When I was studying feminist theory in graduate school, one of the most compelling arguments I read was that of Catherine MacKinnon, professor of law at the University of Michigan, whose Feminism Unmodified: Discourses on Life and Law remains a classic text. MacKinnon, who pioneered the legal claim for sexual harassment as a form of sex discrimination, says simply, “It’s not the gender difference but the difference gender makes.”

I’ve been spending a good bit of time of late thinking about difference. Between an online course I’m taking on the civil rights movement—with focus on the Little Rock school desegregation episode—and an informal study a friend and I are pursuing on forgiveness, I’ve been immersed again in reading about what is referred to in the literature as “the Other” and how we are to relate to those who differ from us.

If you don’t have time to read anything else by Yale theologian Miroslav Volf, do take a careful look at his Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation. Volf’s reflections on the difficult issues of understanding self and other narrate his attempts to reconcile his Christian faith with a world of violence too frequently based on ethnic identity or otherness. We exclude others when we should embrace them: “We are who we are not because we are separate from the others who are next to us, but because we are both separate and connected, both distinct and related; the boundaries that mark our identities are both barriers and bridges.”

Tell that to Catholics in America who are up in arms over the invitation Notre Dame extended to President Obama to deliver its commencement address in May. National Catholic Reporter columnist John Allen suggests that only strong doses of charity and perspective might prevent Catholics from “turning this into yet another nasty front in our version of the culture wars,” reminding Catholics that they “ought to be able to disagree without casting one another as enemies of the faith.”

The late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago thought so when he conceived the Catholic Common Ground Initiative only months before his death in 1996. Concerned that the animus polarizing Roman Catholics—over social issues in particular—not only hindered the mission but harmed the community of the church, Bernardin suggested Catholics sit down around a table and engage in dialogue together. A believer in the transformative power of conversation, the cardinal’s idea was roundly criticized by several of his colleague bishops who did not share his concern that partisanship was paralyzing the church. Despite the public objections, the Common Ground Initiative has continued its commitment to renewed dialogue in the church for the past twelve years, believing that what Catholics have in common is stronger than what divides them, and believing in the value of dialogue across differences and in conversation as fundamental to human interaction.

Noted Princeton philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah suggests such dialog begins with the philosophical doctrine of fallibilism: “the recognition that we may be mistaken, even when we have looked carefully at the evidence and applied our highest mental capacities. A fallibilist knows that he or she is likely to make mistakes. We have views, and we take our own views seriously. But we are always open to the possibility that it may turn out that we’re wrong. And if I’m wrong about something, maybe I can learn from others, even though they are, no doubt, wrong about something else.” How often, really—come on, be honest now—do we seriously consider that possibility?

And so I wonder, as the flurry of posts multiplies on this site commenting on the ELCA study, Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust, why is this church not talking to itself? Lutheran Forum voices in all seem to be of a piece with regard to the study—they’re against it. A smug, and unfortunately often snide, attitude of judgment about what is considered a less-than-Lutheran approach to Scripture and theology pervades the commentaries. If I wanted to read that, I’d follow discussion lists or blogs or Fox News. Methinks they do protest too much. Why no dissonant voice to offer balance and create genuine dialogue? A diversity of voices just might remind us of how intentional this church body has been to acknowledge the gift of diversity in the church. Or is that also a part of the problem? With poet Mary Oliver we ask, “If you are too much like myself, what shall I learn of you, or you of me?”

And if indeed the debate is not really about homosexuality but about the much larger issue of discontent with the state of the church, then why would we not make haste to sit down and talk about it? I’ve seen only a few reports thus far on the recent consultation at Augsburg sponsored by the Lutheran World Federation, but they begin with laments about the unfamiliarity of some of what was heard there. That should be no surprise—the world is changing, has changed. Only God is unchanging, so what makes more sense than for the church that must always be reforming itself to recognize, even celebrate, the dynamic nature of the church and ask what it means to be Lutheran in a changing world?

Several years ago I was invited to write a chapter on Lutheranism for a book, Holding On to the Faith: Confessional Traditions in American Christianity, for the Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals. One objective of the project was to help evangelicals understand the European-based churches that define themselves so differently from the anti-confessionalism that dominates American religious history. My essay explores the conflict that seems to be inherent in American Lutheranism, the relentless haggling over a book called Concord that has kept Lutheranism from offering the unique contribution it might to the society in which it was planted. Kept at odds by the very things on which they agree, Lutherans seem to have forgotten the important role paradox plays in their theology, abandoning the both/and for either/or thinking.

So can we talk? My modest proposal for a Lutheran version of the Common Ground Initiative offers no rebuttal to any of the previous essays that have filled these pages this winter (though I do take issue with many of the arguments presented, such as the contention that this is unlike the debate over the ordination of women. That matter of otherness remains unsettled as long as congregations can refuse to consider female candidates without reproach.) I am primarily concerned with their tone, one that Miroslav Volf describes as a tendency “to translate the presumed wrongness of our enemies into an unfaltering conviction of our own rightness.” To be clear, a proposal for dialogue hardly equates to a Rodney King appeal that we all “just get along,” nor does it include an expectation that anyone stand down from his or her own point of view. A proposal for dialogue simply makes a case for enlarged thinking, for thoughtful listening and for an openness to seeing differently.

So call a summit, somebody. Call it Concord-Before-It’s-Too-Late. But call it now, not after August. Invite others in, put their perspective next to yours and reflect together on whether either is right, neither is right, or some of each. But for God’s sake—and more importantly, for the sake of getting the gospel to God’s people in the pews—talk to each other, or this episode will be recorded in history as another monks’ battle in the demise of an increasingly irrelevant institution, not unlike that the Missouri Synod fought in the 1970s and, for that matter, still fights.