Empathy & the Religious "Enemy"

This project aims toward empathic, nonjudgmental listening and interactions with oppositional religious groups. “Bridging conversations” might lead to something different.

I decline to judge them as right or wrong, good or bad. Neither condemn or defend them. Instead, I’m curious. How can I understand them more deeply, cognitively and emotionally?

Can I build rapport and warm, friendly, collaborative relationships with people hated, feared, and demonized? Might I learn from them?

The project is not about changing the Other, the “Enemy.” Rather, it’s about changing Us. I imagine being more understanding, better able and willing to reach across political and religious divides.

This is a strategy for the long haul. It is geared more to relationships than political "results."

This is NOT for everyone. I don’t demand this of you.

It might not make sense for people who feel hurt or threatened, etc., by intensely oppositional religious and political groups.