Common Ground

It probably shouldn't be surprising, though it is sobering. William Raspberry writes in the Washington Post that a major threat to the "American tradition of working things out are issues closely tied to religious faith: abortion, homosexual marriage, the teaching of evolution." He cites recent findings of the opinion research organization Public Agenda, which

has just published the results of a survey that serves to make the point. Support for compromise on issues that involve religious principles is diminishing among all Americans. It is diminishing most rapidly among the most religious of us -- self-described evangelicals, for instance, and people who attend religious services every week.

When shown the statement Even elected officials who are deeply religious sometimes have to make compromises and set their convictions aside to get results while in government the percentage of those surveyed who agreed with the statement fell 10 percentage points, to 74 percent, from the results of a 2000 survey. Further,

evangelicals and weekly service-goers, the support for compromise was down to 63 percent. This represents a decline in just four years of 16 points for evangelicals and 19 points for regular worshipers.

On specific issues: The willingness to support compromise among weekly service-goers (numbers for the general public are in parentheses) was down 19 points since 2000 (-six) on abortion, minus 18 points (-six) on gay rights and down 10 points (-five) on the death penalty. The pattern for Catholics was close to that of all respondents who regularly attend church.

The numbers certainly appear to bear out the pervasive atmostphere of rancour and the unyeilding quality of what goes for discourse these days. My first reaction is to ask , "Why do you notice the splinter in your brother's eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own eye?" But that ultimately is not attempting to establish an open dialogue. What are we all so afriad of?