Hope Beyond Tribalism with James Mumford

Amidst a culture of political tribalism and personal loneliness, how can we more clearly, creatively, charitably, and faithfully think and engage with our neighbors? What kinds of practices of mind, body, and spirit, might help us to see and act with greater empathy and understanding?

In his book, Vexed: Ethics Beyond Political Tribes, author James Mumford considers these questions and how often our ethical convictions get politically bundled up with others in what he calls a kind of “package deal.”

It’s in examining our own convictions, and the exercise of the moral imagination that we can begin to move beyond tribalism into a greater freedom:

“The sort of engagement relationally that I’m talking about, it’s very different from the sort of combative exchange that we see on social media.  And so it is a counter cultural project, I think, to disengage, to question our own assumptions, and then also to engage with other people about their own assumptions and their own convictions and how those fit together.” – James Mumford

We hope this conversation helps you to think more clearly about your own convictions, and to view your neighbors, even those with whom you disagree, with greater empathy.

This podcast is an edited version of an online conversation recorded in June 2020. Watch the full video of the conversation here, and learn more about James Mumford.

Authors and books mentioned in the conversation:
Vexed: Ethics Beyond Political Tribes, by James Mumford
The Righteous Mind, by Jonathan Haidt
T. S. Eliot

Related Trinity Forum Readings:
Four Quartets – T.S. Eliot
Children of Light and the Children of Darkness, by Reinhold Niebuhr
Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville
Babette’s Feast, by Isak Dinesen
Politics, Morality, and Civility, by Václav Havel

Related Conversations:
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The Kingdom, the Power & The Glory with Tim Alberta
A Life Worth Living with Miroslav Volf
Towards a Better Christian Politics
Christian Pluralism: Living Faithfully in a World of Difference
What Really Matters with Charlie Peacock and Andi Ashworth
Scripture and the Public Square
How to be a Patriotic Christian
Life, Death, Poetry & Peace with Philip Yancey
The Fall, the Founding, and the Future of American Democracy
Fear and Conspiracy with David French
Words Against Despair with Christian Wiman

To listen to this or any of our episodes in full, visit ttf.org/podcast and to help make content like this possible, join the Trinity Forum Society

Special thanks to Ned Bustard for our podcast artwork.