As I write this, it looks clear that Proposal 3 has passed in the state of Michigan, and that abortion is now considered a constitutional right. I have tried to back away from speaking about politics because there are more important things to talk about, and when I do speak up, I often choose to critique my own movement rather than preach to the choir and raise the banner. I don’t want to win. I want to get at what is true and good together.

But today I want to why it is that so many people see this as a horrifying defeat while at the same time so many more see this as a glorious victory. How can one event be interpreted in such vastly different ways?

Of course, I’ve seen the easy answer online: the other side is pure evil. “They” are full of hate. “They” just want to murder babies. “They” just want to enslave women. No doubt some do, but I hope you, dear reader, are wise enough to know such extreme positions don’t represent the whole group.

So if “they” aren’t pure evil, while else would they disagree with me? The next step is to say they are acting irrationally for one reason or another. Perhaps “they” are driven by an unconscious bias or hatred; some deeper inner drive is overriding their sense of good judgment. Maybe it’s the desire for sex, the desire for freedom, the desire for control, or some kind of homophobia or misogyny or racism. These, if true, may be forgiven to some degree, because we are complex people and sometimes unaddressed issues can throw anyone off course. With a little counseling, a little reflection, a little education, maybe we could overcome some of these hidden drivers.

Less forgivable is the idea that their irrationality is caused by an obstacle not from within but from without. Perhaps “they” have been brainwashed by some organization. Whether it’s the church, the state, the family, some corporation, some NPO, we worry that someone in power is lying to the people and manipulating them. This is less forgivable. In fact, the idea fills us with rage. I am informed! You are a pawn! My team is trustworthy, but yours is destroying my country! How dare they do this, and how dare you let them.

No doubt these are factors, too. We live in a marketplace of influence and attention, and there are some who want influence badly enough to do anything for attention. They will lie if lying gets them more influence. They will manipulate if they think it will benefit them. But how do you know who is playing this game and who is actually after the truth? House used to say “everybody lies.” Is the solution to trust no one? This only hastens the breakdown of society. We can’t live like that.

It is possible everyone is bent on power over principle. But I don’t believe we’re there yet. I think there are people of goodwill who want to raise healthy families, who want to do right by their neighbors, who want to leave to their children a society that is in some way better than the one they inherited. I think that kind of person is still the majority in America. I am convinced that we are not divided by hate or lies, although the haters and liars do benefit from our division. I am convinced we are divided by different beliefs about what it means to be good, and different beliefs about what is true.

So I submit that, despite there being some evil people, some tainted by irrational drives, and some hoodwinked by powerful organizations, we primarily interpret this event in two opposite ways because it seems rational to us. It fits with what we believe about what is true and good. We discern who to trust based on our pre-existing beliefs. We discern what is rational and what is irrational, or what is pure evil and what is accidental, based on our pre-existing beliefs.

And so while many will either lament or celebrate today’s outcome, I lament the underlying reality. I lament that a country full of people who want to do the right thing are so fractured in their understanding of what the right thing is.

Some no doubt believe that the rift has grown too wide, that there is no going back. I pray that this is not true. In fact, I have staked my career on the opposite of this. The reason that I applied myself to the study of philosophy and theology is because I believe it’s possible to discover the truth, and even to persuade one another of the truth. I don’t believe we are locked in our own minds with our own prejudices, helpless to change. I believe that we can come to see truths we would not initially accept. I believe we can grown in our ability to think well, to identify errors, and to help one another do the same.

In some ways it feels silly to have to write that. I have heard grown men tell me to my face that people become who they are are kids and when they are adults, they can’t change. And perhaps it is harder, sure, but it is patently false. We have evidence of this all around us, all throughout history, all throughout literature. Don’t buy the lie that says if you disagree with someone today, you will always disagree for the rest of your lives.

There is a more spiritual version of this argument that I hear as well. It says that people who don’t believe are trapped in their unbelief, and only people who do believe can see the truth. And since these beliefs are foundational to all others, you can never persuade someone who isn’t a believer about anything substantive, and you shouldn’t bother trying. This is a warped doctrine you will not find in the Bible. Don’t believe it.

How can I say this? Easy. We already share a great many beliefs in common. We already have many things in common that we take for granted. We learn to emphasize and brood over our differences, and at a more fundamental level we tend to find our identity in our uniqueness, but the reality is we share much in common, even if it’s only the capacity to emphasize, brood, and be unique. Of course, I believe it’s more than that.

Not only do we already have things in common, but we are already changing. We have changed over the past 10 years, and before that we had changed over the previous 30 years, and so on. Change is happening in the externals and in our fundamental values. And if they can change in one direction, they can change in another.

So if we have some values in common and have demonstrated an ability to change, then it’s not only possible but necessary to try and build on our commonality and change in productive ways.

Some on both sides want to see groups or even government dismantled. The problem with overthrowing the old culture is that the first act of the new culture is destructive. It is not a neutral action or merely an outward facing action, but it is an action that changes us. We become a culture of destruction. Again, we cannot live that way. We need a more constructive approach.

What blocks us first is fear. We are afraid that whoever we are meeting with won’t be honest, will be manipulative, or a pawn of someone else’s manipulation. We need to rebuild trust, which I am told comes through going through difficult times together and finding that we have each other’s backs in a crisis. The past decade has not been good for this either, because whether the issue is race or economy or public health, so many of us feel like we have been through the crisis and found others have let us down. That is a real challenge. I can only hope that we will give each other another chance.

And this brings me to my final point: how do we come to know who was wrong so that we can apologize and reconcile? If it’s true, as I have argued, that there are a great many people of goodwill on both sides, and that our disagreement is not over desiring the truth and doing what is good but rather over what is true and what is good, then we confront again the real task, and it is monumental: we have to find some way of talking about what is true and good constructively. We have to find some way of reexamining our own beliefs to see where they can be corrected and trusting that others will, too.

Because, and this is crucial, to be this divided can only mean one of two things at a fundamental level. For any single conviction where we disagree, either one side is right and the other is wrong, or the disagreement stems from a paradox that needs to be addressed. For example, if I say abortion is always wrong and you say abortion is sometimes right, we are faced with a contradiction. We cannot both be right, at least not in the same sense. We would either have to explore whether there is some imprecision in what we are saying and nuance our positions until we found how they fit together, or, if we find we face a true contradiction, we need to determine which stance is wrong. To do that we need a shared way of exploring our beliefs and some shared set of criteria that identifies what is true.

What I am describing is nothing new. In fact, it is very, very old. There are some who want to give up this process, who see this process as itself part of the problem. But I tend to think that most of us attempt to do something like this but overestimate our abilities and actually practice something far less rigorous and far sloppier.

Is it possible to examine our beliefs and values, to work toward consensus, and to believe the best about each other? I believe it is. The problem is (1) it is hard work, (2) we are too distracted, and (3) simply winning feels like enough. But if my victory is at the expense of half the country, it is a hollow victory. That was true for the end of Roe v. Wade, and it is true again today for those who supported Prop 3 in Michigan.

So I will continue to look for ways to test and refine my beliefs, and for ways to help you do the same. I will try to get better at explaining what I think is true and good and why, and inviting you to discuss that with me. But I call on all people of goodwill to believe the best about the people you disagree with. Some of them are liars and haters; I am not denying that. But please do whatever you can to make sure the people you are connected to get the benefit of the doubt.

It is probably too late for simple solutions, but I hope things will not have to get any worse before we take seriously our responsibility to build a society together rather than tear one apart together.