Effective Communication

Family North Carolina Magazine—Sep/Oct 2006

By Traci Griggs

Winsome. Appealing. Genial. These are not necessarily the first words that come to mind when communicating on emotional topics such as abortion, homosexuality, evolution, and parental rights. Our natural instincts tell us quite the opposite. Bold. Attack. Defend. But paradoxically, often the most effective way to communicate is to listen, ask questions, and ask permission. Of course, the manner of communicating is just the first step. Developing a basic understanding of the issues is the next task at hand for many who wish to influence friends, neighbors and policy makers on public policy concerns.

By listening first, we discover the objections to our point of view. For instance, imagine you are talking with your neighbor on the street. She says she thinks abortion should remain legal. Her reasons may be that she believes that the mother’s rights supersede the rights of the unborn every time. If, without listening, you begin arguing that human life begins at conception, you will have missed the opportunity to address her real argument. On the other hand, you might choose to listen patiently, not formulating your counter-argument, but trying to understand her point of view before speaking.

Dr. Mark Liederbach, associate professor of ethics at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary says this is important in every conversation on social issues. “Someone will say, I believe it’s okay, that if two people love each other—it doesn’t matter what gender they are, for them to fall in love. They can be married, they can have sexual relations, it’s just the same as a monogamous, heterosexual relationship. Often times they’ll talk about gender as a social construction as opposed to something that’s inherent in the human person. Now if they make that argument, then I have to understand that they’ve just said something very clearly about the nature of human beings and the nature of the universe and they’ve actually just argued that God did not create the human beings in the world as males and females.”

As you analyze their point of view, you’ll need to ask questions to clarify. Not only is this helpful to you, but it is helpful to them as well. Many people form opinions without research and deep thought. They may live around others who believe just as they do and they are never questioned on what they think and why. It can be a valuable exercise for them. “Why do you believe the woman’s right to choose is more important than the life of the unborn child? Is that also the case once the child is born? Is it important for parents to sacrifice for their children? Does that sacrifice begin before the child is born? When does the unborn child gain enough status to warrant a parent’s sacrifice?”

Once you have listened and asked questions, you have earned the right to ask permission. “I will listen to them,” Liederbach explains, “ask them why they feel the way that they do, and then I’ll say, can I explain to you why I feel the way I do about this particular issue? That question tends to set people at ease if you’re asking them basically a favor. Can I share with you my perspective? If they say no then I can understand that maybe the conversation is drawing to a close. If they say, well ‘sure’, they might say ‘sure’ more readily because I have just listened to them.”

These principles of effective communication may help you relax a bit and enter into amicable conversations with your neighbors about topics that you thought could only become contentious. But the fact is, you are not off the hook. Once you have won an audience, you have to know what to say. You’ll need to understand the subjects.

To do this, you’ll have to engage your brain. Award-winning author and worldview expert Nancy Pearcey says there are no shortcuts. “A lot of people immediately jump into thinking that it means having a particular position on all the issues, and so they will sometimes prematurely jump in and just baptize whatever is the conservative position on topic x. It’s easy to want a magic bullet, but really you have to do the thinking and the studying. You don’t have to become a specialist in every single area, but know the basic biblical principles that apply to science, political philosophy, the arts and culture, medicine, and so on.”

A good place to begin is by understanding the different worldviews and how they provide the foundation for every opinion. For example, evolution is based on a naturalistic worldview. Naturalists believe that life on Earth erupted naturally. If we were not created, then there is no God to whom we are accountable. In the mind of the naturalist, there are no God-given rights and our intrinsic worth is no different from any other living thing. This affects views on abortion, stem cell research, homosexuality….

The video series, Family Policy Perspectives, produced by the North Carolina Family Policy Council, is an excellent tool for getting up to speed on these issues. You can get more information on this series, designed for home study, private schools, home schools, and Sunday school classes, by going to our website at www.ncfamily.org.

Traci Griggs is director of communications for the NCFPC.

Copyright © 2006. North Carolina Family Policy Council. All rights reserved.