As I write this, I am aware of some super progressive friends in my life, in my workplace, in my church, and in my FB feed. I’m also aware that I have some super nuanced conservatives or evangelicals (they would not self-identify as progressive) in my life, in my workplace, in my church, and in my FB feed.
If you google that phrase “progressive-conservative intimacy” I can assure you, Google will not lead you anything near Brian McLaren, Rachel Held Evans,
Richard Rohr, or Scot McKnight, N.T. Wright, or Greg Boyd. You can insert any progressive or evangelical name with a huge following on social media or writes books that people want to buy when they come out.
Before I go any further, let's define progressive as any Christian who self-identifies as a progressive and "conservative" any Christian--evangelical, nuanced conservative, Republican who doesn't identify as progressive. Broad definitions. Christians who are caught up in the toxic culture between Democrats and Republicans.
I identify myself as a progressive and my wife is a committed conservative. She has voted Republican in the presidential elections for several decades. I have voted Democrat for the last three. Some of my dearest friends might not identify as committed conservatives but they wouldn't identify themselves as progressives, either. Let's say nuanced evangelicals.
I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say one of the most revolutionary lessons friendship has taught me in the last ten years: Friendship closeness--emotional, intellectual, bodily, spiritual closeness--in platonic or marital closeness--does not require a perfect match of political-psychological identity.
I can tell you as my progressive-conservative intimacy matured and flourished in my marriage and friendships with women who were progressives and nuanced evangelicals, I didn’t find guidance, mentoring, or flourishing wisdom from the some of the biggest leaders/authors in the progressive movement or Missio Alliance.
They were publishing blogs, books, and tweets that were driving progressives and evangelicals further apart. They were hosting FB conversations/groups driving a further wedge between progressives and conservatives after the emerging movement collapsed. Neither side had a grammar of intimacy and friendship for individuals on the other side. There was no template I could refer to that either Missio Alliance or the progressive world presented with a strong Yes! forward.
But for me, I continued to experience friendship closeness with friends who were progressives and friends who were nuanced evangelicals. Women and men. That wasn't supposed to happen post-emerging. It was uncharted territory.
And my marriage continued to flourish!!! My wife was my best friend when I turned toward the progressive direction. Gosh, that was a complex turn for us and our marriage. She was my best friend during the turn and she remains my best friend even though she considers herself a committed conservative politically.
It's been so disappointing to me now that we are steeped in this toxic political culture in social media these leaders within these broad Christian movements have not come together to point us toward the good news of Christian friendships between progressives and conservatives. Why aren't they pointing us to the most generous, attentive, flourishing peacemaking story--about how we as friends of Christ can flourish together in the deepest peace in heaven and earth?
Sure, please, don't get me wrong, it is beautiful for progressives like Brian McLaren to point us to "the great spiritual migration" (a title to a book of his) and reach out to leaders from other religions. That is really beautiful and necessary. It is a beautiful step toward peacemaking. But these progressive leaders also have contributed to the downward spiral to where we are as liberals or conservatives, Democrats or Republicans.
I can now say this after several years of participating as an unapologetic progressive: progressive leaders with the largest following have no ethic of Christian friendship that is healing the wounds between them and conservatives or between Democrats and Republicans at this hour.
How can the progressive leaders/bloggers turn a deaf ear to the toxic divide between Republicans and Democrats happening on social media? I direct the question toward progressives because they are the ones preaching abounding diversity, openness, wide-open inclusion, and hospitality. How it is possible for these progressive leaders to have no ethic of healing friendships, peacemaking friendships when neuroscience and psychology have given us extraordinary insights into how humans (conservatives and progressives) can repair all kinds of ruptured relationships? The new science of love offers staggering implications for repairing and healing the wounds of ruptured attachments between conservatives and progressives.
As someone who has now nurtured and navigated deep, intimate progressive-conservative attachments for several years I am still waiting for leaders in Missio Alliance and the progressive movement to consciously turn toward their neighbor across the political-theological divide and lean in.
After seating at this huge, huge intersection where psychology, theology, philosophy, social psychology, and friendship intersect for several years now, I have more hope than ever that Christians from both the left and the right have access to the most generous, healthy, attentive, flourishing peacemaking psychology to heal the wounds of ruptured conservative-progressive attachments in our families, friendships, and churches and our cities.
Even though the growth and development of progressive-conservative intimacies in my marriage and friendships got no inspiring vision from either progressive leaders or Missio Alliance leaders, it did not happen in a vacuum. There is no shortage of psychological and relational wisdom offered by spiritual directors, therapists, psychologists, philosophers, and ethicists in the Western world.
How could it be that Annie McKee can write a substantive book, How to Be Happy at Work with a chapter on linking happiness, companionate love, and workplace friendships. and we have no progressive or Missio Alliance leaders coming together in companionate friendships for the supreme telos of enjoying and loving God?
For months and months, as our toxic political culture continued to spiral downwards, I longed for two committed Christian leaders from these culturally different communities to give Christians--committed Democrats and committed Republicans inspiring hope companionate love--progressive-conservative intimacies in friendship. Or for them to come together writing a book pointing our divided nation toward the practice and grammar of intimacy and friendship.
Then, I came across a new book, I Think You're Wrong (But I am Listening). What a breath of fresh air! They didn't solve our nation's problems but they did show the power of Christian friendship when a committed Republican and a committed Democrat come together to create a friendship with a positive direction forward.
The same Christians (progressives and evangelicals) pointing us to the insurmountable cultural obstacles between us as reasons for not making any progress are living in the same culture where neuroscience and attachment theories are exploding all around us. A culture where psychological and relational wisdom abounds and that is before we even begin to approach a Christian ethic of love and friendship.
While totally ascribing thanks to the grace and boundless generosity to God's friendship presence, my deep friendships into the impossible--progressive-conservative intimacies--required a significant amount of intentionality. We have the power to turn superficial relationships between progressives and conservatives into deep reciprocal friendship attachments.
How can it not be an urgent matter for both progressives and evangelicals to access the positive power of Christian friendship toward each other at this hour? I have a story of wonder. In fact, I have several stories of wonder. In the midst of this toxic culture, as someone who is progressive I have several valuable, cherished, irreplaceable, close friendships with nuanced conservatives. And I enjoy and treasure my friendship with my spouse. I am living the impossible dream.
Both the progressive and the conservative can retain their essential uniqueness as their self and be best friends.
This is one of the biggest obstacles to overcome for progressive-conservative best intimacies. For many progressives and conservatives of course, the fear of losing one's identity, the integrity of one's identity is the greatest threat. Both progressives and conservatives passionately believe they have experienced a "conversion" to where they are now that makes their respective intimate attachments mutually exclusive.
There is this existential resolve therefore, on both sides, of no turning back, no retreating from their essential uniqueness as to their theological-political identity in the present moment. Love, identity, and intimate attachments are all bound up in the self. To be open to a friendship union--a deep friendship attachment endangers our unique identity, our unique self and the big story of how we arrived where we are in the present moment.
In other words, if I, as a progressive, open my inner self up in a trusting, vulnerable passionate openness toward my conservative friend, am I not in danger of eradicating, submerging, or even betraying the differences between us? How can I share identity--close intimate attachment of a shared life--with a conservative spouse or friend, and not lose my identity?
For many of us, the risks are too great. The price is too high. Our conversation stories require psychological integrity and tribal purity--whether we are progressive or conservative. I discovered along the way that the same kind of dynamics that occur in the can-a-man-and-woman-be-friends question happen in the progressive-conservative purity psychology. The deep suspicion and accusation that authentic connection cannot happen. They must be phonies or out of touch with the real meaning of what it means to be attached like that.
But what if we could be our essential authentic selves and lovingly befriend--emotionally, spiritually, psychologically invest attentiveness, respect, reverence, kindness, and intimate tenderness--our friend with significant theological-political differences? This opens up a whole new world of relating. Two friends with differences in one friendship.
Creating a New Hybrid Friendship (progressive-conservative intimacies) Means Opening One's Authentic Self to Reciprocal Cherishing
Psychotherapists Elisabeth Young-Bruehl and Faith Bethelard suggest that, "Friendship is about reciprocal cherishing. . .this is the essence of friendship." With my gradual turn from voting Republican to voting Democrat and becoming a progressive evangelical, something quite astonishing happened. In the midst of real, emerging political-theological differences, some aspect or form of reciprocal cherishing continued between me and Sheila and between me and my nuanced evangelical friends.
Reciprocal cherishing is not supposed to happen between a committed progressive and a committed conservative. Between progressive and evangelical. But as time has continued onward, reciprocal cherishing grew between my wife and me, and between some great nuanced evangelicals and myself. This reciprocal cherishing is never mechanistic or an expression of false polite niceness. It is by no means surface neighborly kindness.
Mutual cherishment is not what is happening in social media between progressives and nuanced evangelicals. But I now know, what its like, what it feels like, to enter into mutual cherishment with friends who think differently and vote differently than I do.
In fact in this context, reciprocal cherishing births a whole new hybrid for progressive-conservative intimacies: friends who are irreplaceable. The important factor in friendship beautifully emerges when the splendor of friendship-love moves and grows in reciprocal cherishing. My wife and several of my nuanced evangelical friends are so valuable to me because we powerfully cherish one another and our intimacies.
To experience cherishing--to receive its splendor fully--in a text, in listening attentiveness, in a compliment, in a smile, in a gift, in a hug or a kiss on the cheek, or a physical affectionate touch--from a nuanced evangelical friend--male or female is learning to share love in the midst of real poltical differences.
Part of the fascinating parallels between the question of male-female friendship (I'm not assuming binary stuff here) and the question of progressive-conservative intimacy is that reciprocal cherishing is impossible. In both popular scenarios, it is widely assumed that if individuals involved experience powerful cherishing between them in friendship, they have lost their authentic claim to their selves.
Now, this is reciprocal cherishing the friend in front of you. Real respect and real conversation--mutual engagement--happen when we open ourselves up to reciprocal cherishing in the moment. Giving and receiving in cherishing in the midst of political differences where may not receive external/internal validation about our political opinions and assumptions creates something profound: progressive-conservative intimacies. It creates a cherished intimate life. A cherished shared identity: two friends, one friendship.
In this toxic political-cultural divide between progressives and conservatives, I fully resonate with psychotherapists Elisabeth Young-Bruehl and Faith Bethelard. "A deep friendship is therapeutic." I experience this with both my cherished progressive friends and my nuanced evangelical friends!! They go on to say, "it differs crucially from psychotherapy. With a friend, you trust that if one day you are exhausted and harassed, the next you can be depended upon and dependable. Neither of you is the designated needy one; the helping role shifts easily—as it does not and should not in psychotherapy. When you are asking your friend for support, you are at the same time expecting to give it—and feeling able to give it because you have asked for and received it."
More to come.
