Conversations of Hope in a Culture of Crisis

Abstract

In the late 1990s, linguist Deborah Tannen argued that America had become an “argument culture” characterized by an adversarial frame of mind when approaching the world and the people in it. Recent events appear to have added apocalyptic fears (not entirely unfounded) to our adversarial approach. How can we talk to each other in such a communication climate? The Winsome Conviction Project was launched in early 2020 at Biola University to help improve our conversations both internally and in our community at large. The Winsome Conviction Project encourages civility, but is even more concerned about the effective communication of deeply held convictions. Particularly important is helping people articulate their convictions, including their backstory, reasons, and doubts. We have hosted large public conversations, small group discussions between people with conflicting convictions, and discussion groups that probe contested issues and help people develop well-formed convictions. This paper will: (1) give a short overview of key challenges we faced (both institutionally and culturally), (2) describe how the Winsome Conviction Project engaged and responded to these challenges, and (3) summarize some provisional lessons to be drawn from our experience.