5 Steps to Positive Political Dialogue

If you feel like politics and politicians have sunk into a hopeless pit of divisiveness and insincerity, you need this book. Amy Uelmen identifies some of the burning questions of our times: Does voting the wrong way constitute a sin? Are my misguided friends being inadvertently duped by political machines to make sinful choices? Are my misguided friends being inadvertently duped by political rhetoric that sounds good, but produces no social change in practice?

The 5 steps she proposes will help you ask the right questions and establish parameters that can produce actual dialogue rather than simultaneous monologues in your family, church, community, or town hall meeting. The insights are: (1) Believe it is possible to have a positive vision of politics; (2) Practice and refine communication skills based on love; (3) Understand where there is and is not room for compromise; (4) Recognize suffering as a springboard for love; and (5) Build the polis with constructive action.

About the author

Amy Uelmen

Amy J. Uelmen holds a bachelor’s degree in American Studies and a J.D. from Georgetown University, and an M.A. in Theology from Fordham University. She is the director for mission and ministry and a lecturer at Georgetown Law and a senior research fellow at Georgetown's Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs. Her seminar courses help students develop the communication skills they need to foster understanding across deep differences. Previously Uelmen was the founding director of Fordham University's Institute on Religion, Law & Lawyer's Work (2001-2011) and an associate with law firm Arnold & Porter (1996-2000). She has lectured and published widely on how religious values might inform the practice of law and how principles of dialogue might inform debates about religion in the public square. She is a regular contributor to Living City.