David: Our family, that’s the two of us, Karen, plus our married children and their spouses, and our grandchildren of voting age. Well, we think our family is just about equally divided in terms of the Trump-Biden choice they will be voting on in the upcoming presidential election.

Karen: More specifically, there are 19 people of voting age in our extended nuclear family. And the best we can tell, our family presidential race will end up 10 to 9. And because of one still undecided voter, we aren’t sure which candidate will win our family vote or if we’ll end in a tie.

David: Maybe we are a microcosm of our country.

Karen: Anyway, we sense that our family isn’t all that unusual in this regard, and it is great comfort to me to think that many listeners who are listening to the podcast now are in exactly the same position.

Intro: Welcome to the Before We Go Podcast featuring Dr. David Mains and his wife, noted author Karen Mains. Here’s David and Karen Mains.

Karen: Family fights about political leadership are not something new. And there have been any number of incredibly contentious presidential races in our country’s past.

David: We could illustrate, Karen, but I’m going to go not to our country, but way back to Bible times. They fought over who the right leader was going to be. Just one example, okay? As you go into the books of 1st and 2nd Samuel, you have the story of the first of Israel’s King Saul. And then David becoming a national hero and making Saul jealous and pretty soon there’s a fight and Saul wants to kill him.

Karen: Well, David is also anointed by the prophet Samuel to replace Saul.

David: It’s not an easy story to read. Actually, the conflict between those two individuals ends at the end of 1st Samuel, the book, because Saul is killed, not by David, but he’s killed by the Philistines, along with three of his sons, including Jonathan.

Karen: In battle, I think that was.

David: He was killed in battle. Then when 1st Samuel moves to the book of 2nd Samuel, you have a chapter that starts with David lamenting over the loss of these people. But then immediately in chapter 2 of 2nd Samuel, you have David being anointed as king in the area of the country where he was. This is all taking place in what would today be Israel. And so now David has been anointed king where he is, but Abner, who is the commander of the forces of the house of Saul, he also anoints another of Saul’s sons as king in another area. So now we’re in a situation where the whole fight is picked up again. And the commander, Abner of the forces of Saul, decides that he will go to Gebion. Joab is the commander of David’s forces.

He’s going to go there and meet with him as well. And one group sits on one side of the pool and one group on the other side. And then Abner said to Joab, these two top generals, let’s have some of the young men get up and fight hand to hand in front of us. Now Joab could have shut that off, but he says, all right, let them do it. And then the Bible reads, 12 men from each of the sides, then each man grabbed his opponent by the head and thrust his dagger into his opponent’s side, and they fell down together. And the place where this happened in Gebion is called the place of daggers.

Karen: So, this conflict ends in bloody carnage, which many of these conflicts did, if not all of them.

David: The only thing that I would change from what you said, you said it ends, but it doesn’t end there. Oh, it doesn’t end.

Karen: This particular conflict.

David: Even from that given day, there’s a fight as the two sides are against each other. At the end of chapter two, it says that David’s men found at 19 plus Ashil. So it’s 20 of their men were God, but David’s men had killed 360 Benjaminites. So now this is a huge, this is like 380 people killed because of the conflict between them, too. And chapter three begins, the war between the house of Saul and the house of David lasted a long time.

David grew stronger and stronger while the house of Saul drew weaker and weaker. And eventually Abner, this general decides that he will abdicate and he will go over to David’s side. And when he does that, David makes an agreement with him, which Joab, have his commander, isn’t aware of. And when he finds that Abner is there, he chases Abner and kills him. It just goes on and on and on. It’s very sad.

Karen: It’s a story, a very sad, very sad. But it makes us think about the potential of conflict escalating. This is certainly not what we want in our country.

David: Well, we don’t want it because they had daggers in, but we’re talking about guns.

Karen: Militarized constituency. We do not want an ongoing battle, war of thrones.

David: That’s a good way to put it. We don’t want families arguing angrily either about who they’re voting for and why. And your choice is stupid. Just keep your mouth shut. You know, that kind of thing. We hear about families caring where they don’t even get together anymore because it is so contentious.

And that’s sad. Let’s talk about what we feel is a better way. And that relates to the whole area of being good listeners. And I would add on top of that, being people who ask good questions. I’m going to suggest that whoever it is listening to me, if you’re in that kind of a situation, see yourself as empowered to change things if you will follow simple instructions that I will give. Don’t say that we’ll never work in our family because I think that’s an easy way out.

Karen: Well, I think that what the times are calling for is for all of us to be conflict resolvers. So these are skills that have been developed over the past. We have used them in the decades of our life. We learned to use them in the decades of our life. And we know that they will help even though we are not professional conflict resolutionists.

David: Okay. I’m going to suggest that instead of just allowing the conversation to flow free and everybody saying, well, I’m not going to take responsibility for changing it. You as a listener say, I think I will change it. And I’m going to move it into asking good questions and listening closely to one another as those questions are answered. And let me just take it to a specific. Okay. This is the kind of thing you were to say when the family comes together. I want our time to be one of asking questions and then very carefully listening to what each person has to say. And that’s because I really want to know what each of you is thinking.

So I have written to start us three questions to get us going. For the oldest person here, I would like to ask what do you see as the most important issue in the upcoming election and why?

Karen: And so that would be really passionate about climate change. These are some typical answers that people might answer this with or I’m concerned about the progress of the coronavirus. And our financial collapse that we’re experiencing, I mean, those are the issues that come up with that question.

David: But you allow a person to answer the question and you listen closely to what is being said. So you’re trying to understand that person’s thinking. Then you also have a second question for the youngest person in the group, the youngest person who gets to vote anyway. I want to hear your answer to this question of the four candidates for president or vice president, which do you find most interesting and why? Okay. Then I will have a third question as we progress in our discussion and I will say nobody answer until you had some time to think. But who in our family of voters would you like to ask a question of and what is it? Okay?

Karen: So, we’re talking about questioning and you’ve given three specific examples. These are healthy questions. They’re not loaded questions. And then when the people respond, we’ll talk about how we need to respond to one another later on when we talk about the listening section. In a little bit, I’d like to give the theology that’s behind asking good questions because surprisingly, there’s a very decent theology that can be drawn from both the old and the New Testament.

David: Okay. I’m going to go through those questions again. But what I’m doing is trying to take things out of just free flow talking. Yeah. Where people get to the place where they’re not listening to what the individual is saying.

Karen: They’re just thinking about what they’re going to say.

David: Yeah. Pretty soon to become a verbal boxing mate. And we don’t want that. So you’re kind of ticking over the situation and saying, I’ve thought about this and here’s what I would like to suggest. At least allow me to ask three questions. And here are the questions for the oldest person here. I would like to ask, what do you see as the most important issue in the upcoming election and why? And I want us to listen very closely to understand the thinking of our oldest member here. The second question is for the youngest person. These are just arbitrary. I just chose old and young to make it sound more interesting. I want to hear your answer to the question of the key candidates for president and vice president. Which do you find most interesting of those four and why do you feel that way? And then my last thing is to say, nobody answer until you had some time to think and we’ll just make it quiet for a minute or two. Who in our family of voters would you like to ask a question and what is that question? And if we can get started that way, I think we’ll be okay.

Karen: There is a theology behind this. I mean, as we’ve talked about this.

David: I didn’t have a theology behind it when I wrote this down.

Karen: I went through the Old and New Testament and just pulled up the questions that I found in those two books. It starts in the Garden of Eden. God says to Adam after the disobedience, even to Adam and Eve, he asks them this question, where are you? Where are you? Now, that is what I would call a transcendent or existential question, a question that can be asked in any moment of time. And I think God often does ask this question of us, either through his word or through promptings in our heart. Where are you, Karen? Where are you? And I have to do some personal self-examination to answer that question. I’ll give you just a couple other ideas. God questions Eve after she disobeys and he says to her, what is this you have done? He questions Cain.

David: It’s kind of opening the questions to it’s not you don’t go ahead. What did you just do?

Karen: Right. He says to Cain, why are you angry? Why has your countenance fallen? I think all of these questions have this element that forces into self-reflection to examination of who we are. Let me give a couple from Jesus. Which is easier to say when he’s challenged on this healing ministry and his forgiving ministry? Your sins are forgiven you, or to say rise up and walk? He asks, is it lawful and the Sabbath to do good or to do evil? Where is your faith? What is your name? Who touched my clothes? I can go on. But questioning, legitimate kind of questioning, is all through the Old and New Testament.

David: These are, I think you used the phrase open-ended. Is that what you said?

Karen: They wouldn’t have thought about it that way, but let’s define what’s the difference between a leading question and an open-ended question, which is where I think you’re going with us.

David: Well, a leading question is not what you want to ask. A leading question is what happens oftentimes when you watch television and they have their guest on. And the leading question is, I want you to answer this way, so I’m going to ask the question so you can immediately go to what I want you to say.

Karen: Are we packed into a leading question the way we want them to answer?

David: Well, it would be, what did you think of Trump’s terrible answer when he responded this way? Well, you’re leading the…

Karen: Yeah, there’s no. .. The person on. Yeah, no question there as far as what that person is thinking, the questioner is thinking.

David: Yeah, so you’re saying these are open-ended questions that God is asking.

Karen: And I think he asks these questions of us through our entire faith journey. If it’s from the scripture, if it’s from fellow believers, or if we hear the prompting of the Holy Spirit, this questioning process goes on.

David: Okay, well that’s helpful to me because I’m finding that I have a biblical base from what I am doing. You look better. I was just saying, when we get into these family conflicts, how do we resolve it? Let’s ask questions and then listen because I think listening is a huge part of what we’re saying. What if nobody asks you a question? Because that happens quite often. If you’re the one who says, okay, let’s do things differently this time. They tend to ignore you. I don’t know why that is.

Karen: Well, I think I have a reason for that. I think we so rarely ask inquiry questions that are not loaded of one another. And we rarely have a good listening process going on of the people who have asked that question. As I said before in the podcast, they’re often thinking of how they’re going to answer you. That’s going on in their mind. They’re not really listening. So this is important too.

David: But if nobody asks you a question, my suggestion would be to say, you know, no one asks me a question, but a question I would like to answer is, and then you just go ahead and ask yourself the question.

Karen: Yeah, that’s how simple is that.

David: And again, I said, people who think, well, I can’t do much to control things. You do have a huge control element when you set up a conversation like this because you have the option to say, you know what, I think what I am suggesting is not working. And I’m not comfortable with it going to the place where we’re arguing with one another. So I’m going to get up. I think I’ll work on the dishes for a while. You know, and then you leave.

Karen: Anyone else want to come and help?

David: Yeah, but basically, say, I gave it the best I could.

Karen: Yes, sure, you could. Let’s talk about listening because that’s the other side of this, learning to have non-confrontational conversations. So the scientific theory that comes out of the neurobiological community, the study of the brain, is that when people feel heard and listened to, that actually changes parts of the brain, and that affects the way we feel in our whole body, which is amazing. So there’s a theology of listening in the Old and New Testament. I bet you didn’t think there was. So I took out all of the scriptures I could find and put it into a script because I think this is something even family members could use. I won’t read the whole script. These are the words of God. Listen, listen to me. Pay attention. Come to me.

David: You’re taking these from scripture?

Karen: Right from scripture. These phrases, listen and your soul will live. Listen to my voice, then I shall be your God, and you will be my people. This is my beloved son. Listen to him, and I could go on and on. But I think the point has been made that this sweeps through all of the Old and New Testament. Now there’s a reason for this that I have figured out, and that God is a listener. He’s the Word. We’ve told that Jesus was the Word. The Word is made flesh and come among you in that passage from 1 John. And so we’re made, we’re told in scripture, in the image of God. Humans were created in the image of God. So not only should we be question askers, and I think this may even be part of our neglected spiritual DNA, we must be good listeners because our Heavenly Father is listening to us. Theologically we’re told this, is listening to us and is ready to respond to us. This is an extraordinary thought, I believe frankly, that if Christians just would learn to be good listeners, with one another, with their families in the community at large, they can change communities, they can heal them, even be able to, if we could make this big enough and broad enough and practical enough, change the whole world and heal it as well.

David: I think that would be beautiful. I think that it would be totally different for the reputation of the church because the church is not seen so much as a listening organization, as it is a telling organization. I’m going to change just a bit because I want to give a sentence, and I can’t figure out what sentence to give with, be good listeners, ask good questions.

Karen: So what did you come up with?

David: Well, this is what I came up with and it goes a little bit different direction, and I will go to a scripture with this, but Christians should keep in mind that though Jesus is our true King, whenever possible we should honor our earthly authorities.

Karen: Okay, so again, say it again, I’ll read it one more time.

David: Christians should keep in mind that though Jesus is our true King, whenever possible we should honor our earthly authorities. And I’m thinking of the destructive conversations that go on so many times, even the conversations we listen to maybe on radio or television.

Karen: So this is to be applied in a political discourse in this very contrarian environment. And it doesn’t matter what you say, someone’s going to take the opposite position. And something in that sentence, and that key sentence has to do with how we respond to what government is in power at the time, or which government we’re attempting to elect.

David: It has a great deal to do with our words and our attitudes. I’m also aware that when I say this, not all families have all Christians within the family. We’re very fortunate in that regard. And I think that more important whether we vote Republican or Democrat is that we are members of the Kingdom of God. And that always has to be uppermost in our mind. I think that’s very important. Let me go to the scriptures just to give the flavor of it. And then I want to go back to another point, okay? This is from the New Testament. This is 1st Peter. And I’m reading from chapter 2, just a short paragraph. Submit yourself, for the Lord’s sake, to every authority instituted among men, whether to the king as the supreme authority, or to governors who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right. For it is God’s will that by doing good, you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish men. Live as free men, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil. Live as servants of God. Show proper respect to everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the king.

Karen: That scripture would take a lifetime to live out. But it is extraordinarily applicable to these contentious times where we’re being politicized, our conversations are being politicized. The things we feel strongly about as far as policy or what a government would affect, those are all being politicized. And not we need to do this for the common good.

David: Yeah, and we have to remember too, Karen, that as Peter wrote those words, they were not in a democracy. I mean, this was Caesar. Caesar was in charge of all things. So the governments were not the fairest governments in the world.

Karen: They were occupied by Rome.

David: They were despots.

Karen: Yeah, they were by despots, but their countries, Israel, was occupied by an occupying power.

David: Yeah, so these are very strong words to people in much more difficult situations than we find ourselves in today. So let me go back to that sentence that I wrote, and it’s kind of hopefully giving a summary to all the things that we’re saying. Christians should keep in mind that though Jesus is our true King, whenever possible, we should honor our earthly authorities.

Karen: Can I just speak to how this works out in my life? I think I’ve mentioned this on a previous podcast, but it bears repeating. So when people ask me, well, what party are you, what political persuasion are you a part of, Democrat or Republican? I don’t feel like I am called to either one of those entities. They’re both flawed. They both have good intents. Each side has great policies that they’re attempting to initiate. I just saw something recently. We have a daughter-in-law who has diabetes and a grandson who has diabetes. The cost of insulin shots is just over the top. And one of the legislations that’s sneaking its way through Congress today is to lower the price of insulin. How little and yet how impacting that sort of thing is. So I am for that legislation. I don’t care what party puts it up. I try to remind myself that my political alliances are to the King, Jesus Christ, and to the development of his kingdom principles in the world. And wherever that’s being advanced, can be in justice issues, or it can be in this decreasing or medical expenses, those are the things I am for.

David: I think, Karen, that sometimes when talking with fellow believers, there will be someone who uses the phrase like, the far left, they’re going to help.

Karen: Yeah, they’re all going to help.

David: Or the far right. Those are loaded terms. There are Christian people in the far left. And in the far right.

Karen: Fine, devouted Christian people who are doing God’s work in the world. And the same, both sides.

David: Yeah, and it is also true that the Republican Party doesn’t have the vast majority of believers, or the Democratic Party doesn’t. And it’s very easy for people. And I try to be sympathetic with hearing what people say, but I also have come to the place where I often say, you have to understand that all the Christians are not on your side. You know, politically speaking, they’re scattered throughout the different political parties. And we must be very careful to try to hear what the people are saying, and then to use that hearing to process in our own minds where we feel we should end up.

Karen: To prayerfully process in our own minds.

David: That is so well said, yes.

Karen: So David, this is an extraordinary observation. And when I get into that temptation to categorize and then exclude, to demean them, I am sinning. I mean, that’s what these scriptures say. Am I interpreting that wrong? I think I am sinning before God. And I’m breaking the covenant that I should be carrying on among Christians in the community of faith, no matter what side of this political spectrum they land on. That’s what’s most important to the king we follow into the building of his kingdom. That we create harmony, that we exercise love, that we attempt to achieve understanding, that we ask the right kind of questions, and then we listen. We listen in good faith to the answers that are given.

David: Yeah, and learn from one another. We used to, I’m going to say it very fast, when I was pastoring years ago, when political seasons came around, especially presidential elections, I would have key members of the congregation say to the congregation, I am voting for so-and-so, and this is why. And I would say ahead of time, this is not argumentative. We’re just saying so we can understand one another. We’re not going to challenge what’s there.

Karen: And perhaps educate one another.

David: But we’re just going to say, this is what I’ve come up with. This is the important issue to me. I understand there are other issues. This is very important to me. And we will learn from one another. Some pastors would say, that’s very dangerous. That’s the dumbest thing you could possibly do.

Karen: That’s a church litter right there.

David: It wasn’t that at all.

Karen: It was never a problem, because these principles of question and of listening were amplified, the impact of that was so healthy and helpful, that’s a principle that we have applied through the rest of the decades of our lives.

David: Let me give that sentence one more time, and then we’ll be finished. Christians should keep in mind that though Jesus is our true King, whenever possible, we should honor our earthly authorities. And by honoring them, that means we listen carefully to what they say, and we decide whether or not that’s where we want to go, but then we make our choices. And we do it all in peace, and in love, and in family harmony, even though we have differences.

Karen: 9 to 10.

Outgo: You’ve been listening to the Before We Go Podcast. And if you would like to write to us, please send us an email at the following address, hosts@beforewego.show. That’s all lowercase letters, hosts@beforewego.show. If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please remember to rate, review, and share on whatever platform you listen. This podcast is copyright 2020 by Mainstay Ministries, Post Office Box 30, Wheaton, Illinois 601-87.