ReFOCUS with Jim Daly

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Guest (Female): And I would love to see the church become a coalition championing not political issues but leading with human dignity and humanity. How do we see God in ourselves? How do we see God in others?

Jim Daly: That’s Alexandra Hudson, and I was so inspired by her insights on how we can bridge the gap between Christ and the secular culture instead of adding more barriers. Welcome to Refocus with Jim Daly, a podcast production from Focus on the Family. As the daughter of Judy, the Manners Lady, Alexandra was brought up to be polite, but she discovered that being polite and being civil are two different things.

And as she shares, we're called to be more than just polite as followers of Christ. The goal of this podcast is to equip you to represent Christ in the culture, and today's episode will explore simple, practical ways to do that in your interactions with others, both online and in person. Alexandra is an author and popular speaker on the topic of civic renewal. She talks about the incivility she's personally experienced in politics and ways we can resist the toxicity of the culture by showing love and respect to others. So here's that conversation I had with Alexandra Hudson on Refocus with Jim Daly.

Alexandra, thanks for joining me today on Refocus. I appreciate you taking the time.

Alexandra Hudson: A joy to see you again, Jim. Thank you for having me.

Jim Daly: You're beaming in from Indianapolis, correct?

Alexandra Hudson: Correct.

Jim Daly: Yes, the booming town. We took one of your quarterbacks and went to the Super Bowl, Peyton Manning. That was very nice of you guys to share him with us in Denver.

Alexandra Hudson: Our pleasure, anytime.

Jim Daly: Listen, we're talking today about civility. You've written this great book, The Soul of Civility: Timeless Principles to Heal Society and Ourselves. I think the most obvious thing right now is it seems like a can of incivility has been opened up. It just feels like it's thick, it's no longer civil, and it's hard to even talk to people that we disagree with without engaging in verbal attacks because it's like the only thing that seems to get across. So what's going on? What culture are we living in right now?

Alexandra Hudson: This is the argument I make in the last chapter of my book. But given who you are, Jim, and the audience listening and the fact that I'm a Christian, I'm going to jump right to the final chapter of my book where I assess our modern crisis as one where we've made politics a religion. That's really what it's come down to. It's sad for me as a Christian to see my fellow Christians elevating to the level of orthodoxy political tenets.

There are three symptoms of this crisis of misplaced meaning that I see. One is, as you said, we go from zero to 60 over the mere mention of our sacred cow issue, whatever that is. People just go apoplectic if you treat the issue with insufficient deference. Or you may even agree with someone, but maybe you agree with insufficient gusto and it's not the only thing you want to talk about. People are like, you are bad. You're a bad person because you don't have the same priorities or the same level of enthusiasm to want to talk about this all the time.

So that's one symptom I see: that we go zero to 60. Literally our lizard brains are activated and our identity feels under threat because this political candidate or this issue is broached in certain ways. Another symptom of this crisis of misplaced meaning, the religiosity of politics, is how it's everywhere. It's ubiquitous in a way that it hasn't been in the past.

We have our smartphones, newspapers, the radio. It's in our schools. It's in our neighborhoods. There's just a level of saturation in our consciousness and lives that wasn't like that even 50 years ago. There's a lot about this issue that is the same because human nature and the human condition hasn't changed since the dawn of time. But there's a lot that is different, and that's one of the things that is different.

The third symptom of this crisis of misplaced meaning and identity in politics, this to me is the most tragic. It's the number of people who are cutting loved ones off over politics and political issues. Kids going no contact with their parents because of their view on Trump or the vaccine. That to me is a symptom of disordered love. We are making politics most important, and we're relegating really important things that should be more important than politics lower than they should be. We're letting politics become the most important thing, and it's bad for democracy and bad for our souls to make politics a religion.

Jim Daly: Yeah, and I agree with that. I think some Christian leaders, and I understand this, I was working at Focus on the Family when Dr. Dobson felt like the place to win the most gains right now in the culture is through the avenue of politics to aggressively and robustly fight for the things that we believe in, whether that was the pro-life position or the definition of marriage, etc.

I did begin to get concerned with the very thing that you're saying, those orders. There's something about the political arena that energizes us. I think there are some spiritual elements of that which are good, but then it's also the fleshly elements of being in that fight. Like you, you spent time in DC and you talked about how toxic it was. I can remember flying into DC going, "Lord, I don't want to be in this city. I don't like this city. Get me out of here before I land at Reagan Airport."

I had a meeting with Mike Pompeo that particular trip, and we did a recording with him in the State Department. I got there with this attitude and I remember his assistant, Ruth, came up. She was probably like 28 or 30 and she went, "Oh, Mr. Daly, I so appreciate Focus on the Family. We love Adventures in Odyssey. There's about eight of us here at the State Department, and we listen during our lunch hour to Adventures in Odyssey."

I'm going, "Okay, Lord, I give up. I give up, Lord." Like He was telling me, I've got my people here too. But back to the point of that, and it's always the difficulty for us in the Christian community, we tend to work on a light switch. We're all in or we're all out, rather than that dimmer switch of culture that we can move a little bit. Even like Paul on Mars Hill to me was more of a dimmer switch moment where he could say, "I can tell you about your unknown God."

So the question there is, you don't want to be void of advocating for those things biblically, but you don't want it to be out of order. How do we do that? I mean, this is the golden question of the whole interview, I think, because when you tip one way or the other, you're either all in and it's juicing you up in your anger and all like the fruit of our enemy, or we're exclusionary and isolated where we don't want to deal with politics, we're going to deal with the spirit. And therefore you're not advocating for the pre-born, for women's rights to have a baby, or for traditional marriage. So how do we get there to manage that balance?

Alexandra Hudson: Right. So in the final chapter of my book, I explore a forgotten essay that I think is due for a revival. That's a recurring theme in my work, Jim, that I think a lot of thinkers that we've forgotten in society, I try to shed light on. Like Erasmus of Rotterdam, I hope we can get to him at some point in this conversation as well; he's due for a renaissance as well. Thomas Chalmers, he was a Scottish theologian, and he wrote this essay called The Expulsive Power of a New Affection.

In this book, he gives us an ecology of the human soul, the human spirit. It's funny because he predates secular conventional logic that we take for granted now that is really part of institutions and organizational philosophies like Alcoholics Anonymous or Overeaters Anonymous. But he basically says the human soul gravitates towards sin, but it's not enough just to say, "Okay, soul, love the bad thing less. Love the thing that is hurting you and hurting others less."

That's not enough. You can't just cut out the bad thing; you have to displace the love of the bad thing with something more noble, better, and more beautiful. And in Chalmers' case as a Christian, as a theist, that was love of God. Our love of God has to be so vibrant and so on fire that everything else, every other love, the unhealthy loves, pales in comparison. Of course, we see that kind of logic in these secular groups like Alcoholics Anonymous.

You can't just stop drinking; you have to displace that impulse to drink with friendship and community, because we don't exist in a vacuum; we exist in context with other people and other organizations. I love that ecology of the human spirit because I think it offers us important solutions for what to do about this now and it answers specifically your question about how Christian leaders can engage thoughtfully in public life today.

First of all, our love of God has to be so zealous, so vibrant, that everything else is secondary to that. Christ has to be so manifested and cultivated. I think this is a central metaphor throughout my work and my book: the metaphor of the garden. That civilization is a garden, democracy as a garden, and that it's not just a one-and-done decision.

Community, relationship, marriage, faith—it's not a one-and-done decision. It's a moment-by-moment commitment. Day in, day out, are we nurturing our faith? Are we nurturing, through our words, our attitudes, our affections, our spouse and our relationship? Democracy, civilization, marriage, faith—none of it can be on autopilot. We are.

So all that to say, I love how this gives us a framework. It's not enough just to say, "Okay, sin, be gone. Unhealthy affection, be gone." We have to replace it with something better, noble, and more beautiful. As Christians, that's love of God. I do talk about other things in the book. I talk about friendship across difference, actually nurturing those relationships with people we know we disagree with.

I talk about beauty and immersing ourselves in the natural world. I know you're in Colorado Springs right now. When I was in Colorado Springs a few weeks ago with many of your amazing local leaders, I got asked a similar question, like, "What do we do?" And I said, "Look out the window. Look at the beauty, the majesty that we are surrounded by. Gaze on that day in, day out." That is encountering the sublime.

The sublime is not just the pretty and the nice; it's the thing that instills us with awe. We encounter the transcendent, we encounter God in nature. When we watch the Artemis II landing and we contemplate the infinity and the limits of human knowledge—how small we are in comparison to God's greatness—that's humbling in the best way. There's a lot we can be certain about and confident about in our faith, but there's still a lot we don't know as human beings when it comes to the world around us and the world that we are in. And that is good; that displaces our sense of certainty, of self-satisfaction that is so prevalent right now and I think inimical to engaging in these conversations and these issues with a necessary humility and grace.

Jim Daly: You know, one of the things that you point out in your book, and this is kind of funny because this is like being the son or daughter of a senior pastor or a ministry leader, but your mom was Judy the Manners Lady. I think she did a column for newspapers or how did she communicate her manners position? But that can be kind of difficult to grow up under. "Hey, get your elbows off the table. Don't speak with your mouth full," right? I mean, was she whipping you into shape? Did she contribute to your ability to communicate?

Alexandra Hudson: My mom is incredible. She's called Judy the Manners Lady. In fact, her ministry and her heart and vocation is towards children. And actually, I was on the program with Dr. Dobson. My mom was a guest, and I joined as well, and I got to go to Whit's End and I got to record my own episode. I grew up on Odyssey as well. I felt seen when you shared that story of those staffers at the State Department listening to Odyssey on lunch breaks.

It's so sweet. This is getting far afield, but it's a beautiful season of my life right now where my kids love Odyssey after I had been raised on it. So I have the app and we listen to it at night, and my son just loves to color, just build blocks while he's listening. I’m really grateful to Focus for all you've done and all the content you've given to families.

Jim Daly: Let me get back to the book content. Politeness and civility. You say there's a difference between the two. I think the culture and even the Christian community, churches, we have been sucked into this vortex of politeness. It feels good because we treat people well. But describe the difference between civility and politeness.

Alexandra Hudson: Yeah, I'll describe the difference and then I'll share with you the story about how I came to understand this difference. So we are stuck right now as a culture—in Christian evangelical circles but also in culture more broadly—between these two extremes: these two dehumanizing extremes of hostility and politeness.

Both of them, as I learned when I was in government and I'll share this story, they actually seem like polar opposites, but they are two sides of the same dehumanizing coin. The hostile contingent sees others to be bludgeoned, steamrolled, silenced into submission. We have to puncture the pretense and the hypocrisy and the culture of political correctness and just tell hard truths, etiquette aside.

And the other contingent, the polite contingent, often can be a trauma response to the hostile contingent. People are like, "I am just exhausted. I don't want any division. I'm just not going to talk about anything of substance ever because I just can't handle the toxicity." And both are untenable and both are dehumanizing. I experienced both of these extremes that we're stuck between as a culture firsthand when I was in government.

I arrived at my first day at the US Department of Education, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed. I was 23 years old, newly married, just out of grad school. I studied public policy in the UK and I just had all these thoughts and ideas, and I couldn't wait to serve my country. I had pursued a role at the Department of Education because I love learning. I love beauty, goodness, truth. I was passionate about education as soul craft, as lifelong learning, cultivating our humanity, unlocking human potential. And so I couldn't wait to serve and maybe make our educational system a little bit better for our students here.

Jim Daly: And what happened?

Alexandra Hudson: And I could not have been more disillusioned or discouraged by what I saw and observed and experienced in federal government. I saw these two extremes firsthand. I saw the hostile contingent immediately. They were obvious. These were the bullies. These were the people who would yell at me and others in meetings. I was literally chased down hallways once.

It was people who would bludgeon people to get what they wanted. And I knew to stay away from those people, the people who would coerce and threaten. I hid from them, literally. I saw them coming down the hallway and I'd go the other direction. There was another contingent, though. This I didn't catch on to right away. There was another contingent: these were people who were polished and poised and polite, but these were people who would smile and flatter me and others one moment and then stab us in the back the next.

I'll give you an example. I remember the day very clearly. A colleague came to my office, knocked on my door. He smiled and said, "Oh, Alexi, you look beautiful today. And by the way, you're so brilliant. And also, I'm a little behind on a project and need a favor. Can you help me finish this project?" And I said, "Happy to help." I didn't realize, Jim, he hadn't even started the project. He expected me to do it start to finish.

But I'd committed, I told him I'd help, I had some time, I did it. He took the work, passed it off as his own, and that wasn't even the worst part—the fact that he took the credit for my work. That didn't even bother me the most. The worst part was that after he got what he wanted from me, gone was the pleasantries and niceties and the compliments and the flattery.

Because he had what he needed from me, he cast me aside. I remember feeling so degraded, so used. I certainly felt kind of hoodwinked, like he had manipulated me into getting what he wanted and cast me aside. That clarified for me, again, these two extremes that we're stuck between as a culture: the hostile on one hand, the polite on the other.

Both of them are expressions of the same crisis—the fundamental crisis that we're dealing with today. It is not a crisis of division. It's not a crisis of difference. Difference, division will always be with us. Disagreement is inherent to democracy. It's not a bug of democracy. The crisis we're dealing with now is a crisis of dehumanization, where we insufficiently appreciate the profound gift of being human in ourselves and in others.

We're not seeing the imago Dei in the other. We're not seeing the image of God, the irreducible dignity and worth that we are owed and what we owe to others by virtue of our shared moral worth as members of the human community. I realized the hostile and the polite contingent—they seem like opposites, but they are both expressions of this crisis of dehumanization.

The hostile contingent, again, it's obviously dehumanizing when you threaten, coerce, bludgeon someone into getting what you want. The polite contingent is more pernicious, but it's equally as dehumanizing because you butter someone up, you manipulate them and then cast them aside. Both modes see other human beings purely in terms of how others can serve you. They're means to ends as opposed to ends in themselves.

Jim Daly: Let me tease this out for the viewers and the listeners because I think you're making a great point. But what do you do on day two? So this person has given you those feelings of being abused and used for a purpose, then he's cold and you could fill in all the nouns of what that transaction was for you, the listener.

But what do you do on day two? What's the Christ-like way? You're still going to be in the same work environment. You're still going to meet up at the coffee place there in the office. What do you say to that person when you both know what went down and you have the truth and he has the truth, but he's being a hypocrite and not living the truth? What do you say as a believer? Or do you say nothing? That’s an option.

Alexandra Hudson: No, I think that there is an appropriate response, and it's funny you ask this question, Jim. I love this question, first of all, because I've done a lot of interviews but never been asked this question before. So I really appreciate it. Thank you. Second, it's funny; I woke up and was doing my devotional this morning before my three chaotic children woke up, and I actually had an idea for an essay and it was called How Not to be Used, or something along those lines.

Because civility is not just about what we owe the other by virtue of the imago Dei and by virtue of our shared personhood; it's also what we owe ourselves. I do talk about this in the book, that civility requires saying no, disappointing people. Telling people no where we might be tempted, especially as Christians or people who think of ourselves as nice people, we might be tempted to just do the thing that pleases the other.

I don't want to ruffle feathers, I don't want an uncomfortable conversation. But that is not doing yourself a favor or them. It's not respecting your dignity or the other if you're going to resent yourself and resent the person that you promised you'd do x-y-z thing for if you're doing it through gritted teeth. This is the beautiful thing about the Christian faith—and it's a privilege that I get to share these ideas in many secular communities and institutions—but this is the standard we're held to as Christians: it's not just doing the right thing, it's feeling correctly.

It's actually feeling correctly towards our fellow human beings. And that's why I argue that sometimes actually respecting someone, actually loving them, requires being impolite. Telling a hard truth, engaging in robust debate, telling someone no. "You used me last time, I felt really instrumentalized. That didn't make me feel honored, so I'm not going to help you this time. Go ask someone else." That conversation can happen differently, but yeah.

Jim Daly: No, but I appreciate that. And I totally agree. I think the balance there is you stay in the realm of kindness, which I would say is biblical. It's not being polite. Kindness can say exactly what you said: "Last time you asked me to help you and I did. I gave it my all, but I felt like you misrepresented the outcomes of that and then took credit for it. That did not feel good for me. And I think because of that, you can appreciate my unwillingness to help you in the future."

I mean, that's a very direct way. And frankly, I'm just thinking of the work of the Holy Spirit in all that. That does give opportunity then for the Holy Spirit to work on that person's conscience, which I think is awesome. When we get angry, when we enter that follow-up with our anger, that person's going to close down. People are rarely argued into a different position when you're going toe-to-toe verbally with someone like that who offended you and you're making the case but you're doing it in anger.

You're not going to win. And then nobody wins because there's no lesson learned, you probably don't even feel better, you leave frustrated because the person didn't listen to your argument. And I think again, it's just not the way Christ showed us to do this. So I appreciate that. I think we're in the right spot there.

Let me ask you, we talked about that can earlier. I talked about that feels like that incivility can has been opened up and the aroma is just all over the earth. And I think that's true spiritually. I think technology has played a critical role. Technology generally is neutral; we can use it for good and evil just like everything. But social media has done something to our filter to say, "I can just say whatever I want to say because it feels anonymous," even though it's not, but I'm going to tell you something I would never tell you over a lunch table or if we were in contact directly.

Alexandra Hudson: It's so true. It's 100% true. Mark Twain said, "History doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes." Human nature doesn't change, though, but there are things that are different about our moment. And one thing that is invariably different and has had undeniable consequences on our public discourse and on modern life is technology—different technologies, whether it's digitally mediated communication, which absolutely promote dehumanization and depersonalization.

Even whether it's email or text, and even what we're doing now—I'd much rather be sitting face-to-face with you, Jim, because that's irreplaceable beauty of just sharing space with someone. Let me tell you a story that I think really helpfully illuminates what social media has done to us and how it has affected us. Long time ago, there was a shepherd who was tending his sheep, and one day a sheep went into a cave.

So he followed the sheep into a cave to retrieve it, and while he was in this cave, he saw a skeleton, and the skeleton had on its finger a ring. And the shepherd took the ring off the skeleton's finger, put it on his own ring, and discovered that this ring gave him the power of invisibility. Jim, what do you think is the first thing—well, first of all, you've probably heard this sounds a little bit familiar to you?

Jim Daly: Yeah, the Ring of Gyges.

Alexandra Hudson: That's right, the Ring of Gyges. Exactly. I thought you were going to say Lord of the Rings. But exactly, this is from Plato's Republic where we get this story. Exactly. So what's the first thing—you know the story—what's the first thing the shepherd did when he discovered he has this power of invisibility?

Jim Daly: He tilted into evil. Exactly. "How to use this power for my gain."

Alexandra Hudson: Exactly. He killed the king, married the queen, and put himself in the throne of power. And I think in many ways, it gets this important question: What is human nature without consequence? That's what the Ring of Gyges explores: all of a sudden he could act without retribution; no one could find him, no one could catch him.

Online what we have, we have avatars, right? We have screen names. We have things that distance our actions from consequences. And that makes us far more likely to do and say horrible, horrible things when we know that our reputation or our job is not at stake, not on the line. And even when our names are attached to it, it's still these keyboard warriors on Twitter or on Facebook.

My advice is never have a conversation about anything significant virtually or on Facebook. You see these grand statements like, "Oh, your view on Israel or Palestine, unfriend me now. If you believe this, if you voted this way, immediate friendship over." Just like a mass excommunication of a broad swath of your Facebook friends. For what? And those expressions, those grand gestures, are actually quite selfish. They're more about an individual person feeling like they're being virtuous and venting their own spleen rather than having an authentic conversation across difference where we are eager to pursue truth and flourishing joint good together.

Jim Daly: Yeah, it's a great analogy. I've never put it in that context. I've taught my boys that, you know, if you had ultimate power to do anything you could do and do it anonymously, what do you think you would do? And let your children explain what they think they would do. It's very different for an 8-year-old than an 18-year-old. They know a little more the world. But those are good discussions to have with your kids or your grandkids. Let me ask you this: you did give some practical steps, especially around social media in the book. I thought they were great. You said no matter what, remember that the person you're interacting with is not an emotional punching bag. I love that. Don't tweet, email, or message while anxious, angry, or frustrated. You mentioned that. Shift online conversations about sensitive topics to phone, video, or in person. You've talked about that. Don't tweet something you wouldn't say to someone in person. Any others there that you'd want to highlight that are just good practices, especially for the Christian community to behave kindly and not to be out of sorts in your emotions when you're engaging with media?

Alexandra Hudson: Yeah, one more that I'll tease out a little bit. I have this concept in the book called cultivating one's digital garden. When you think of all the toxicity that is out there in the world right now, it can feel overwhelming. Like, "What can I do?" And it's true, it's gotten even more toxic.

Every day there's now we have artificial intelligence models that can just spew out hate and lies. This is funny: Winston Churchill said 70 years ago, "A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to put its pants on." That was 70 years ago, and that is even more true the case now in this world of AI slop and trolls and bots and things like that.

I argue that every single one of us—this is very much the undercurrent of my whole theory of social change. I tell story after story of heroes of civility across time and place that said, "I can't change the world, but I can change myself." And I'm going to double down and cultivate my garden. So I talk about cultivating one's digital garden. For me, I know I can't change how hundreds of millions of internet and social media users behave online.

But I can cultivate my garden, which is my newsletter and intellectual community called Civic Renaissance. It's a community of about 50,000 people across the world dedicated to intellectual renewal and beauty and goodness and truth. And that's what I focus my energy on. I'm a net producer of content on the internet as rather than a consumer.

Whenever possible I try to read a lot of the old books on my shelf rather than stuff that's published online. The reality is that's a drop in the bucket: 50,000 people out of hundreds and hundreds of millions of users—what good can that do? And I believe that it can do way more good than we realize. Every single one of us has that power: what we choose to post or not post on Facebook. Are we just—post more cat videos, post more cute baby videos on Facebook. Come on, that's really what it comes down to.

Jim Daly: That's for sure. But let me play the skeptic a little bit, just for fun. I think somebody listening, a believer, may say this: I love the garden analogy, but you need some manure to make that stuff grow. So in your garden analogy, what's the manure? What's the stuff that is the throwaway stuff that's going to enrich the soil? That's an interesting analogy.

Alexandra Hudson: You met me there, so I'm going to see you and raise you. You asked about this. I have a frontispiece in my book. Actually, my editor at the last minute—a frontispiece is a visual metaphor. It was originally supposed to go right at the entrance of a book. It's an old tradition of having a beautiful print, embossed print, that brings to life and primes the imagination for the arguments in a book and what is to come.

I really love that tradition in publishing. It fell out of favor a few hundred years ago in publishing when printers became very utilitarian and ink was expensive. But I love that. So my frontispiece—the forgotten frontispiece that never made it into my book—is of a garden. I call it the Garden of Civilization. And the analogy I say is every single one of us has a plot of land. That's all we can control: that individual plot of land.

How are we going to cultivate? What seeds are we going to sow? Are we going to sow seeds of grace, of respecting personhood of human dignity, of charity, of graciousness, of forgiveness? And are we going to cultivate that with fertilizer? And are we going to nourish that with sunshine and with water? And those are our habits, our actions.

Those are the things that we show up and do. We cultivate every single day those seeds that we planted. We sow them and then we cultivate them with natural resources again: sunshine, water, attitude, action. Or in our plot of land, are we going to sow cruelty, malice, dehumanization? Those are equally possible seeds, viable seeds that we can sow and cultivate also with our habits, with our words, with our actions.

Again, all we can control is one plot of land, and if enough people sow those seeds, civilization becomes this abundant, verdant, beautiful ecosystem flourishing, like imagine beautiful flowers that bring joy and beauty and enrich the soil of the plots of land around them. Or you can sow those seeds of malice and cruelty and those are thistles.

Those are invasive crops that zap nutrients from the soil, not just your plot but actually invade the plots around you and zap the nutrients and take the life out of plots around you. Every single one of us has more power than we realize. What seeds are we going to sow and what are we going to cultivate day in, day out? That is a barbarism. That's an anti-human, a dehumanizing society and culture that sows and cultivates those seeds through habits of cruelty.

Jim Daly: You know, you've mentioned throughout our discussion the idea of being made in the image of God, imago Dei. And we did a film, a documentary that's free—people can go watch it if they haven't—it's called Truth Rising. Information is at truthrising.com.

Os Guinness and John Stonestreet collaborated with us to pull this off, and we highlight a lot of people in Western civilization, Baroness Philippa Stroud, who made a comment in the documentary that I want to bounce off of you. She said the distinction of the Western culture was this idea that we were made in the image of God, and the Western culture grabbed that and was able to transform the way we did community, the way we did nation building because it was the first time that that thought had really taken root.

We were working out our bad systems such as slavery—of course William Wilberforce and later Abraham Lincoln corrected those sins—and yet global slavery, that's the way things were done. But this imago Dei concept, being made in the image of God, is what made the Western world different from the rest of the world. And we are losing that idea of dignity.

That's really what you're talking about: that the very thing that built Western civilization—and many would argue that thrust it to the pinnacle of raising the boats of more people than ever before—is now being discarded. And the vacuum is not a good vacuum because it'll go back to what it was, and that's kind of eating each other, not literally but socially, and devouring one another, which is the way of the enemy. It's the way of Satan, that he is ready to steal, kill, and destroy. And that's not an option that makes for a good culture, right?

Alexandra Hudson: Right, right. This is a great point. This is actually an argument I make time and time again: that we live in a very high-stakes culture right now where people feel like scorched earth is justified. "I'm going to win this election, this policy battle, at any cost."

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Letter from Birmingham Jail is a really important text to me personally, and it shows up constantly throughout my book, but he makes this argument—a really powerful one about segregation—that I think applies really well and perfectly to the argument for civility and against incivility.

What he says in his Letter from Birmingham Jail is that segregation doesn't just hurt the segregated. It doesn't just hurt the person who is told, "That's your water fountain, that's your bathroom. No, you cannot come in my store." It hurts, he says, the segregator as well. He said it hurts the segregated because it gives them a false sense of inferiority; they're not seen in the full dignity and personhood that they are.

It hurts the segregator because it gives them a false sense of superiority; it deforms their soul, it inflates their ego. And both are harmed. I think that's really powerful, and that same logic applies to civility and incivility. There are a lot of people today that say nice guys finish last—you're never going to succeed and accomplish anything if you're not willing to do anything to win.

What Socrates would say, what Dr. King would say, what Augustine would say is, "What are you winning if you lose your soul?" The reality is when you are cruel to another human being, you hurt them, yes, but you hurt yourself too. Both parties are made to be a little bit less human. Both are dehumanized. When you are gracious and kind and life-giving in your words and actions towards others, both parties are ennobled.

Both are bettered. Both are humanized. That's the argument I try and make over and over and over again: that there is no nice guys finish last because of the cost of your own soul. It's good for its own sake but also, again, for this whole project of rehumanizing public life. That's what my whole life's work is about, not just this book, but recovering a high sense of this profound gift of being human in ourselves and others, which is the message we need right now in this very dehumanizing time.

Jim Daly: In the book you mention a term called unbundling or unbundle people. It kind of fits right here, I think. What did you mean by unbundle people?

Alexandra Hudson: Unbundling people, this is an idea, a tool, a framework I unpack in my book to help us outgrow this era of strange perfectionism we're in right now where we see people purely in terms of one thing they've said or one thing they've done.

That's enough for me to like you, not like you, want you in my life, want you as my friend or family member, or cut you off entirely. We essentialize people. We reduce them to one aspect of who they are—again, a mistake they've made or something they've said to hurt us—as opposed to recognizing, as Alexander Pope said really well, "To err is to be human; to forgive is divine."

To be human is to be imperfect. We are going to do things that hurt people. We're going to make mistakes. We're going to lose our temper. We're going to be malicious. What does it mean to recover fluency with asking for forgiveness and extending it? So anyway, unbundling people is seeing the part of someone in light of the whole of them: the thing that they've said or done to hurt us in light of their irreducible dignity and worth as a human being and the basic respect that we owe to them because of that.

Also zooming out and seeing the context: "Oh, this is literally the person who gave me life. This is my family member or this is my lifelong friend," and not just having that sort of tunnel vision and seeing the whole relationship in its entirety through one moment, which is too often what happens in this era. It's again that sort of strange perfectionism. It hurts ourselves, it hurts others.

There's just so much brokenness in our world right now where family members and friends are estranged over these political issues or over just these breaches. It's not maybe about politics; maybe it's a mistake, a hurt. Unbundling people helps us overcome those momentary lapses in judgment and sees the context of the relationship—the part of someone in light of the whole of them.

I'll give you an example. Jean Vanier, do you know who this is?

Jim Daly: No.

Alexandra Hudson: Jean Vanier—you'll probably recognize the name when I start to talk about him—he was a really important intellectual influence on me. He spent several decades in France and French Canada building communities for people with intellectual disabilities. He was a Christian, and he has these beautiful communities called L'Arche.

He wrote this book called Becoming Human, and it's just a humanistic manifesto where he's talking about what he learned about the beauty, tragedy, and vulnerability of the human condition through living with these people who have really severe physical and intellectual disabilities. He did a lot of good for these people who are often marginalized, often overlooked, and cast aside by society—very vulnerable.

He gave them places to live. He gave them community and places to become fully themselves in light of and in spite of their severe handicaps. So just a really beautiful life and legacy. He died several years ago now, and shortly after he died, it came to light that he was a serial abuser of women who he had authority over in his institution over his lifetime.

It's like, "Whoa, how do you square those two things? The fact that he did a lot of good for a really vulnerable population over decades and also abused his power and authority and hurt a lot of people as well." We live in a world now that says, "No, cancel him entirely. He's dead to us, we're never going to read his books anymore, and we're not going to support financially his organization."

That's what the logic of the world is. But what does it mean to unbundle him and say he did a lot of good that helped a lot of people, but also he was deeply flawed and made a lot of mistakes and hurt people. Both-and. Both two things can be true at once.

Blaise Pascal—we should have a whole separate, happy to have a whole separate conversation about Pascal sometime, my favorite theologians—but he said, "Greatness and wretchedness," that's what it means to be human. We are the pinnacle of God's created world, also capable of monstrosity and brutality. That is.

When I call my book a humanistic manifesto, I want us to appreciate what we're capable of for good or for evil and I want to inspire and encourage and give people tools to realize this gift of being human and really cultivate that and make our world a more gentle place for my children to grow up.

Jim Daly: Yeah, it's so good. Somebody I interviewed years ago, Rosaria Butterfield—she was a lesbian, she worked as a professor of English literature at Syracuse University. Fabulous testimony. A pastor and his wife invited her to come and do a Bible study with them. She said it was the first time anybody had offered that.

She was a devout antagonist toward the Christian community, including Focus on the Family. She would write scathing notes about our misogyny, those things. And then I had her in the broadcast booth and we're talking about her transformation because she accepted Christ and married a pastor, actually. She has three kids, I think. We sat down two or three times over the last few years.

But one of the books she wrote about was hospitality and how easy it was for her when she was in the LGBT community. She'd fly to a city and you knew five or ten homes, she would say, that you knew you could flop down there, read a book, spend a little time or kill a little time until your next thing and you had to leave.

She said, "I was shocked when I became a Christian that the Christian community didn't have that," because she reads so much about hospitality in the New Testament. Isn't that amazing? One of the things that really touched me—I was thinking about this driving in this morning knowing I was going to talk to you—I remember working on legislation here in Colorado to strengthen sex trafficking laws to raise our grade from like a D to a B-plus.

I worked with one of the prominent LGBT groups, which was the Gill Foundation, and at the time their contracted lobbyist, Ted Trempa—delightful person, he was raised in a Christian home and all of that—he invited us to his home for dinner, Jean and I, with him and his husband. I mean, we're going, "Okay, this will be interesting, but let's do this."

He had flown to New York to get a particular shallot that made his dish for that dinner that night. And we're at dinner talking about it. I was like, "Why did you do that? That is way too much effort for us." And he said, "I wanted to make sure you've had one of the best meals that I could produce for you, so I flew to New York from Denver, went to the market, picked up these shallots, and this is the only place in the country you can find this particular shallot."

I was like, "My goodness, man, that's crazy. I've never been afforded that kind of attention." He and I are—it was a delicious meal, yeah. Dessert was equally delicious. But the point of that was breaking bread together. We didn't have to solve the differences of what the definition of marriage was; we both knew where we were at.

But we did have great dialogue, and we are still in communication. I think one of the brightest things out of that relationship has been his comment to me, what melts my heart. Not the shallot—that's very nice—but he said to me, "You keep pushing me closer to God." That's all I can do. That's all I can do. And if I can do that, I've accomplished what I need to do.

It hasn't been through argumentation or a fight or bitter disagreement; it's actually come about through relationship, like you say. But you've done this with a friend that you met there in Indiana when you got there. I think she called, "Would you like to porch with me?" Tell us about porching.

Alexandra Hudson: Yes, let's talk about porching. I was in the heart of darkness in Washington, DC, and one day I'd had enough and went to my husband—I got home from work one day and said to my husband, "I'm done with DC, I'm done with the swamp. Let's move to Indiana." My husband looked at me and he's like, "Okay, sounds good."

Indiana is where he is from originally, and we had always talked about one day moving closer to his family and raising a family of our own there. So a few months later we were out there. And again, it's interesting, that experience of your past interviewee of getting to a new city and having an immediate community.

That really resonates because I think anyone who's moved to a new town, new job—it takes time to find your people, to cultivate your niche. I remember feeling that way when we moved from DC, where we had a really vibrant community, social life, and intellectual life, to Indiana. It takes time.

We started going to a church right away, and a woman came up to me after that first church service and she reminded me a lot of my mom—tall, blonde—and she said, "Hi, I'm Joanna. Would you like to porch with us sometime?" And I had never heard the word porch used as a verb before, but I was curious. Again, we didn't know many people in town.

So we went to her great big front veranda, her big front porch that day, and I saw something radical and subversive—revolutionary, in fact—happening on her porch that day. There were people across politics, geography, across vocation, and across race. We weren't there to have these structured conversations where, "Okay, you say your bit and I'll say mine."

It was just to be human beings together in a shared space, kind of an oasis from the division in a world that wants us to assign to our identity those labels, those things that want us to elevate those things as the most important thing to us. We were just human beings sharing a charcuterie board on the porch.

What's been beautiful is I've been across the country in 150 cities and five countries sharing these ideas and working with local leaders who say, "I want to live this." And I've seen people do the same thing with and without the porch. I've seen it from a front dock. I've seen it from a front stoop or front lawn, a Friday supper club. I've seen people who host regular hours at their local coffee shop.

"This is just a place, this time of the day during this day of the week, you can be seen and known and loved. Come for relationship and conversation and come be seen in the fullness of who you are." There's just such a radical and subversive power to that, in that these people are saying, "I can't control what's happening in Washington, I can't control what's happening at City Hall or the tragedy around the world.

But I can control myself, and I'm going to double down and make my community, my home, better and stronger and more beautiful." And that's the metaphor of the porch that I use as this theory of social change: we can't control others, but let's double down and focus on ourselves. There's power and there’s beauty in that. That is where we go from here. Each of us—everyone listening to this conversation now—choosing to say, "I'm going to harness my power and be part of the solution," because each of us has way more power than we realize.

Jim Daly: So good. And I think the best way is you read the Word—read the Word of God and let that develop attitudinally how you interact with people that you get along with and that you don't get along with and let that be your compass in developing a better attitude toward those people that you struggle with.

It's okay to struggle; it's just how you manage it. So thank you so much, Alexandra. This has been great. I love your book, The Soul of Civility. Wonderful discussion, so desperately needed right now. Shouldn't the Christian community stand above all this and be known for rising above it?

We just, Jean and I just got back from Ephesus. We were there with an instructor that did a beautiful job giving us the lay of the land of Ephesus. And you know, in there Paul's being accused by Dionysus, I think, of taking away their idol trade—they're making the little idols of Artemis and he's saying, "Paul is destroying our trade."

The mayor of the city runs down to defend Paul—think of this for a minute—and said, "I don't believe Paul's done anything illegal. If you think he's done anything illegal, let's take him before the judges and state your case. But I have found Paul simply to argue that the Christians have a different way of thinking of things."

What a beautiful defense of Paul by this mayor of Ephesus in order to get the point across. That's the position we want to be in. Again, Paul giving us a great example of how to be present fighting the evil in culture, yet doing it in such a way that even the authorities of government are saying, "Paul's fine. He's a good man." That's a good place to be, I think.

Alexandra Hudson: And I would love to see the church become a coalition championing not political issues but leading with human dignity and humanity. How do we see God in ourselves? How do we see God in others? The image of God, imago Dei. So thank you, privilege to be with you, Jim. Great to see you again.

Jim Daly: Now get back to that garden.

Alexandra Hudson: Exactly. I'll send you a photo of the garden. It's coming along. God bless, take care.

Jim Daly: Well, I think there was a lot of wisdom in what Alexandra had to share. To be effective witnesses for Christ, we have to practice civility. We should be known for it. So we need to pay attention to the way we talk to people who have a different background or perspective than we do. As Colossians 4:6 urges us, "Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone."

Conversations on political and moral issues can become heated and aggressive quickly, especially on social media. But we're called to live differently by continuing to share the truth and infusing our words with grace. Because of that, it'll stand out—others aren't using grace.

Speaking hard truths with grace is challenging when we're surrounded by cancel culture and the lies that claim Christianity is a bigoted and hateful religion. Part of the reason for all the incivility and anger in the culture is the biased media sources that rely on outrage to hold your attention. If you felt frustrated by that but you want to stay informed, check out The Daily Citizen.

The Daily Citizen is an online resource delivering timely, relevant information on current events and cultural trends from a biblical worldview. Sign up for a free subscription today. Also, in the show notes we've included some links to some other great resources to complement what you've heard today.

If you haven't seen it yet, watch our documentary called Truth Rising hosted by Os Guinness and John Stonestreet as they help you to represent Christ in the culture. You'll also find links to some related conversations I had with Rosaria Butterfield and Pastor J.D. Greear to help you engage others with kindness.

If you've been positively impacted by Refocus, make a donation to show your support. Your financial gifts help us create more episodes, expand our reach, and continue to be a voice for Christ in the culture. Every donation equips more believers to live out their faith and engage the culture with the love of God.

Now for the Inbox segment. Here's a voicemail from Brenda.

Brenda: I'm struggling with a family situation. My adult daughter identifies as non-binary, and I love her dearly, but I worry about how her presence at my younger son's activities affects his social relationships. How can I balance loving and including my daughter while also protecting my son's well-being?

Jim Daly: Brenda, thank you for that heartfelt question. That is a tough spot for a parent to be in, and unfortunately many, many parents are in that spot. I can't do enough justice to give you the help that you're going to need. I want to encourage you to call Focus on the Family's counseling line and they can set up a time to go deeper with you. I want you to do that.

On the surface, though, some things that you can do. Make sure that she knows you love her, and that is fundamental. Then from there, ask good questions. Why does she think this way today? What inputs did she receive that gave her these thoughts? Does she think that her body was a mistake?

All those kinds of inquiries that build a conversation bridge with her. I think with your son it's important to reiterate those things that you believe as a follower of Christ and how God has created us male and female. Reinforce those things so that he's hearing very clearly some very fundamental theological truth about humanity and the fact that we're created in His image male and female.

In addition, do call the counseling department; there's other resources that Focus on the Family can help you with. Again, you're not alone. You're experiencing something that thousands of parents are experiencing right now. So be of good cheer and lean into it. Trust that the Lord will help your daughter see what is true.

Well, because I was able to use your question there, Brenda, heartfelt question, I want to send you a copy of my book, Refocus: Living a Life that Reflects God's Heart. And if you have a question or comment for me, please send me a voicemail or leave a comment in the contact form. Tell me about your experiences representing Christ in the culture and the topics you would like to hear me discuss. The links are in the show notes and I'd love to hear from you.

Thanks for listening to Refocus with Jim Daly. Don't forget to like, listen, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Next time on Refocus, Pastor Chip Ingram will help you reflect the love of Christ in your daily life.

Guest (Male): The fact of the matter is is that if everyone is made in the image of God and He, Christ died for them, I am commanded to love them. And the whole point of the Good Samaritan and the entire story is who's your neighbor? Your neighbor is a person in need.

Jim Daly: That's coming up on Monday, October 5th on the next Refocus with Jim Daly.

Erin Smalley: Sometimes you feel crazy in love with your spouse. Other times your spouse might drive you crazy, and sometimes it's both all at once. Marriage is a wild ride, but it's a beautiful, grand adventure as well. So navigate all the ups and downs and in-betweens with Crazy Little Thing Called Marriage, a podcast from Focus on the Family.

I'm Erin Smalley, and I co-host the podcast with my husband, Dr. Greg Smalley. We sit down with amazing guests to talk about all things marriage, like how do we stay connected or how do we continue growing as individuals or as a couple. Each episode will help you tackle problems you may be facing or just help you make your relationship even sweeter. Listen to Crazy Little Thing Called Marriage and other podcasts from Focus on the Family at focusonthefamily.com/podcast. That's focusonthefamily.com/podcast.