After the Election: Yearning for a Culture of Listening

After the Election

Yearning for a Culture of Listening

I’m interpreting the results tonight as the revenge of just the regular ole working class American, the anonymous American, who has been crushed, insulted, condescended to — they’re not garbage, they’re not Nazis, they’re just regular people who get up and go to work every day and are trying to make a better life for their kids and they feel like they have been told to just shut up, when they’ve complained about the things that are hurting them in their own lives.

Scott Jennings, conservative political strategist, Nov. 5, CNN

The Christianity I Believe In: Listening to Others

The Christianity I believe in is about listening to others on their own terms and for their own sake. This is one reason why Scott Jennings’ comments, as a conservative Republican commentator for CNN, resonate with me. If someone is hurting and feels unheard, despite working tirelessly for their family's future, I want to listen and truly understand them.

Listening Beyond Opinions

This kind of listening is not mere curiosity; it is not simply about knowing their opinions or “positions” on issues. It means feeling the truth of their lives as they experience it: feeling the emotions they feel. While I do want to hear their perspectives, that alone is insufficient. I want to listen to them as whole persons.

Make no mistake, the political implications of the election count tremendously. We must all worry about who gets hurt by whatever policies are enacted, and we must be true to and passionate about our political convictions. Still, we need also to listen.

Attempts at Listening

During the recent election cycle, I made attempts to listen to others in this way, especially those on “the other side.” Maybe six or seven times. These attempts, however, were not successful. We didn’t have the time or the right space for genuine connection.

In one case, a person—indeed a friend—felt intimidated by me, knowing that I was a college professor while he never finished high school, having joined the army and served in a foreign war. He was MAGA to the core, had fought and killed in Vietnam, and was not prejudiced against anybody, except communists whom he hated with a passion. He also liked to dance to the music at the restaurant where I played. That's where we got to know each other. I believe that with more time, he might have accepted my invitation to listen to his story. I told him he didn’t need to listen back. I wanted to create space in my heart for him, to hear his story. To me, this is part of what Christianity is about: making space in your heart for others, even those who might be considered enemies.

Challenges Within My Family

My commitment to listening also failed on another level. My extended family is divided politically. We are not part of the working class, whatever that may mean. So I didn’t need to listen to them out of a belief that they felt “unheard” by elites; nor they to me. We are all elites if that means making a certain amount of money a year and having plenty of food on the table. But I wanted to better understand where they were coming from at a deep level. However, I never took the time to call and say to them: “Please be gentle with me. I want to listen and understand how things look to you. You don't need to listen back.” And, in truth, they never reached out to me either. We chose the safer route: avoiding these discussions altogether and focusing instead on family life, recreation, birthdays, and sports. We didn't want conflict.

A Nation That Rarely Listens

This kind of failure is not mine alone. We live in a nation where listening is rare. People across the political spectrum—and everywhere in between—seldom say, “Please be gentle with me; I want to understand how things feel from your point of view.”

Moreover, even the most educated among us often lack this essential skill. It astonishes me that our educational systems, despite all their focus on achievement, have not taught us the art of listening, which is one of life's greatest achievements. We may hold degrees in finance, politics, physics; we may be lawyers or physicians; yet we lack capacities to hear other people for their own sake, and on their own terms. We excel in explaining, debating, and accumulating information, but we fall short in understanding and compassion.

Christians and the Practice of Listening

It also amazes me how poorly Christians, as Christians, listen. We talk about love, but have been led to believe that love has only one form: serving others in tangible ways. We want to “proclaim the gospel” and live by its “values.” But one of those values must be listening, without imposing ourselves—and too often, it is forgotten. This applies equally to conservative and liberal Christians, although it is my impression (forgive me) if the conservative evangelicals are a bit more preoccupied with proclaiming than listening.

I wish—I yearn—for a culture of listening within Christianity, within politics, within America, within the world. While I don’t expect such a culture to emerge dramatically, I do think we can all do better if we commit ourselves to it and practice it in our daily lives. I think our faith leaders should emphasize this: that love begins with listening.

Who Deserves to Be Heard?

Who’s worth listening to? I do not wish for an America where people only listen to “regular people who get up and go to work every day.” I also want to listen to immigrants I know, to those who feel threatened by right-wing rhetoric, and to individuals with sexual and gender identities that are misunderstood or unaccepted by some on the right, to refugees who have faced unimaginable hardships, and to people of different faiths who are often marginalized. We are all made in God’s image—not just those who fit a certain mold. The Christianity I believe in is embodied in Jesus, who points us toward a love that is not nationalistic, not white, not tribal, and not simply “patriotic.” It is a love that embraces an open heart.

Political Leaders and the Courage to Listen

In this political cycle, no politician had the courage to invite this degree of openness. This includes politicians who spoke the language of Christianity and who believed (or said they believed) that they want a nation where Christians are free to live by Christian values. Is it Christian to make a god of the nation? Is it Christian to demonize “the other side” (right or left) as an “enemy” not worth loving? Is it Christian to suggest that “fighting” is what life is about? This is not the Christianity I know. I am not Catholic, but I sometimes speak of myself as a Pope Francis Christian. He refused to take sides in the American election, seeing it as a choice between the least of evils. One side emphasized “abortion rights” and the other demonized immigrants and told lies about them. Pope Francis could not go either route.

A Path Toward Understanding

In the end, the culture of listening I yearn for, in myself and others, includes a recognition that every person’s story matters, that empathy bridges the deepest divides, and that understanding is a form of grace. This type of listening requires us to look beyond labels, affiliations, and assumptions and engage with the humanity of those around us. It challenges us to step into the discomfort of vulnerability and the unknown, trusting that growth comes from these encounters. It means accepting that we will not always have easy answers, but in the willingness to listen, we create a path toward deeper understanding and peace. It calls for patience, humility, and an openness that goes beyond surface-level interactions. It is a commitment to seek understanding even when it’s uncomfortable, to hold space for voices different from our own, and to engage in conversations that build, rather than break, relationships.

Listening as an Act of Hope

This listening is an act of hope—a belief that through genuine connection, healing and unity are possible. If we could embrace this kind of listening, we might begin to heal the rifts that divide us and find common ground where hope can flourish. This is the heart of the Christianity I hold dear: a faith that listens, learns, and loves without limits. If we could embrace this kind of listening, perhaps we would find that our differences, though real, do not have to be final. Instead, they could become the starting points for compassion and genuine connection.

- Jay McDaniel

​After the Election​Yearning for a Culture of Listening

For More on the Election​

After the Election

Yearning for a Culture of Listening

For More on the Election