Highlights of David French's message at George Fox

"What does the Lord require of you, O man? To act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God."

At every stop on his whirlwind tour of George Fox University, David French cited Micah 6:8, the scripture quoted above.

When we cut Micah 6:8 off after the word "justly", French said, we open ourselves to extremism. We tend to gravitate away from people who disagree with us, prone to consider them evil for their refusal to agree with our view of justice. Rather than let injustice continue, we may turn to harsh measures to coerce compliance by those who disagree.

This dynamic accelerates when we find others with whom we agree. French drew on studies showing like-minded groups that stop listening to those who disagree with them will, over time, become more extreme in their views than any individual member was when they first formed as a group.

Furthermore, Americans who identify strongly with one of the major parties and consume lots of political news tend to believe their opponents' views are more extreme than they really are. They attribute to all their political opponents the views of their most extreme opponents, adding to the perception that opponents don't just disagree -- they are evil. In a way, they become less informed the more they steep themselves in political news.

With stakes so high -- perhaps existential for our nation -- we cannot afford this mutual ignorance and hostility.

According to French, the rest of Micah 6:8 offers us the cure, what he calls "orthocardia." To our orthodoxy (right doctrine) and orthorpraxis (right practice) French recommended attending to having the right heart for our political enemies.

This can only be done through relationships, French said. We need to find ways to better know those whose disagree with us. Listening to them, learning from them, finding ways to serve them, and just hanging out with them: all of these help build orthocardia -- ie, love -- toward our political opponents.

If we don't do this, those who disagree the most will keep drawing others toward them, accelerating the trend toward a bipolar distribution of political views -- and personal connections. The "middle" will empty out and we'll be left with extremes who don't communicate. The extremes, French predicted, will more and more resemble one another, not in their doctrines, but in how they propose to govern -- by coercing compliance from everyone else, and "cancelling" those who won't toe the line.

French described this attitude as "illiberal", in that it represents the potential demise of the classical liberal consensus underlying American politics since the Declaration of Independence. That document's promise -- that American politics would be founded on the premise that "all people are created equal, and are equally endowed with inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" -- has been a creative force in American history, French said. Even though the Declaration's promise was at that time already being ignored in slavery and the treatment of the Native Americans, it has steadily called us to do -- and be -- better. And we have responded, fitfully, and still incompletely, because the classic liberal vision of equal opportunity for every individual has been so powerful.

But the extremes on the left and right are ready to abandon individual liberty, and the entirety of classical liberalism, to achieve The Good as they see it. They would undermine or destroy liberal democracy and put restraints on majority power to implement their vision of the Good.

French noted at least three dangers in these illiberal approaches. First, they ignore the universal experience of human history: no one gets everything right. Humans are flawed: we know too little, we reason too poorly, we are too tempted to self-deal when we get the power to do so. Eliminating one's enemies takes away an important corrective we all need, sooner rather than later. Removing them from the discussion accomplishes the sam thing.

Second, to impose their view the extremes must use violence. They cannot in good conscience wait for persuasion when they know they are right and anything else is wrong. So we get our current political climate, with hardliners screaming at each other and an epidemic of fear among office holders as lowly as school board members.

Third, the "exhausted majority" of citizens from the middle of the left to the middle of the right, have no effective voice. As each political party moves away from the middle, the extremes gain influence, especially when our primary elections have low turnout. The hardliners always vote, so their voice amplifies in low-turnout elections. Candidates go into the general election far left or or far right, and fight their general election foes with lots of money to buy every trick in the book (and outside it) to win.

Most Americans are still not in the extremes of either party. And most of us are tired of our politics. (I, a politics professor for more than 35 years, have told my students that I hate politics.) David French called people like us "the exhausted majority" comprising political independents and large swathes of the Democratic and Republican Parties. We hold our noses and vote for what we hope will be the lesser of two evils.

But here is where hope is found, according to French. We could stop settling for lesser evils. French recommended applying two tests to every candidate, and voting only for those who meet both. The first test is the candidate's character, by which he means integrity, personal morality, and civility. French interpreted the "love mercy" or "love kindness" in Micah 6:8 as applying to our relationship with our political foes: to be kind and merciful toward them, which is part of civility.

The second test is whether the candidate's policies, taken altogether (including the inevitable bits you disagree with) take the country in the direction your convictions indicate it should go.

Any candidate who cannot pass BOTH tests should not get your vote, according to French.

The alternative is to strategically vote for the lesser of two evils -- but, French pointed out, that gives the political strategists no incentive to stop putting up candidates with poor character. If people start rejecting candidates for poor character, political strategists will notice that and start demanding better character from their candidates, which will encourage high-character candidates to run. And if we put character first, French predicted high-character candidates will become more plentiful in both parties.

-- Ron Mock