Is 'Do Unto Others' the way to bridge the political divide?

Pastor Chris Morgan leads a service at Christ United Methodist Church in Bethel Park, Pa., on the Sunday after Election Day.

Justin Merriman for NPR

On a Sunday in mid-July, Pastor Chris Morgan welcomed worshipers to Christ United Methodist Church in suburban Pittsburgh with a simple message.

That Sunday was particularly difficult.

A day earlier, a man had nearly assassinated then-candidate Donald Trump forty miles north in Butler. Morgan asked people to pray for Trump and those killed and injured in the shooting, and asked the congregation to pray for the family of the shooter.

Morgan had already planned a sermon series, called Do Unto Others, to deal with the nation's — and his congregation's — political divisions ahead of Election Day.

NPR's Frank Langfitt went to Christ Church the weekend before Election Day – and the weekend after – to see if the efforts there made a difference.

As Americans prepare to come together at Thanksgiving, how do we bridge this country's political divide? And can we?

For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.

Email us at [email protected].

Transcript

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

CHRIS MORGAN: Good morning, welcome to Christ Church. I'm so glad you could join us for worship.

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

This was the scene in mid-July at Christ United Methodist Church in suburban Pittsburgh. That Sunday was a difficult one. A day earlier, a man had nearly assassinated then-candidate Donald Trump 40 miles north in Butler, Pennsylvania. Pastor Chris Morgan asked people to pray for Trump and the victims of the shooting. And he added this.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

MORGAN: We want to be praying for the family of the shooter that lives two streets from this church.

KELLY: Morgan had already planned a sermon series to deal with the nation's and his congregation's political divisions ahead of Election Day.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

MORGAN: We have a - sorry. We have a series we're doing in the fall called Do Unto Others, talking about showing kindness in the midst of the world we live in. We need to be praying that we do that and that people get that 'cause there's a lot going on.

KELLY: Morgan called the series a movement for civility, built around a handful of sermons, hundreds of Do Unto Others T-shirts and a whole lot of lawn signs. NPR's Frank Langfitt went to Christ Church the weekend before Election Day and the weekend after to see if the efforts there made a difference.

CONSIDER THIS - as Americans prepare to come together at Thanksgiving, how do we bridge this country's political divide? And can we?

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

KELLY: From NPR News, I'm Mary Louise Kelly.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

KELLY: It's CONSIDER THIS FROM NPR. Pastor Chris Morgan has a message for his congregation in Bethel Park, outside of Pittsburgh - do unto others. It's a principle he hopes will help his parishioners manage their differences with people on the other side of the political fence. And NPR's Frank Langfitt went to find out whether that message is resonating with congregants.

FRANK LANGFITT, BYLINE: Tommy Longenecker (ph) is a huge fan of President-elect Trump. He's got the flag and lawn signs to prove it.

TOMMY LONGENECKER: This is an 8-by-4 Trump-Vance sign. We put a dozen signs up in our neighborhood.

LANGFITT: This big?

LONGENECKER: Yeah. And let me tell you, Democrats don't like the sign up. They've been destroying my signs all over the neighborhood.

LANGFITT: Longenecker's next door neighbor, Bob Lewis (ph), didn't tear down his signs, but he wasn't a fan, either.

BOB LEWIS: They're a little big, a little garish, a little bright.

LANGFITT: A week before Election Day, Longenecker - you know, the guy with that huge Trump sign - was out blowing leaves when he noticed something in Lewis' yard.

LONGENECKER: I saw a sign about a Christian theme, and it was purple. And I walked over to Bob. I said, I really like your sign.

LANGFITT: It read, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. It's from the gospels of Matthew and Luke. And it spoke to Longenecker because people had torn down his signs and sometimes given him the finger when they drove past his house. After he saw the Do Unto Others sign, Longenecker told Lewis it seemed on point. Lewis described their exchange following church services one Sunday.

LEWIS: He said, yeah, it's obviously relevant in this times. And clearly, not everyone agrees with everyone else's politics, and you maybe don't agree with mine. And I said, well, that's probably a correct assumption. And at that point, he said, but I like the message that it gives. And I like the fact that we can still get along and not be hateful and mean to each other.

LANGFITT: The two men have been neighbors for nearly eight years. It was the first time they'd really talked about their faith. Longenecker is a nonpracticing Catholic. Lewis attends nearby Christ United Methodist Church.

(SOUNDBITE OF HANDBELL MUSIC)

LANGFITT: Christ Church has nearly 2,000 members for services per weekend, including traditional services, which occasionally feature a handbell choir...

UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL GROUP: (Singing) Fix your eyes on Jesus Christ, the way.

LANGFITT: ...And contemporary services, which feature a rock band.

MORGAN: How are you?

LANGFITT: I'm fine, Pastor Chris. Nice to meet you (laughter).

MORGAN: Nice to meet you, as well.

So I'm Chris Morgan, and I'm the senior pastor here at Christ United Methodist Church. I'm in my 15th year.

LANGFITT: Morgan - everybody calls him Pastor Chris - says his congregation is pretty evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans. And the previous two presidential elections took a toll.

MORGAN: So I had people just coming into my office thinking that the world was going to end. It was both sides, depending on the year.

LANGFITT: So Morgan drafted a sermon series to give his flock some spiritual tools to help them navigate the country's divisions in the November election.

MORGAN: We wanted to remind our people that no matter what happened, whether Trump won or Harris won, our job as followers of Christ is to remember that God's bigger than all of this. And our call as followers of Christ are to show people kindness and respect and love and humility and compassion, no matter what.

LANGFITT: Parishioner Patti Goyette (ph) said the sermon series helped her deal with personal and political divisions at home.

PATTI GOYETTE: I can tell you, in my personal life, I'm engaging with my significant other much differently. You know, I don't want to go into too many details 'cause it's personal, but, you know, we've had a lot of struggles. And I think the messaging I'm getting from church helped me change my perspective entirely into, how do I fix this?

LANGFITT: Goyette recalled one sermon where Pastor Chris spoke about becoming stranded on a long bike ride because he hadn't had enough to eat or drink.

GOYETTE: That hit me because, realistically, was I feeding and watering my relationship? Was I nourishing that? So that was a turning-point sermon for me.

LANGFITT: How have you nourished your relationship?

GOYETTE: I haven't gone into a confrontation with a higher heart rate and clenched muscles, you know? I listen, and I hear. When you do that, people stop yelling and start talking. And it makes a difference.

LANGFITT: The Do Unto Others program helped Goyette, but other parishioners had problems with it. Tony Reda (ph) ushers at one of the church services. He thinks the sermon series encouraged people to express their political opinions.

TONY REDA: I felt - and I've told Chris this. I felt like going to church was an hour of peace and quiet and trying to be closer to Christ. And I felt like that sermon series was bringing politics into the church.

LANGFITT: Reda says some in the congregation openly criticized Trump, which he found especially disturbing after Trump was nearly killed north of here in Butler, Pennsylvania.

REDA: There's people that are flat-out saying, I can't believe they missed, after the assassination attempt.

LANGFITT: People at church have said that?

REDA: Yes, they have.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

UNIDENTIFIED CHOIR: (Vocalizing).

LANGFITT: I returned to Christ Church last weekend after the election and met parishioner Stephanie White (ph) at coffee hour. She's a big supporter of Pastor Chris, but thought the Do Unto Others program didn't go far enough. White says Trump speaks hatefully about others and wishes the church had called that out.

STEPHANIE WHITE: The piece that I think is missing was the willingness to openly identify the rhetoric being used in the campaign.

LANGFITT: White says failing to do so creates a false equivalence.

WHITE: I understand the valid criticisms of the Democratic Party. I would never argue that the Democratic Party's any kind of saviors. They're not. But can we also talk about the terrible things that Trump says? And the response you get is, well, it's both sides, it's both sides.

LANGFITT: Pastor Chris Morgan says Do Unto Others isn't about calling out sides.

MORGAN: This series was not about making a statement about anyone's morality. Outside of the pulpit, I personally will stand up for what I think is right and what I think is wrong, and I have done those things. My job as a pastor when I am preaching is to help people grow in their faith and become as much like Jesus as we can.

KELLY: Reporting there from Frank Langfitt. And Frank is with us now. It's fascinating reporting. My question is, did it work, the Do Unto Others program? Did it make a difference?

LANGFITT: I think at an individual level, as you kind of heard, I think it did help some people a lot. And I think what it allowed them to do was instead of sort of approaching this from taking a fraught personal approach and looking at it through a political lens, it allowed people to sort of go back to scripture and focus it from a Christian perspective, from kindness and compassion. And I think that did help people deal better with what has been an incredibly emotional issue for so many voters in this country. That said, they distributed a lot of these Do Unto Others T-shirts at the church, but when I went to the services, I did not see that many of them, which also raised questions for me as to how much buy-in there really was in the congregation.

KELLY: Well, and I have to also ask - I mean this is - it's lovely. It's a lovely effort, lovely story, but it's one pastor. It's one church. Is this being replicated?

LANGFITT: It is. I mean, this is one of a number of United Methodist churches who have similar programs like this. And Pastor Chris has no illusions that he's going to change the country, but he had to start somewhere. And he'd seen these problems in - earlier, in 2016 and 2020. I think the big challenge that I think you're getting at is this is a - you know, the United States is a huge country.

KELLY: Yeah.

LANGFITT: A hundred and fifty million people voted this year. The election was decided by fewer than 3 million votes, which means you have enormous numbers of people on either side of this election, and their feelings and thoughts are deep and wide. And if you were going to try to bridge this division in this country, you know, in any meaningful way, you'd have to have a lot of efforts along these lines, a lot of these programs, and it would take a very long time. We're talking about something that could take a generation.

KELLY: That is Frank Langfitt, NPR's roving national correspondent. Thank you, Frank.

LANGFITT: Happy to do it, Mary Louise.

KELLY: This episode was produced by Kathryn Fink. It was edited by Catherine Laidlaw and Courtney Dorning. Our executive producer is Sami Yenigun.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

KELLY: It's CONSIDER THIS FROM NPR. I'm Mary Louise Kelly. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.