We think in terms of wins and losses, victories and defeats. We try to win. We try to beat the other guy. And we should.  We love our Lord, our neighbors, and our country. We’ve taken action to show that love in what we support and what we oppose.

I fear that many of us have neglected something absolutely critical. We conservative Christians have quit trying to change minds. We’ve quit trying to persuade.

The Americans We Can Get

Of course, we’ll never persuade everyone. Bernie Sanders will never join the board of Young Americans for Freedom.

Some people are so influential and their beliefs so troubling that they need to be taken on, head-on. Sweet reason won’t win the day against an Elizabeth Warren or a Maxine Waters. You debate them. You try to defeat them, because you want to show your audience that you have the best case.

There are tens of millions of Americans, though, who conservatives can “get.” They might be center-left or might be quite liberal only because they’ve bought into the nonsense pedaled to them from most of the media, the entertainment industry, and their sophomore history teachers.

Their issue is one of ignorance and good intentions. They have good hearts and ill-fed minds.
How do we begin to change the minds of these many, many people, our “friends and fellow citizens,” to use Washington’s phrase?

First, remember that all of us are endowed with a conscience, an inner gauge of the basics of right and wrong. The apostle Paul says that the moral burden of the law of God is “written on the heart” (Romans 2:15).

We can appeal to that conscience by emphasizing common concerns. For example, conservatives want prosperity for everyone because we affirm the most essential principle of our nation’s founding: that all of us have equal value before our Creator. So, we want to create opportunity for everyone to learn, strive, and achieve.

I don’t need to get into policy details here. We need to have the moral and intellectual self-confidence, as well as the genuine compassion, to make clear to our opponents that we want many of the same things they do. In the case of the economy, for example, we believe that people are capable of great things without the clumsy fist of government pushing them along.

Our Big Ideas

Second, we need to communicate simply our big ideas. Why do we want lower taxes on both families and the companies they work for? Because we believe lower taxes mean more money for people and businesses to spend and invest. More money in the hands of innovators means new jobs and better products. We don’t think government has the right to seize income that’s been hard-earned and give it to people who didn’t earn it.

Third, we need to listen better. I get impatient sometimes listening to some of my students talk with “authority” about things they really know nothing about. Sometimes, especially silly things need to be challenged outright.

But I’ve learned that listening, reflecting back to the student what he or she has said, and then asking questions moves the discussion in a good way. It helps the student think-through why maybe something like neo-socialism is a bad idea.

Fourth, we have to ask ourselves a pretty basic question: Do we really believe in what we say we do, or do we just want to rage away at the “deep state” or the liberal media or the homosexual lobby or whatever?

Let’s Win

We want to change minds and thereby accomplish the things our country needs, things that will benefit individuals and families and churches and companies and all the other great institutions that compose our society. We need to consider how to do it more effectively.

Let’s win elections. Of course. But let’s help win them by persuading the persuadable.