Civility and me

by Ron Mock

When I was an undergraduate at George Fox College (as it was called then) I wanted to be a diplomat for the State Department. “Ron,” my mother said, “if you’re going to be a diplomat, you have to learn to be diplomatic.”

I never made it to the State Department.

Nor have I ever mastered graciousness. I speak grace as a foreign language, with a limited vocabulary, an uncertain grasp of the grammar, and a heavy accent of cluelessness. I am likely to miss the opportunity to communicate graciously unless someone kicks me under the table.

So I became a lawyer instead.

Which might not seem to be a good start on becoming the director of a Civility Project. But I can explain.

In my first year out of law school a case involving three sisters crossed my desk at the Michigan Court of Appeals where I was a pre-hearing attorney. The sisters had been suing each other for five years over the disposition of their father’s estate. They faced potentially several years more of litigation, which might bring their legal dispute to a close. But it would be too late, because their relationships were already deformed into fierce, hate-filled alienation. Their lives were already ruined.

I did not believe it had to be so. A man’s death, even though it leaves serious issues unresolved, should not condemn his daughters to bitterly broken relationships. So I looked to mediation as an alternative. I spent two years working part time to help create a Christian Conciliation Service in the Detroit area.

Then I came to George Fox to help with the Center for Peace Learning (now the Center for Peace and Justice) and to teach. For three decades I taught law, politics, conflict resolution, and community mediation. I also helped start the Yamhill County Mediators program, and currently serve on the Newberg School Board where I work to build trust and encourage embracing constructive disagreement.

Now we are seeing the tragedy of the three sisters being repeated in our country. We have sorted ourselves into alarmingly distinct camps. Bitterness, mistrust, and demonization increase. Our public life staggers toward ruin.

I do not believe it has to be so. Even though we have serious issues unresolved, we are not condemned to increasingly bitter political and social division. This is why I am thrilled to have a chance to build a Civility Project at George Fox.

"But wait!" you might be thinking, "Ron admitted he is no diplomat, and speaks grace as a foreign language. How can he lead a civility project?"

Luckily civility may overlap with diplomacy and graciousness, but it is something else. One of the goals of the Civility Project is to help bring the concept of civility into sharper focus. But for now we can say civility involves behaving and communicating in ways that strengthen relationships among disputing people while improving their ability to resolve issues justly and peaceably.

So civility is an umbrella under which we might find diplomacy and grace… AND confronting injustice, embracing disagreement, listening, humanizing, empathizing, and deliberating together. It’s about treating conflict as a gift and opponents as treasures. And for followers of Jesus, it’s about enduring faith in our loving omnipotent God, stubborn hope when others despair, and loving persistence in the face of hostility and inertia.

The Civility Project is not just about defining our terms better. It’s also about making a real difference in healing our politics. For that we need to draw the maps, fashion the tools, and practice the skills of Christ-like civility.

We get to work on this together. This should be fun!