Scripture-based Deliberations on Public Policy? - Evolving Collective Intelligence

Scripture-based Deliberations on Public Policy?

I received an article from NHNE.com this morning, describing a liberal Christian response to conservative Christian political activism in the U.S. It reminded me that a number of competing visions are once again emerging within Christianity -- including evolutionary ones like Michael Dowd's Evolutionary Christianity.
However, what really struck me today was that this new group is not offering ordinary arguments for or against various policies and programs. They are doing what right-wing Christians do -- using Biblical references to defend their positions.
This raises an intriguing possibility...

There are many forms of organized public deliberation among citizens -- Deliberative Polls, Citizen Juries, National Issues Forums, Study Circles, 21st Century Town Meetings, etc. In most cases, the citizen deliberators are presented with briefing materials which present the arguments for and against various approaches to the issue they're deliberating about. These arguments cover the costs, benefits, values, etc., connected with each approach, and the deliberators are asked to familiarize themselves with all these perspectives and to weigh them conscientiously as they deliberate.
The emergence of a left-leaning Christian Alliance for Progress in a face-off with groups like the right-leaning Family Research Council suggests that very different positions can be defended by quoting the Bible. This is, of course, not news: An old adage suggests that "The Devil quotes Scripture."
What IS new, though, is the idea that public issue deliberations COULD be organized specifically for diverse (randomly selected?) Christians. In this case, THEIR briefing materials would present a full range of positions on the issue they're deliberating -- as is done in traditional deliberations -- but the arguments for and against each position would be based on Biblical quotations and scholarly interpretations of Scripture.
The deliberating Christians would consider these competing scriptural claims in light of the issue they're considering, weigh their relative importances and implications, and come up with recommendations based on their sense of the letter and spirit of the Bible. Those recommendations could conceivably include novel solutions formulated by the deliberators which, again, would be defended by Biblical sources.
The same deliberative process could be done with/by Jews using the Torah, and by/with Muslims using the Koran. A similar process could, in fact, be done with any scripture-based faith. The briefing materials and recommendations of such religious deliberations about public issues would not only serve believers, but would also be very informative to citizens who aren't familiar with the scriptures and debates within other faiths.
This would help move the debate on the moral dimensions of public policy beyond polarization and punditry, into the living heart of religion, communities of faith, and the scriptures that ordinary people ground their lives in.
I, for one, would find the results of such conversation fascinating.

posted by Tom Atlee on Saturday June 25 2005
updated on Saturday September 24 2005

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Readers' Comments

Tom:

I was very interested by your post today, and wanted to chime in.

I am very interested in the impact of religious devotion on decision-making, both
at home and abroad, and a deliberative process that was geared towards religious
differences would be of great interest and concern to me. And of course I'm also
interested in mapping such a discourse, believing that concept maps are an important
form of facilitation for dialogue.

Some comments, then, on what I view as a very very interesting proposal:

> What IS new, though, is the idea that public
> issue deliberations COULD be organized
> specifically for diverse (randomly selected?)
> Christians. In this case, THEIR briefing materials
> would present a full range of positions on the
> issue they're deliberating -- as is done in
> traditional deliberations -- but the arguments for
> and against each position would be based on
> Biblical quotations and scholarly interpretations
> of Scripture.

As I say, I think this is basically an excellent proposal, and that seeing these
debates as between rival biblical interpretations rather than as between believers
and damned would considerably reduce the fog... but I also want to caution you that
scripture is not the basis of all Christian belief by any means (even though in
turn of the millennium USA it may seem like it).

Catholicism, Orthodoxy, and substantial parts of Anglicanism or Episcopalianism
give as much significance to the sacramental impact of liturgy as they do to the
reading of scripture -- arguably more so -- and read scripture in any case in the
light of tradition, ie of the writings of church fathers and the findings of church
councils. Friends (Quakers) rely on inner guidance ("light") and the
leadings of the Spirit. And so forth.

Scripture, after all, was not even accessible to the vast bulk of illiterate believers
until the more-or-less joint arrival of printing press and Reformation. And whatever
the fundamental message of Christianity may be, it should presumably be something
that Christ himself taught, and must therefore have been transmitted either by word,
example, spiritual technique or presence. It was not, cannot have been, transmitted
by, or required for its transmission, the Gospels, the letters of Paul, the Book
of Revelation, since it was, by definition, transmitted before any of these documents
had been written.

These texts may be fallible or infallible texts in and of themselves, they may be
intended to be interpreted in a very literal or a freely metaphorical manner or
a mix of both, they may have been written and stored up in some place beyond place
before the world was made -- but their authority such as it is derives either from
Christ's followers' memory and intuition, wonderful and fallible as those very
human attributes are, or from their being directly inspired by virtue of Divine
Authorship, ie by their expressing in an unfiltered manner the Word which (arguably)
also took an unfiltered incarnate form in Jesus himself.

But they were not part of early Christianity -- at least not until they began to be written
as expressions of it.

I'm trying to lay this out as straight as I can, because I think that placing scripture
(rather than Christianity more generally) at the heart of the deliberative process
you're describing itself tilts the setting away from contemplative, liturgical and
socially engaged forms of Christianity towards those which are more exclusively
scriptural.

With that caveat, I think the idea is an excellent one.

> This would help move the debate on the
> moral dimensions of public policy beyond
> polarization and punditry, into the living heart
> of religion...

I very much agree.

> The same deliberative process could be done
> with/by Jews using the Torah, and by/with
> Muslims using the Koran. A similar process could,
> in fact, be done with any scripture-based faith.

Yes -- and indeed, with respect to areas of common interest such as the Temple Mount
/ Noble Sanctuary in Jerusalem, between religions in inter-faith deliberations.

I would love to spend a year prepping such materials for a whole host of different
discussions, in fact.

> The briefing materials and recommendations of such
> religious deliberations about public issues would not
> only serve believers, but would also be very informative
> to citizens who aren't familiar with the scriptures
> and debates within other faiths.

Very much so.

> I, for one, would find the results of such conversation
> fascinating.

As would I!

*

Warm regards as ever,

Charles Cameron

Posted by: Charles Cameron on June 26, 2005 12:21 AM

Good thoughts, Charles.

In painting this possibility, I had no intention of ignoring the liturgy, church history/traditions or personal experiences of believers in religious or public affairs. Surely, deliberations that include these would be just as instructive.

What I was struck by in the announcement of the Christian Alliance for Progress was that they were NOT going to use those referents. The article said: "They want to present a biblical justification for socially liberal positions." BIBLICAL justifications. That's what fascinated me.

My problem was that they were bringing these biblical references into a DEBATE context, which has tremendous limitations (from the perspective of dialogue theory which considers the adversariality of debate something to work through or overcome, seeking to find more creative ways to invest our differences). So I wondered what it would look like to do DELIBERATION based on biblical references which could, theoretically, create a context for more deepening than battle.

I have no idea how it would turn out. A true experiment.

On the other hand, as another correspondent noted, this experiment could run into the problem that different sects use different translations/interpretations of the Bible as their core scripture. This MIGHT be able to be overcome by including multiple translations of the excerpts chosen as arguments, or it may mean that the deliberation would have to expand to include the liturgy, as you suggested.

Posted by: Tom Atlee on June 26, 2005 01:41 AM


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