Category Archives: Practical Dialogue Tips

After going through the fire of 3,000+ conversations with pro-choice people, we’ve learned a lot of things that create an environment in the conversation where the other person is more likely to change their mind. These are some of those nitty-gritty dialogue tips.

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A Response to My Facebook Newsfeed Today

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If you’re unhappy about the supreme court decision, be a gracious loser, no need to be over the top and hassle people who disagree with you. If you’re happy about the supreme court decision, be a gracious winner, no need to be over the top and hassle people who disagree with you.

Facebook is a weird phenomenon with incredible power to make kind, reasonable people come off as very unkind and very unreasonable. Arguing in that kind of context has, in my humble opinion, a pretty low probability of substantively changing people’s minds. When my mind changes on things, it happens in a combination of reading books and having many face-to-face conversations.

That doesn’t mean no one should ever argue about politics on facebook, but most people shouldn’t because most people are terrible at it and they just shame themselves. I’m in that camp by the way. I get riled up, I end up having turf to defend, and I become something I don’t want to be, something very different from how I talk to people in person.

To anyone who wants to argue about politics on facebook anyway: please be very, very intentional about when and how you do that. Try very, very hard to be exactly who you are in person. Read your post out loud before you post it and delete it if it doesn’t sound like you. If you wouldn’t look a friend who disagrees with you right in the eyes and say it out loud, you will probably regret posting it.

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When a Hypothetical Story Isn’t Hypothetical After All

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Sometimes when I talk about abortion with strangers, it feels like I’ve already had that conversation before, because they’re making familiar statements. But the truth is, I haven’t had that conversation before, because I haven’t heard that statement from that person before. Even though some statements are very common, different people mean very different things by them. A recent conversation I had with a hotel shuttle driver named “Mark” reminded me that while I may have heard the same words before, I hadn’t heard his story before. I think there’s a lesson you can learn from this situation that will help you have better dialogues with pro-choice people.

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes.
Photo Credit: Prayitn via Compfight cc

Photo Credit: Prayitn via Compfight cc

I was in town to speak at a conference when Mark picked me up, and after we exchanged some pleasantries, he asked me what I do for a living.

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Relational Apologetics Tips: How to Cultivate Friendship Amidst Challenging Conversations

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Estimated reading time: 5 minutes.

Equal Rights Institute is Relational Apologetics focused on teaching pro-life advocates practical dialogue tips, rigorous philosophy, and relational apologetics. When we use the phrase “relational apologetics,” we mean trying to change a person’s mind about a core belief in the context of genuine friendship.

Most people will not change their minds about a serious subject after one conversation, so an ongoing dialogue with a friend can be really helpful.

When I speak about relational apologetics, I usually illustrate with the story of my friend Deanna Unyk, who began dialoguing with me about abortion two years ago, and began self-identifying as pro-life one year ago.

Click here to read what changed Deanna’s mind about abortion. If you want to learn more about why I think guy-girl friendships can be virtuous, God-honoring friendships, and what boundaries I think should be in place, click here.

When the pro-life club at the University of Portland heard Deanna’s story, they asked Deanna and me if we would be willing to do a public discussion about relational apologetics (in addition to being a great opportunity, this was also a personal blessing because it gave us the chance to finally meet in person). We sat on stage, told our story, and encouraged the audience to cultivate friendships among people with whom they had serious disagreements. The event was a great success, with around 80 in attendance from both sides of the abortion debate. Many people came up afterwards, saying that they had never been to an event like this, and that it helped them to think about abortion and relational apologetics in a new way.

Photo Credit: Andie Jael

Photo Credit: Andie Jael

During the event, Deanna and I offered practical tips for cultivating friendships with people who disagree with you about important issues. Here are a couple of my favorites:

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Two Simple Tips to Help You Master the Art of Clarity

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Background

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes.

Have you ever had a really ugly fight with someone close to you, only to realize after the fact that it was all based on a simple misunderstanding? It’s very frustrating, especially because all of the pain of that fight could have been avoided if just one of the two parties had been better at clarity.

It doesn’t matter if it’s a personal issue with a loved one, a writing assignment for a class, or a dialogue about something controversial like abortion, the ability to communicate clearly is paramount to success. While no one can become good at clarity overnight, I have two very simple, very effective tactics to offer. These are not ground-breaking, in fact I regularly notice good communicators that follow these guidelines. I just haven’t noticed anyone point these practices out as generally helpful.

While it would be nice if both parties worked equally hard at being clear and with equal skill, no one should expect that. So my attitude in any conversation is that clarity is completely my responsibility. That doesn’t mean it’s actually my fault any time there is a misunderstanding. But I should work hard to make sure I understand the ideas she is trying to express, just like I’m going to work hard to help her understand my ideas.

#1: Make sure you understand her by repeating what she said back to her in different words.

The more conversations I have about abortion, the more aware I am of the vast cultural gap between pro-life and pro-choice people. You would think two people that speak English fluently would be speaking the same language, but that really isn’t the case sometimes. Words and phrases have different connotations to different people depending on the family they grew up in, the culture they identify with, the experiences they have had in the past with those words and phrases, and who knows how many other factors. So any time I think there’s a good chance she could mean different things by something she said, I’ll say something like:

“I want to make sure I’m understanding you. Let me repeat back to you what I heard you say, so then you can correct me if I’ve gotten it wrong. It sounded to me like you said…”