In our American quest for a more perfect union, we often mistake unity for sameness. We mistake unity for conformity. But the functional unity of a system—seems to actually *require* diversity, distinction, and difference. In this episode, Christy Vines (Founder/ CEO, Ideos Institute) reflects on the problem of division today; how we increasingly invest our identity in politics instead of faith or spirituality; humility and privilege; the definition of unity and the assumption of diversity in it; the centrality of empathy; and how to cultivate an empathic wisdom grounded in the life and witness of Christ. The Ideos Institute is currently sponsoring 31 days of Unity leading up to the 2024 election. Visit thereunionproject.us or ideosinstitute.org/31-days-of-unity to learn how to participate.
In our American quest for a more perfect union, we often mistake unity for sameness. We mistake unity for conformity. But the functional unity of a system—seems to actually require diversity, distinction, and difference.
In this episode, Christy Vines (Founder/ CEO, Ideos Institute) reflects on the problem of division today; how we increasingly invest our identity in politics instead of faith or spirituality; humility and privilege; the definition of unity and the assumption of diversity in it; the centrality of empathy; and how to cultivate an empathic wisdom grounded in the life and witness of Christ.
The Ideos Institute is currently sponsoring 31 days of Unity leading up to the 2024 election. Visit thereunionproject.us or ideosinstitute.org/31-days-of-unity to learn how to participate.
About Christy Vines
Christy Vines is the founder, President and CEO of Ideos Institute where she leads the organization’s research on the burgeoning field of Empathic Intelligence and its application to the fields of conflict transformation, social cohesion, and social renewal.
Prior to founding Ideos Institute, she was the Senior Vice President for Global Initiatives and Strategy at the Institute for Global Engagement (IGE) where she served as the managing and coordinating lead for the development of strategic institutional partnerships and global initiatives in support of the IGE mission to encourage flourishing societies and stable states, and promote sustainable religious freedom, human rights and the rule of law globally. During her tenure at IGE she helped expand the organization’s Center for Women, Faith & Leadership which supports, equips and convenes religious women peacemakers around the globe.
Christy has held senior roles with the RAND Corporation, where she worked with the RAND Centers for Middle East Public Policy, Asia Pacific Public Policy, Global Risk and Security, and the Center for Justice, Infrastructure, and Environment, finally transitioning to interim project manager for the RAND African First Ladies Initiative (now located at the Bush Presidential Center). Christy also held the role of senior fellow at The American Security Project and served as an advisor to the Carter’s Center’s inaugural Forum on Women, Religion, Violence and Power.
Christy is a published writer, speaker, and the executive producer of the 2022 documentary film, "Dialogue Lab: America," a moving take on the current state of division and polarization in the U.S. She has appeared on podcasts like Comment Magazine’s “**Whole Person Revolution Podcast”, “**How Do We Fix It” and Bob Goff's “Dream Big Podcast”. She has published numerous articles and op-eds with news outlets and publications, including the **Washington Post, Christianity Today,** and Capital Commentary.
Christy received her Master's Degree in Public Administration from the Harvard Kennedy School. She attended both Stanford University and the University of CA, Riverside where she received her B.A. in Sociology and Qualitative Analysis. She currently resides in Pasadena, CA.
Show Notes
Production Notes
This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.
Evan Rosa: For the Life of the World is a production of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture. Visit us online at faith.yale.edu.
Christy Vines: Unity is about finding ways to be the body of Christ with all of our diversity and difference and saying that with humility, here is my perspective. Here's how I understand God. Here's how I live out my faith. Here's what that might mean culturally or politically and all of the other ways we express our faith.
And to be unified means maybe we can all be moving in the same direction on different paths.
But recognizing we're all trying to reach the same goal. We may never be on the exact same path, but over time, you find that we get closer and closer together as we share our lives with one another, and we influence each other from a position of trust and care. And that can only be done with healing.
When we actually show up recognizing with humility that we can learn and benefit from others.
Evan Rosa: This is For the Life of the World, a podcast about seeking and living a life worthy of our humanity. I'm Evan Rosa with the Yale Center for Faith and Culture. In the American quest for a more perfect union, we often mistake unity for sameness.
We mistake unity for conformity. But the functional unity of a system seems to actually require diversity, distinction, and harmony. and difference. This works from biological systems to psychological systems to family systems all the way up to the species level in the mutual ecology of the natural environment.
And let's just keep working right on up to the cosmos itself that might even seem to mimic the diversity of persons in the unified substance of the trinity. That said, it's also pretty interesting to remember that we're all made of the same cosmic dust, and to dust we shall return. We share so much. But we don't have to be the same to hold things in common.
To the contrary, we have to be different. The contemplative mystic activist, preacher, educator, Howard Thurman, one of the early influences on Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement. He encourages us to see this kind of unity pervading everything, a kinship of the entire created order, you might say.
So before this episode continues, I'm going to read at length a selection from his Meditations of the Heart. Long ago, Plotinus wrote, If we are in unity with the Spirit, we are in unity with each other, and so we are all one. The words of this ancient Greek mystic are suggestive, for they call attention to the underlying unity of all life.
The recognition of the Spirit of God as the unifying principle of all life becomes at once the most crucial experience of humanity. It says that whoever is aware of the Spirit of God in themselves enters the doors that lead into the life of their fellow people. The same idea is stated in ethical terms in the New Testament, when the suggestion is made that if a person says they love God, whom they have not seen, and does not love their brother or sister who is with them, they're a liar, and the truth does not dwell in them.
The way is difficult because it is very comforting to withdraw from the responsibility of unity with one's fellow people, and to enter alone into the solitary contemplation of God. One can have perfect solitary communion without the risks of being misunderstood. Of having one's words twisted, of having to be on the defensive about one's true or alleged attitude, in the quiet fellowship with one's God, one may seem to be relieved of any necessity to make headway against heavy odds.
This is why one encounters persons of deep piousness and religiosity who are intolerant and actively hostile toward their fellow people. Some of the most terrifying hate organizations in the country are made up, in large part, of persons who are very devout in their worship of their God. The test to which Plotinus puts us, however, is very searching.
To be in unity with the Spirit is to be in unity with one's fellow people. Not to be in unity with one's fellow people is thereby not to be in unity with the Spirit. The pragmatic test of one's unity with the Spirit is found in the unity with one's people. We see what this means when we are involved in the experience of a broken relationship.
When I have lost harmony with another, My whole life is thrown out of tune. God tends to be remote and far away when a desert and sea appear between me and another. I draw close to God as I draw close to my fellow people. The great incentive remains ever alert. I cannot be at peace without God, and I cannot be truly aware of God if I'm not at peace with my fellow people.
With me today on the show is Christy Vines. She's the founder, president, and CEO of Ideos Institute. where she leads the organization's research on the burgeoning field of empathic intelligence and its application to the fields of conflict transformation, social cohesion, and social renewal. She's a graduate of the Harvard Kennedy School, and prior to founding IDEOS Institute, she was the Senior Vice President for Global Initiatives and Strategy at the At the Institute for Global Engagement, Kristi and Ideos are currently running a campaign of 31 days of unity as we approach the 2024 general election.
If you're interested, check the show notes today for how you can participate and get involved. Together we discuss the problem of division in contemporary society, how we increasingly invest our identity in politics instead of faith or spirituality. We talk about humility and privilege. The definition of unity and the assumption of diversity within it, the centrality of empathy, and how to cultivate an empathic wisdom grounded in the life and witness of Christ.
Thanks for listening.
Christy Vines, thanks so much for joining me on For the Life of the World.
Christy Vines: Thanks so much, Evan. I am excited to be here.
Evan Rosa: I wonder if you just start with a little background where you're coming from culturally, spiritually, what are some of the first principles you might say for how you look at the world?
Christy Vines: I come from a really unique place. Um, I think from a spiritual theological perspective, I was raised Catholic. Um, my grandmother worked in the Catholic church. I was in some ways raised at the knee of Cardinal Mahoney. because she cleaned the rectory and took care of the priests and the church. And she's a first generation Irish Catholic here.
And so I had deep rooting and grounding in the Catholic faith, but later in life found it a little bit insufficient for, I think, the worldview that I had kind of assumed from a more secular faith. So in college, I walked away from the faith and was on a really interesting journey of finding myself, finding out who God was.
And it was actually my sister who, uh, when I was in college, came to faith through Southern Baptist Church here in Southern California, where, I grew up and the pastor at the time was the vice president of the executive committee of the Southern Baptist Convention. That was where really I cut my teeth on Protestant Christianity.
So my sister introduced me to the church. Interestingly enough, my now husband got saved in that church first when he was kind of on his own journey of finding God. So kind of, we were fully immersed in the kind of Southern Baptist conservative evangelical movement. And so that was really my worldview for kind of Protestant theology was, was that Southern Baptist kind of gospel message.
And, and it served us very well until I went to grad school and I ended up at the Kennedy school at Harvard and Cambridge while my husband was pastoring. It didn't go over well with. The other, you know, the rest of the staff and many of kind of our friends in the church who kind of thought I was, you know, becoming a heathen, a heretic for taking that path.
But my area of focus was national security, foreign policy. And I was very immersed then and in my early career, mid career out of that experience in the peacemaking conflict space, purely secular, but with a lot of religious overtones because we were Dealing as a nation with ISIS and extremism around the world.
And I would kind of immerse myself in that work, but then come home to a church and find that I was, you know, experiencing seeds of division and kind of the plantings of whether it was language or context about a lot of us versus them, you know, even around things as simple as who was giving more to the cooperative program.
And we were often one of the top churches giving to the cooperative program. And so look at us and, you know, the celebration of, you know, different holidays that, you know, look at us. We're so patriotic. And again, and And I often say this because I loved our church, I loved our pastor, but I think what was really evident was that with great intention and no malice whatsoever, the roots of disunity were being planted.
And the minute you start creating an us versus them dynamic, it's really easy to enemize those others and start to create those boundaries of who we are and what our identity is and what, you know, what makes us Christian. And then what makes those other people not Christian? Because they're not like us.
And so I think out of that whole experience, I just learned that the value of really understanding You know, and embracing who people are with all their diversity and complexity is part of the beauty of being part of a diverse body. And that we so kind of the fear aspect of kind of that difference and othering really impacts our witness.
And so I think that has really formed kind of these high values that I have around empathy, around love and care, recognizing that to love someone and to empathize with them and to really want to, for good to happen to them, doesn't mean I have to agree with them. doesn't mean that I have to accept all of the principles and practices that they believe or that they, that they enact.
And so that I think has really formed a really deep foundation and grounding for me personally, in the idea that there's an empathic wisdom that I think we miss often as believers that is so critical and crucial to living out the call that we have to spread the good news.
Evan Rosa: I come back to this kind of thing that caught my attention about part of your story, uh, when you went to the Kennedy School and the re sounds like the reaction of the Christian community to your work in national security and peace building.
Like what, what was that about?
Christy Vines: I think one, I just think that there is this notion that Harvard as this big kind of liberal institution is very kind of anti Christian, whether it's, you know, overtly or covertly that there's kind of a push against a Christian worldview and that is very secular. And there are elements of that that are very true.
But I found people of deep faith there. I found people who respected the diverse diversity of faiths that That were part of even my own cohort. And I think there's just a general fear of the unknown. It's easy to just put things in a bucket, right? This is, these are the things that so clearly support our faith.
And these are the things that are anti our faith. And it's having those binaries makes you know, navigating complexity and nuance really easy. So, you know, that's the only thing I could assume is that there was lots of fear about how I was going to show up and be challenged in my faith and then come back and, you know, and call everybody else a heretic now, right?
You all don't get it. Yeah. And I think being Southern Baptist, very conservative evangelical, there's always the fear of kind of becoming this more progressive, liberalized Christian.
Evan Rosa: Right. In so many ways, I think the church seems to be always fraught with the question of unity and division and maybe like the setting of boundaries and trying to understand where the boundaries really lie and whose community are you really a part of.
And so when you face questions about unity, peace, perhaps reconciliation efforts as well. Um, but even the concept of a public space, the public sphere, I think this is one of the reasons why it seems to be an enduring conversation for Christians, because there's sort of the constant question of one's boundaries and to whom you belong and sort of creates a fascinating puzzle about the us and them and about where to draw these lines.
So I'm kind of gesturing towards some of the, I'm trying to, I'm curious how you Think about unpacking, let's call it the problem of division.
Christy Vines: Yeah, it's, it's been a, a definitely a journey for me. I'm innately a curious person. And so I'm constantly trying to seek answers to all of these questions, usually with open hands, with very little kind of bias going in.
And what that has led me to is really running down a rabbit trail around neuroscience and how we think and how the brain functions and how it leads us. And I'll tell you, it's so interesting. I'm not a neuroscience or even a scientist by training. But I think what has been fascinating is that the more I've understood both the abilities as well as the limitations of our own human brain, the more scripture has been illuminated to me.
And I'll just maybe kind of continue to pull on this thread that I think you're starting is, we're actually innately born with this need to otherize, to create categories of kind of who's in my tribe and who's not, right? It's safety, it's security. It's really the human DNA is to, to self sort so that we know kind of who's with us and who's not with us.
And it's that constant kind of lifelong consumption of data. or about who's like me? How do I think of myself in relation to others? And so putting these all in categories, right? Kind of our identity profile. And there, there's specific things that are key to our identity that are unchangeable and that are actually kind of the greatest influences around othering.
And that is our race, our Our gender, often for most people, religion, because especially when you hold that faith and that religious identity so core to who you are and how you see yourself in the world. And interestingly, and up until probably the last century, uh, we've just kind of added politics. to that list.
That was never a part of kind of the core identity of human beings, but it has started to become, especially in the West, such a key component of our identity that it's no longer a surprise that over, you know, that our tensions here as a country and even as a church across those identities have become the, some of the biggest division, you know, dividing Issues of our time, issues of race, issues of gender and sexuality, issues of kind of theological difference, and now political ideology.
And all of that is actually kind of grounded in that kind of, you know, the flight, you know, you know, response and our ability to create safety for ourselves. The hard part is that, yes, that is how we were created, right? To be tribal, to have this defensive mechanism in place. But there was this fascinating thing that once I started learning about the brain that I realized that, you know, in, in Christ, we are supposed to take on this new nature.
And so what is that new nature supposed to be? And it's that, you know, having the eyes of Christ to see others as Christ sees them, to love others as Christ loves them, to do that requires an incredible switch in the brain. But the only way that you do that is by consuming new data that the brain can use to make those.
And a lot of that is immersing yourself amongst those other tribes, being around diversity and difference. And, and so people often ask me like, Christy, why are you uniquely different in this space? And I think a lot of that is because I myself was raised around incredible diversity, diversity of race, diversity around sexuality.
Definitely diversity around religious beliefs and practices. And that family came together every Sunday and debated everything under the sun. And I think what I learned is that diversity and difference was about learning and growth. And it was my family. It was the reflection of my own family. And so to see, to be immersed in that meant that I got to dabble in lots of tribes and lots of difference, and then come back that next Sunday and still love on that same family that would believe differently than me, that look differently than me.
I have cousins that have blonde hair and blue eyes, and I have cousins that are kind of deep chocolate brown skin with coal dark eyes, and we get together and people are like, there's no way you can be a family. And so I say all of that is to say that I think that there is this process of how do you add data into that subconscious brain that you have, that computer that then allows it to, to decrease when it comes to the fear of the other, because you have lots of new data to give it that, Hey, I'm actually connected to that tribe too.
Evan Rosa: Yeah. I find this interesting because of the sort of question of unity within, sorry, I should say difference within unity. And I've heard you express this in a few different ways so far, but I think maybe honing in on the family element is interesting because it's the primary place where we both encounter tribe and familiarity and the concept of unity when it goes well.
But it's also the place where differences emerge first as well, probably. And whether you get that feeling of threat, or the feeling of safety from the emergence of difference and the emergence of boundaries. And, you know, you're kind of both on the, perhaps on the neuroscience side of things, but maybe leaning a little bit more toward psychology and developmental psychology and the emergence of a independent self apart from the parent, which of course has neurological underpinnings.
And that's a fascinating place that like, like your description of your family has a place where you could. Encounter difference, not just differences of identity, but I imagine differences of opinion, hurt, offense, and then the felt need to, to again, stay unified in some other capacity, some broader capacity.
And as you say, gather again, like still come back together. I wonder if you'd comment a little bit more about what hope you might find in the family for an expression of this, um, maybe not even an expression, but like the literal question for some people, right? Because Um, it becomes some of the most important questions of unity and dealing with difference and dealing with disagreement occurs at the level of the family.
Christy Vines: I mean, one thing we know, like you said, psychologically, neurologically, we are shaped and wired by those earliest, uh, introductions to others. Right? What does that mean? Is it a safe place to be? How much can I express myself and feel safe in doing so? Or how confined do I have to be in order to still feel like I am a part of?
Those, that's all shaped and nurtured at our earliest, in our earliest formative years. And so, it's not surprising then that there's this unique difference when you are raised within a family that embraces diversity of both thought, perspective, background, identity, or even the ability to explore those issues in a safe way when there's a difference of opinion.
That, that creates an incredible feeling. foundation for, especially as a believer to go out into the world amongst lots of difference and diversity and not feel yourself in tension with them or in some ways at war with them, that your job is not to break everything about who they are down in order so that they become more like you, but rather to try to immerse yourself in their story.
to better understand how you might then share who you are and hopefully who Christ is in you with them. I find great inspiration from Paul and the work he did while on earth. And I think there's this key moment of Paul introducing Jesus to the Greeks and this unknown God that they had. And I think the beautiful part about that story is that Paul did not go into relationship with the Greeks to tear down their entire culture.
But rather, he immersed himself in their culture, in their community, to understand who they were, what their stories were, what influenced them, what was their foundation, in order to discover that there was this one unknown God. And because he understood them so well, was able to then implant Jesus into that without it all disrupting.
The rest of their culture and their norms and their practices, right? And I can't tell you how many people we've worked with as an organization because we work in the space around empathy and what we would call the relational wisdom of God. How many people, both young and old, have said the number one takeaway that they've had from working with us is they feel hope again about going back and engaging differently with their family and repairing relationships that have been broken.
And I always say, if you can do that with your family, where you have the highest, there's the highest risk, right, because you can also be rejected with that vulnerability, if you can do that successfully there, you can do that anywhere. And so then, and so I always say, if we as families, in the Church of God could do that repair work, then, you know, the ability to go out and share Jesus with the world becomes exponentially easier.
And I think that's what builds unity, right? That ability to sit with people different than you and immerse yourself in their life in this shared exchange and experience.
Evan Rosa: One, one comment I'd like to hear you like kind of respond to this, but then I want to get some more like the definition of unity. I think it would be good to maybe like kind of sit with that a little bit, but a friend and a previous podcast guest, a guy named David Dark, who's at Belmont University.
He's got many quips and phrases, but one of them is there are so many ways to love God and he is often presenting them in ways that probably some people would find uncomfortable. Some Christians would find that way of loving God. uncomfortable because it comes with a different political platform than they might expect or want.
And so I think you're right to point out, like, at least the felt And I don't know, I don't know enough about the history of, but certainly in modern American politics, contemporary politics, the, the levels to which we have, um, invested our identity in a political platform seems to increase perhaps as the levels with which the levels to which we will invest our identity in a religious or a spiritual source, right?
Politics seems to be kind of. offering an alternative to religion in an important ways. That's kind of what I noticed when I see what seems like the moral absolutism of the political moment that we're in. I think you and I probably grew up at a time when like it was moral relativism that everyone was afraid of that just not a problem anymore.
I would that someone offered a little more context to the moral scenarios that they. are on and on about. But the reason I'm bringing this up, there are so many ways to love God, is that I don't know if, if all Christians believe that there are, that the more ways there are to love God, the better. Um, I think some of our trouble with division might stem from a belief that there are relatively few ways to love God.
And you really do need to practice those ways in order to be part of the fold. And there's not a lot of willingness to sit and, and partake of the Eucharist together, for instance, if, if we're in disagreement about certain factors.
Christy Vines: I think that you're, that's absolutely true. I think I might even go another step from your kind of the dynamic that you named around the abdication of our you know, of our faith into a political identity versus, you know, and kind of how that takes away from our spiritual identity.
I actually think it's even a step deeper than that, that our abdication of our faith and our role as Christians to a political dynamic is actually taken away because we are investing less in a relational. And I think that has great implications for then our spiritual health, right? And so if we are no longer in deep relationship with people who are different from us, who believe differently than us, but we're self selecting into sameness, then it's, There's really very little ability then to, to shape and mold your community.
And so because you no longer have power and influence to do that, the only other, which it usually happens through interpersonal dynamics, the only other way that then you kind of push on this worldview that you seek, then it becomes through the political realm. Because really the spiritual realm, the theological realm.
requires that same dynamic to happen through relationship. And so the more we become dependent on our, you know, on our technology and the more we self select into sameness. I mean, I think if you look at the state of certainly I would say the evangelical church, but I would argue that it's the same on kind of the progressive side of the church.
There are few churches that you go into anymore and really just say, Oh, this is going to be what the kingdom of God looks like. Instead it's, oh, this is going to be like one corner of the kingdom. And there's just such a beauty when you experience church, where you really feel like you're worshiping with every tribe, tongue, and nation around you, all proclaiming their faith and their allegiance to God.
You know that sitting next to you is somebody who has a completely different story than you, who has a completely different background and probably one you will never understand or relate to, but you can sit side by side recognizing that there's that gr that that same foundation of loving God and loving him differently.
'cause I am sure the person next to me has a very different love language when it comes to their relationship with God than I do.
Evan Rosa: Yeah, this is what I'm trying to name a little bit, because it's a concern that there's just not enough capacity or space in the expression, not in the concept, not in the concept.
I mean, in the cosmic Christ, you have all of the space you need for the kind of diversity in unity that you're talking about. And yet, The practice thereof, the expression thereof, the state of certain pockets of the American church, and perhaps America just as a whole, if you want to draw together and not pick on the church so much.
It's just a, there's not enough space for, for that diversity there. It's the expectation that in order to work together, we really do have to look exactly the same. That we have to think the same things. And the only, that's the only way to collaborate. So until we can get past those sort of disagreements, there's just no way to work across the aisle.
And that is disastrous to the concept of a democracy and the concept of, I mean, certainly the concept of the church, I think, for the reasons that you just described. And I think that's why I feel a kind of hope when I hear David Dark say, there are so many ways to love God, because it's that reminder that there are more ways than I can count or know.
And in fact, and my decision ahead of time that like, no, there's only a few ways is, or to be an American for that matter, right? There's so many ways to be an American, or there's so many ways to be a human being. And in a flourishing one, but we don't have a lot of space. Like we're so narrow. We really think though, no, unless it's just so, and it just leads to all sorts of trouble down the line.
Yeah,
Christy Vines: I think there's also a really interesting dynamic at the core of all of this. It's something that we discovered just kind of in the work that has been done around global conflict and just conflict in general. It's kind of, there's this really interesting root cause to almost all of it and it's pride and ego, right?
It's having the pride and, and the ego to say, my way is right. My people are more important. The way in which we see the world is the best way. which leaves almost no room for humility, leaves no room for the sanctity of human life, leaves no room for diversity, and which is interesting because those are so core to our Christian faith.
How many times in the Bible are we told, you know, to war against pride, to war against our ego, right? To live humbly with our God, right? And the act of humility, while it sounds really simple, is one of the hardest things that we can do as human beings, especially human beings who live in a country that affords us privilege and power to do a lot of what we want to do, to impart upon the world our own will simply by mere force.
because of who we are as a nation. And I think that even the privilege and the posture that so many of us live in and live with in, in this country is why is when people from around the world come and see what American Christianity looks like, they are baffled because for so many of them, they don't have that privilege.
They don't have the ability to have, you know, to force upon somebody else, their will, because they No power. Many of them are just in survival mode. And so God for them is not only all in all for them, but there has to be unity of the body. They don't have a choice. Survival requires them to be unified as a body.
And so there's such a beauty and a freedom that says, I could care less about all the other differences. Our mere survival and the, and this idea of bringing God here to work among. with us and to protect us requires all of us to come together. And I think there is something about desperation and need that brings, that illuminates God's beauty, majesty, and importance in such a powerful way that I think so many of us that are born into plenty will never experience until the other side of heaven.
And so I think that there's some humility that I think even as You know, as believers who sometimes think we've got the lock on Christianity, I think there is something beautiful that can happen when you humble yourself and recognize we are this much, right? We have a small percent of understanding the fullness of God because we have only an American experience.
to understand him through. That lends that perspective. Whereas if you think about missionaries who have lived amongst people of all backgrounds, who are vastly different from an American or Westernized culture, how different they return, how their understanding and their ways of understanding how to love God have changed and grown.
And I think that is what God calls us to. when he talks about for you to be one, right? It's to understand that to be one means setting aside all the things that are different and really focusing on this core idea of what is it that makes us alike? And it's our love of God. It's our baptism into the family of God and that we are weakened in our own power as believers and as a body when we discard or lessen those perspectives or those ways of loving God that look different
Evan Rosa: than how we do it.
So I do want to get to the definition of unity here, which is, you know, I think it helps us start the conversation in the way we have, which is sort of like from the feeling of the experience of the kind of issue and the problem of division. But I think in order to kind of lay out a kind of goal or a purpose, a sense of the target that we're aiming for, I'd love to talk about your definition of unity, which I think you've spoken to in a variety of ways already.
But to kind of break it down, because I think there is a faulty definition that's operating that we've already kind of been looking at to some extent in this conversation, but it's one that is, is really it's kind of kneecapping us just undercutting the whole project. How do you think about the concept of unity and how would you describe it as a kind of goal?
Christy Vines: Yeah, I think This idea of unity has, for us, and for me personally, and for us as an organization, has long been grounded in this practice of empathy. It's really what has brought us to this recognition that you can actually have unity, even with great difference. And I think that's what's often missed, is there's almost this relativistic kind of, you know, parallel, idea that when you bring up unity, that somehow it means unity requires accepting and believing all the same things.
And so therefore, to have unity, I have to like discard some of my own beliefs, some of my own norms and worldviews in order to be unified with my brother or sister in Christ, who believes very differently than me. And it's such a false belief. damaging way of defining unity. And I think in many ways, it's become a trick of the enemy.
God never intended for there to be sameness. Otherwise, why would he have created the world and his church and culture and race and, you know, all of those things differently from design? The design was diversity. And to be honest, in many ways, I think God created the world in such a way as to challenge us every day to live in harmony and unity, because it is extremely hard.
I mean, look, most of us are challenged to have unity with our own families who share the same DNA and live in the same households and largely think, you know, largely, you know, the same, maybe not completely, but if we are challenged to, to love and be unified in our own families, How much greater to do that outside of the family unit, right?
With just this diverse and increasingly diverse, diversifying world that is ever closer and ever present because of things like technology and all of that. And I think the best thing we can do as, especially as a people of God is to throw that false definition away. That this is not about seeing the world and understanding it and engaging with it in the same way.
In fact, what a boring world it would be if we all thought the same, and the only way you could be part of the body of Christ, or that we could be unified as the bodies, if we all saw the world the exact same way, and we all practiced our Christianity the same way, and we all had the same ideas about how to get from A to Z.
It's certainly not a world that I think God need the, would need the church to be in. for. Because we'd all be the same. There'd be no conflict there, right? And so I think what's really interesting to me is that unity is about finding ways. to be the body of Christ with all of our diversity and difference and saying that with humility, here is my perspective.
Here's how I understand God. Here's how I live out my faith. Here's what that might mean culturally or politically and all of the other ways we express our faith. To be unified means maybe we can all be moving in the same direction on different paths, coming at it from different, you know, directions. But recognizing we're all trying to reach the same goal, and that maybe in that shared experience, and that rubbing against one another, as our pastor used to say, heavenly sandpaper, refining one another, we may never be on the exact same path, but over time you find that we get closer and closer together as we share our lives with one another, and we influence each from a position of trust and care.
And that can only be done When we actually show up recognizing with humility that we can learn and benefit from others. What I often tell people is that this work of empathy that we do and how that builds unity is ultimately it's evangelism and discipleship. If you don't have that muscle, it's really hard to evangelize somebody very different than you, to share Jesus in a way that resonates with them.
And I think I think because it is such a dynamic word and is so elusive, even in its formal definition, I just think it's insufficient in a Christian context, because unity outside of the body of Christ does require conformity. And I think to the opposite of that in the body of Christ is actually the opposite of conformity.
It's a core set of principles that we all agree on, and the rest is detail. The rest is actually, I think, the illumination of the diverse nature of God himself.
Evan Rosa: I think a lot of what the current world that we seem to be living in is just like a process of trial and error of trying to get things right.
And I do think that there are a lot of well meaning people that nonetheless fail to connect. I want to talk about empathy in that way. You identify empathy as this core positive component of unity, not just what it's but empathy does seem to be an important part of What would make for a unified space?
Tell us a little bit about your unique take on empathy and how to build it.
Christy Vines: Yeah. Yeah. When I, when I first founded Ideos, one of my mentors said, as I was describing this way of engaging across lines of difference, and he said, I think you're talking about empathy. And I said, no, I'm not talking about that soft skill that, you know, walk a mile in somebody's shoes and see the world through their eyes.
I said, I'm not talking about that because that's actually impossible. If my foot isn't shaped like their foot, my foot will never fit in their shoe. It will always be uncomfortable. in that shoe. And my lens has never been biased. If you think of your eye as a camera lens, it's never been biased the way theirs is.
And so I can't see the world through their eyes because my eyes are biased the way, informed the way it has been throughout my life. I'm thinking there's something deeper than this, you know, this word empathy. So, thankfully, my mentor said, I think you just should keep, you know, chasing that rabbit and see if it leads you anywhere.
And I actually landed upon a book by Dr. Rosalyn Arnold out of the University of Tasmania called Empathic Intelligence. And it was all about teaching and learning. So it was all for the education space. And it was how teachers could teach a concept to students who were obviously very diverse in their background, in their, in their, you know, their intellectual ability and their own perspectives, the stories that they bring with them and experiences they bring with them to the classroom.
And I read it, it's a very thick tome, and I read it from cover, you know, cover to cover and said, this is it. This is the strategic way of thinking and engaging in the world. And it's, and the more I dug into it and started to develop this framework for it around kind of more cultural, social context, I went, oh, wait, I'm completely plagiarizing because this is actually the way of Jesus.
And we actually paralleled the empathic intelligence, what we call empathic intelligence framework, with kind of the lived experience of Jesus. It's the incarnation of Jesus. It's God becoming man and dwelling among us. Why? Very few people ask that question. Why did God have to come and dwell among us? To know what it was like to be tempted, to know what it was like to be fallible, right?
To know what it was to be us, like the empathic God, this perfect God came to earth and experienced everything that we experience as we are. as failing, frail, you know, temptable, imperfect human beings, something he could never have known as a perfect, perfect God. And so I imagine him like living out this kind of creating this empathic wisdom and infusing that into the church.
And I think For many of us, we've lost that muscle because it required, you think about all of the major miracles that Jesus did. And when he was the most seen, it was when he sat with somebody, the broken, the outcast. And it wasn't, you know, it wasn't to, you know, a PR stunt. It was because he actually got to be close to someone who the others had discarded.
and was able to share himself with them in a way that clearly other people had not. It was life changing for them. And so I think if God's greatest gift to human beings on earth was to sit with somebody so that they could truly know and understand him and then go away sharing who he was to them and proclaiming the greatness of this man Jesus that they met to their neighbors and friends and communities, that's the essence of evangelism.
Right? We would all love that, that every person we sat next to and shared Jesus with would then go out and share that same Jesus with their friends and family and neighbors and shouting it from the rooftops. Why does that not happen most of the time? Because most of the time we take our own understanding of Jesus and try to impose that on somebody without ever knowing their story.
I remember the, one of the earliest times I went out to do like the kind of programmed evangelism project where you get in your cars at the end of the day at the church and you have this list of homes that you're supposed to go knock on their door and share Jesus with them. But there were no questions that ever said.
Just ask them about their own life. What are they struggling with? How can you pray for them? What, how, how have they understood Jesus? And I remember talking about God the Father with this one woman and tears started coming to her eyes. And I thought, Oh my gosh, she gets it. She's going to, you know, this is the moment.
And then her face turned red. And she said, the problem with you Christians is you come here and you talk about this God, the Father, but let me tell you what the word Father means to me. And she detailed the horrible treatment that she had received at the hands of her own father. And in that moment, I realized I had blown it because I never bothered to say, what is it like to be you?
How can I understand who you are? How can I be Paul? and find out where is this hole in your life so that I can implant Jesus in the way that you would embrace him and that you would understand him and that would bring you peace and joy rather than cause you more pain. And that to me was the first time I said, okay, something is missing in our evangelistic muscle and the way in which we do this, that if we don't care enough to understand the story and experience of the people that we are sharing Jesus with, they will never walk away sharing it with their friends and family and communities.
Instead, they'll just continue to talk about these crazy Christians that show up at the door and try to force down our necks this Jesus that they believe in. And that to me was the essence of this idea of empathic wisdom, this relational wisdom of Christ, which is just to go and sit and really care about the stories and perspectives and experiences of others.
And then it's amazing how God opens up space for you to share who he is in a way that can be received wonderfully and beautifully and lovingly by the person that you're with.
Evan Rosa: Yeah. I'm wondering how achievable this is without kind of cultivating a personal sense of one's of security. I think for myself, the difficulty of sitting with conflict or the difficulty of allowing tension to simply be.
Emerges from my own discomfort with, or maybe impatience with, or a felt lack of control where now we're sharing a space, right? Like it could go any direction. There is not a quick fix that's going to be happening here. We need to hold things over a longer period of time and allow the goals to shift out a little in different ways for there to be lack of resolution.
Right? It's the movie that doesn't at the end, but we don't like those movies. Sometimes we want the quick resolution. We want the neat, tidy ending. And I mean, as a culture, but I'm pointing to that as a kind of fault in certain ways or, and it's not necessarily to be overly blaming or judgmental about it, simply to call out something that may stand in the way for us.
This is hard to do. This is hard to do. Why is it so hard to do, Christy?
Christy Vines: The hardest thing to do. People are the hardest thing to do. You know, it's messy. I think that's my question. Why is this so hard, Christy? People, it's the hardest thing to do. You know, it's, I always say that this is the refining, this, this is the part of being a Christian to me that is the most interesting, exciting, worth it part of the process is figuring out this messy hard part, which is people.
And it's become a joy. I'm often asked, well, if there was one takeaway, what would it be? Like, if you had one action for people to do as a first step, what would it be? And I go, interestingly enough, it's the first one is the easiest one. It's the longest, hardest one at the same time. And it's this question of why, and really that's the core of this work of building this empathic relational muscle, right?
When I think about Jesus sitting you know, with the woman at the well, and just, hearing her story, right? And so Avani just asked questions. It was like, that's where the good stuff is. Instead of wanting to have your comeback, right? Instead of wanting to, again, impart your will on people or your perspective and make sure that they hear it and get it.
And we get into these debates about who's right, who's wrong. There's something really fascinating about this thing called empathy. It gets to this core of why, but I'll start with the first thing. Empathy is contagious. You know, we often know that there's an empathic response in yawning, right? Like you yawn, generally I will yawn in response.
That's an empathic response. It's my body, say, relaying to you that I see you. And I am being vulnerable with you because yawning is one of our greatest acts of vulnerability. I am vulnerable with you, but it doesn't stop there. It's really interesting if I show up and I'm curious about you and I'm asking you lots of questions rather than debating my position.
One, I want to help you become a more critical thinker because we often don't stop and ask ourselves why do we believe what we believe? And usually why means more than just give me your definition. And usually you start thinking about. Well, how did I come to this? And you start to share stories or you need to think about your story, which is really powerful.
But the other thing too, is that as I'm doing that, and as I'm more curious about you, the empathic responses, you will actually go, wow, okay, this is a safe space. They're not attacking me. They're not trying to debate this, you know, one, one to one. Let me ask you some questions. There is this empathic response.
And so you create this container for how you want these engagements and these, you know, conversations to go and these relationships to go. So why would you be vulnerable to a complete stranger? There usually has to be trust at the center of that empathic exchange. And so when it comes to this idea of why I tell people that If you really want to build an environment where there is an exchange of ideas and where people are open and vulnerable to what you want to share, you have to create a space of trust.
And the ways you can do that is actually by being curious about who they are and asking them lots of questions. And I always tell people that until you can answer the question, why do they believe what they believe? Why do they behave the way they behave? And then by the way, this is great for parenting with children.
Why are they acting out the way they're acting out? Why do they hold the belief systems they hold? Until you can answer that question, your work in that relationship is not done. And so it goes to your point about this being a long, you know, this being a long journey. This is the long obedience in the same direction.
And so I just think that the work of the church is the work of relationship and the work of learning to build those spaces and build those places of trust so that eventually we can share Jesus in a way where somebody wants to go away and share it with friends and family and shout it from the rooftops because we have been an embodiment of Jesus for them.
Evan Rosa: Christy, I'm hoping that I can give you an opportunity here to talk a little bit about the current project that IDEOS is running, this reunion project, which is a in October here before the general election. to be thinking about unity. So I'm wondering if you could say a little bit about that and what your hope, what you hope happens and how people might get involved.
Christy Vines: Absolutely. Thanks for giving me that opportunity. So as an organization, we just, you know, we've been working in the kind of polarization space for many years and came to a point where we realized, you know, that the greatest need was actually starting with the church itself. How can we ask those outside of God to build peace?
when they don't have the Prince of Peace and the people who claim to embody the Prince of Peace can't find peace within its own, you know, the own, the family of God itself. And so we are, we've launched this reunion project, which is really a five to 10 year project for us, which is how do we build this unity in the church across lines of difference without having, you know, having to have sameness across the board, but what does it really look like for the body of Christ to operate as a healthy body?
So that is really our mission. And the kickoff to that happen is happening this month, the month of October with the 31 days of unity campaign. And what we've done is we've 31 Christian leaders from very different backgrounds, very different perspectives and experiences. have all come together to say, we actually believe in unity and we desire unity, especially in advance of a, of a highly divisive election.
And so how can we actually turn away from those divisive, you know, tropes and rhetoric and all of the propaganda that's coming at us and actually turn away and actually think about what is God calling us? to do and to be in this moment, both individually and collectively. And so each day it's a text based campaign that you can sign up for and you receive a text every day with a scripture, a prayer, and a reflection from one of those individuals, one of those 31 Christian leaders.
from around the country. And so anywhere from Dr. David Goatley, President of Fuller, Cherie Harder of the Trinity Forum, Michael Ware from the Center for Christianity and Public Life, and David Bailey from Erebon and everyone in between. And we have pastors, Bob Roberts. I mean, I could go on and on with the incredible lineup of Christian voices who are lending, um, their time and, and talent to this project.
And so the way you can sign up is you can go to thereunionproject. us. Or on our website, Ideos Institut Backslash. backslash, and this is the harder one, 31 days of unity. So I would say go to thereunionproject. us and it will lead you to signing up for the campaign. The great thing is even if you drop in any day this month, so let's say you drop in on the 15th, you start actually the campaign on the 15th.
And so you're actually doing it with the day. The other thousands of Christians who have already signed up and are already participating. So you're actually going to be on track receiving the same content each day, but you also can go back to the website and get previous content if you want to catch up.
And so that, and that content will be evergreen on our website for, for, you know, as long as this campaign is around. The other way that you can engage is actually, we have a version of the 31 Days of Unity campaign actually on the YouVersion app. So if you want to do it with your friend group or your small group, you can actually find it on the YouVersion app as well.
Evan Rosa: Christy, thank you so much for joining me. I mean, talking about this issue, don't expect it to be solved quickly. I mean, it is that long obedience in the same direction that I think is, it's hard to accept, but we need people with the kind of sense of stability and patience and a desire. a curiosity for the other that you are trying to promote.
So thank you very much for what you're doing.
Christy Vines: Thanks for having me, Evan. For
Evan Rosa: the Life of the World is a production of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture at Yale Divinity School. This episode featured Christy Vines, production assistants by Alexa Rollow, Emily Brookfield, Kacie Barrett, and Zoë Halaban. I'm Rosa and I edit and produce the show. For more information, visit us online at faith.yale.edu or lifeworthliving.yale.edu, where you can find podcasts, videos, articles, books, and other educational resources that help people envision and pursue lives worthy of our humanity.
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