bit your reactions when this professor sits down, introduces you to Unify America. You're going to have a conversation with your political opposite, and we're going to specifically transition to marriage. Helena, when I brought this to the class, what was your initial reaction when you heard about Unify America?

Helena: Oh, man. Well, you mentioned the class was a little bit nervous. I was very nervous. It was pretty nerve-racking. I've never been in a situation like this before. I'm not a debater by any means, so it was definitely out of my comfort zone. But I think you tried to tone it down a little bit to calm our nerves, which helped a lot going into it. Then after having been in it, that was a whole nother deal.

Tim Muehlhoff: Helena, can I ask specifically, what were you nervous about? When you envisioned this conversation, how did you envision it going with a one-hour Zoom conversation with your political opposite?

Helena: Mm-hmm. I imagined us just arguing. Which I'm not an arguer. I don't know why that would happen, but I think my brain just went to, "What's the worst that could happen?" Just sitting there, I think what scared me the most was just maybe feeling inadequate and uneducated. Having certain thoughts, and not being able to back them up. Or putting myself in a position of feeling like, "Oh, no. I can't answer this question," or whatever. Or, "They're going to think this about me. They're going to think that..." I had a lot of those thoughts running through my head.

Tim Muehlhoff: Did it add more that you were representing the Bible Institute of Los Angeles? I mean, was it more that you were a conservative Christian jumping into this?

Rick Langer: And the entire fate of Christendom was hanging on this conversation?

Tim Muehlhoff: Yeah.

Helena: Oh, yeah. No, definitely. I think if I was only just representing myself, then that would've been a whole nother situation. But I love my school, and I'm proud to be a Christian. So wanting to represent these things well, it definitely added a bit more pressure and nerves.

Tim Muehlhoff: Great. Well, Carson, what were going through your thoughts as you learned about Unify America, this challenge, and heading into that conversation?

Carson: Yeah. I was able to do two conversations. Before the first one, I actually do remember feeling the same way, that uneasiness, a bit of nerves. I think that, like what Helena said, it came from a fear of the unknown, a fear of the worst that could happen. But after I did that first one, moving into the second one, I felt a lot more comfortable. I felt like I was prepared, and I realized that there wasn't much to be nervous about from the beginning. I think you even said a statistic in class, that they've had over 1,000 conversations, and only one has gone bad in the entire thing. That kind of helped put my mind at ease a little bit.

Tim Muehlhoff: Well, Carson, thanks for mentioning that. But the statistic was actually 10,000, right?

Carson: Oh, yeah.

Tim Muehlhoff: Yeah, 10,000 conversations. They admitted that one kind of went sideways a little bit. It wasn't horrible, but it wasn't what they were shooting for.

Rick Langer: It is interesting to think about that kind of a statistic relative to our own imagination. I think for a lot of us, we even thought, "Yeah, I bet they have a plan and all this," but would still be thinking there'd be a lot more volatility than I think we actually find. I think it's a wonderful thing for Unify America to create a structure. Where we get to have that kind of a discovery of like, "Hey. There's more area to occupy jointly. There's people I can actually talk to." So that's great. But anyhow.

Tim Muehlhoff: Before we get to the actual conversation, let me ask you this. As comm majors within the School of Fine Arts, how much do you think that has helped you moving into the conversation? If you remember in class, we actually worked through that Proverbs model of four different questions that we can ask to kind of structure a difficult conversation. Helena, as a comm major, and even getting some of that specific training heading in. Did that kind of help a little bit, to have a little bit of a strategy of how to structure the conversation?

Helena: Mm-hmm. I think definitely. Something that stuck with me as I went into the conversation was the four horsemen that you taught us within our marriage class. One of those just being how the conversation starts up is so crucial to how it will continue to go. I think that I kind of held onto that as I went into my conversation. Just thinking, "Okay. The first few seconds, if I'm friendly, if I'm nice. If I lead with listening and understanding, then that will set a tone for the whole conversation." I think that really helped me as I went into the conversation, as the conversation continued. I learned that in a comm class, and it definitely helped me. So I would say yes, for sure.

Tim Muehlhoff: Helena, just for our listeners, we're talking John Gottman, who's one of the top relational scholars in the world.

Helena: Yes.

Tim Muehlhoff: Rick, he makes this wild point that is true across all human communication. He said, "The first 30 seconds of a conversation sets the tone for the entire conversation." So that first 30 seconds needs to be really thought out, both the words you're going to use, but the tone that you adopt.

Rick Langer: Yeah.

Tim Muehlhoff: We had worked through Gottman through the entire marriage class, but what a great nugget from one of the top relational communication scholars in the world. To say, "Think very deeply about how that conversation's going to start." Helena, great that you remembered that as you... So can I just ask what your first 30 seconds was? Literally, when you know the conversation goes live, Helena, what was your first 30 seconds? How did you even start this conversation?

Helena: I just went right in and started asking questions. I didn't want there to be awkward silence. So I just went in and said, "Hi. What's your name? I'm Helena." A little bit like the intro we did here, my major, what grade I was in. And then just started asking them, and tried to set a tone of just casualness. That it wasn't too scary, I guess. Because I think internally I was a little scared.

Tim Muehlhoff: Right, right.

Helena: So I was like, "If I put out that this is nice and easy and friendly, then that's how it should go." I think it worked.

Tim Muehlhoff: So it was well received by the other person?

Helena: Yes. Yeah.

Tim Muehlhoff: That's great. Hey, what school was the other person from? Do you remember?

Helena: Ooh, I don't remember. I think it was in Tennessee was my first one, and then the other one was in Minnesota.

Tim Muehlhoff: Okay. Oh, that's great.

Helena: So both kind of east Midwest area.

Tim Muehlhoff: That's great. Okay, Carson. As a comm major, how much do you think that prepared you for this conversation? Even maybe that Proverbs model that we had talked through the class, right before we were going to do the Zoom conversations.

Carson: Yeah. I would say as a comm major, the biggest thing that has changed for me since I started is my overall confidence in speaking with people I may regularly be uncomfortable speaking to, if that makes sense. One of the biggest things I've learned that's helped me with this is perspective taking. Basically, the concept of this is being able to see why people believe what they believe. Growing up in a Christian family, going to Christian school my whole life, and now a Christian university, you can kind of get caught up in that Christian bubble, if you want to call it that. Where you're not really interacting too much with the outside. So being able to truly perspective take, and comprehend what someone believes is extremely important. And it's not just emotionally based. It's a logical base. You know?

Tim Muehlhoff: Yeah. Oh, that sounds great. What was your first 30 seconds like? How did you start the conversation when you saw that light go on and this is live?

Carson: Yeah. I think we did start off with introductions. We were both kind of uneasy. At least the first time for sure, we were both uneasy. I had a student from Florida International, and she was a dietary and nutrition major. So we kind of had differences in background definitely. We did just start off with introductions, and then we went straight into the questions, but I didn't really feel like there was this awkward piece. Maybe if there was, it was right at the beginning, but then once we started, it kind of faded away.

Tim Muehlhoff: Oh, that's perfect. That's great. Okay, so now we actually get to the conversation. If I understand this correctly, you guys kind of worked through a survey. Helena, is that correct? That you were working through some set questions that kind of started the official conversation?

Helena: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. There were just a number of different questions you kind of clicked through. Then it asks you how much you agreed or disagreed on the topic, and then you just continue through that model.

Tim Muehlhoff: Do you remember some of the topics offhand?

Helena: I want to say one of the first ones was just the education that our police department gets.

Ti