On Oct. 23, Jennie Hobbs joined a small circle of people in chairs, while about a hundred more looked on, and answered a prompt designed to invite calm upon a controversial subject:
“This is what I know about immigrants, and this is when I learned it.”
Pastor Nathan Malone had invited Hobbs, a Christ United Methodist Church member of two decades, to the session.
Polarization nationwide has shaken many social institutions – schools, families and churches among them.
Disturbed by his perception that Americans have become terrible at talking to people they disagree with, and inspired by a recent book that details a strategy for the task, Malone hopes to bring the approach into the community at large.