{"id":4854,"date":"2020-11-02T23:25:32","date_gmt":"2020-11-02T23:25:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/?p=4854"},"modified":"2020-11-02T23:25:32","modified_gmt":"2020-11-02T23:25:32","slug":"preaching-across-the-political-red-blue-divide-using-the-sermon-dialogue-sermon-method-in-the-purple-zone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/preaching-across-the-political-red-blue-divide-using-the-sermon-dialogue-sermon-method-in-the-purple-zone\/","title":{"rendered":"Preaching Across the Political Red-Blue Divide: Using the Sermon-Dialogue-Sermon Method in the Purple Zone"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[1]<em>\u00a0Parts of this article are adapted from Schade\u2019s book<\/em>\u00a0Preaching in the Purple Zone: Ministry in the Red-Blue Divide\u00a0<em>(Rowman &amp; Littlefield, 2019)<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>[2] In the first two months of 2017, I conducted a survey of mainline Protestant clergy in the United States to assess how preachers were approaching their sermons during this divisive time in our nation\u2019s history. The 60-question online survey entitled \u201cPreaching about Controversial Issues\u201d ran for six weeks, from mid-January to the end of February. I received responses from 1205 participants in 45 states (with an almost equal number of male and female respondents).<a href=\"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/preaching-across-the-political-red-blue-divide-using-the-sermon-dialogue-sermon-method-in-the-purple-zone\/#_edn1\" name=\"_ednref1\">[i]<\/a>\u00a0 The survey explored a range of topics, including the following:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The difference the 2016 presidential election made in preachers\u2019 willingness to address controversial issues in the pulpit<\/li>\n<li>Topics clergy intended to address in the six months following the presidential inauguration compared with the topics they addressed prior to the election<\/li>\n<li>Reasons for either engaging controversial topics in sermons or avoiding them<\/li>\n<li>Types of training and support pastors desired to foster healthy dialogue about public issues in their congregations<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>[3] The results from this comprehensive empirical research yielded insights for both clergy and congregations regarding the intersection of religion, culture, and politics with faith and public life. \u00a0For example, one question asked preachers to rank reasons for avoiding sermons about issues of public concern.\u00a0 Thirty percent of respondents indicated that the principle of the \u201cseparation of church and state\u201d was a valid reason to avoid preaching about controversial social issues in the pulpit. \u201cSeparation of church and state\u201d is a phrase based on Thomas Jefferson\u2019s metaphor of a wall of separation between religion and government in his interpretation of the First Amendment that &#8220;Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof&#8230;&#8221; To be clear, while there is ongoing debate about the relationship between government and religion, the First Amendment was intended to prevent the establishment of a state church. It did not state that churches could not address issues that involve government.\u00a0 Thus, it would be inaccurate for someone to accuse a preacher of violating the separation of church and state by preaching a sermon that addresses contemporary issues of public concern \u2013 as long as the sermon was not taking part in partisan politics and advocating for a particular party or candidate.<\/p>\n<p>[4] However, when people cite \u201cseparation of church and state\u201d as a reason not to engage public issues from the pulpit, there is likely a theological aspect to their objection to \u201cpolitical\u201d sermons.\u00a0 This theological principle has to do with crossing the boundaries between what Lutheran theology identifies as the \u201ctwo kingdoms\u201d \u2013 the earthly realm and the heavenly realm.\u00a0 Article XXVIII of the Augsburg Confession (the founding documents of the Lutheran Church written in 1530) put forth the notion that the earthly kingdom is the realm of politics, a realm\u00a0best left administered by government officials.\u00a0 The heavenly kingdom, in contrast, is the spiritual realm of God and, thus, the purview of the church.<\/p>\n<p>[5] Some believe that the two kingdoms should not intermingle.\u00a0 They insist that clergy must limit their focus to caring for people\u2019s souls and preparing them for salvation. This view holds that ministers are only to offer care and comfort when people suffer injustice in this life, not raise questions about why injustice is occurring or what the church should do about it.\u00a0 Some justify this stance by referring to Paul\u2019s instruction in Romans 13:1-7, which begins, \u201cLet every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God.\u201d Or they may cite Jesus\u2019 words in Matthew 22:21, \u201cRender therefore unto Caesar the things that are Caesar\u2019s, and unto God the things that are God\u2019s.\u201d These passages are used to justify a clear delineation between the church and human governance.<\/p>\n<p>[6] Unfortunately, both the Two Kingdoms doctrine and the principle of the separation of church and state have been used to rationalize either quietly acquiescence to whatever happens in the realm of government\u00a0or uncritical support for the state on behalf of the church.\u00a0 The problem with both is that they can lead to the church refusing to serve as a voice of moral and ethical accountability for the state.\u00a0 Throughout history, the church\u2019s refusal to engage in the earthly realm of politics, let alone critique those in power, has had devastating consequences (witness the Lutheran Church in Nazi Germany). When the church \u2013 and preaching \u2013 refuses to admonish, proscribe, and criticize corruption, negligence, or abuse of power by the state, it reneges on one of its major functions as an instrument of God in the world. That function is to provide prophetic critique on behalf of the marginalized and oppressed.<\/p>\n<p>[7] To avoid a theological and ecclesial dereliction of duty, we can help our congregations deconstruct the rigid application of the Two Kingdoms doctrine by showing that there are both biblical and theological counterbalances that can guide our preaching, teaching, and engagement of social issues.\u00a0 For example, the second table of the Ten Commandments has everything to do with human relationships, and thus authorizes people of faith to engage in discussions about how those relationships are attended to on personal, community, institutional, and policy levels.\u00a0 God\u2019s Law is the primary force driving human beings to seek justice in their interactions with each other.<\/p>\n<p>[8] As another example, the Bible is clear that the recognition of ethical norms is intrinsic to human knowledge.\u00a0 In scriptural parlance, God\u2019s Law is \u201cwritten upon the heart\u201d (Romans 2:15; Hebrews 10:16), so that even atheists and agnostics have a sense of right and wrong, even if they do not recognize or worship God.\u00a0 But the strongest argument for the church engaging in the earthly realm is Jesus\u2019 instruction to \u201clove your neighbor as yourself\u201d (Matthew 22:39).\u00a0 These words have ramifications beyond individual interactions.\u00a0 The concept of \u201cneighbor-love\u201d is the standard for the Beloved Community (also known as the Kingdom of God), providing the ethical norms for the just distribution of that which sustains life, health, learning, joy, the planet\u2019s ecosystems, and human relationships.<a href=\"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/preaching-across-the-political-red-blue-divide-using-the-sermon-dialogue-sermon-method-in-the-purple-zone\/#_edn2\" name=\"_ednref2\">[ii]<\/a>\u00a0In other words, the core of justice is care for the neighbor.\u00a0 Consequently, Christians (including preachers) can confidently make the case that God is still active in the world\u00a0and that God can work through political processes to bring about God\u2019s will, just as God did throughout biblical history (see the stories of Joseph in Genesis, Esther, Daniel, John the Baptist, and Jesus, for example). Thus, there is no need to enforce an artificial gap between the realm of God and the realm of human earthly existence.<\/p>\n<p>[9] Despite these biblical justifications for preaching about issues of public concern, the reality is that there are emotional and relational dynamics that carry great weight in a congregation when a pastor is considering a sermon that touches on one of these issues.\u00a0 In her book,\u00a0<em>Prophetic Preaching: A Pastoral Approach<\/em>, Leonora Tubbs Tisdale suggests the following seven reasons that make clergy hesitant to engage in prophetic preaching:<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>An inherited model of biblical interpretation that marginalizes the prophetic dimensions of scripture.<\/li>\n<li>Pastoral concern for parishioners.<\/li>\n<li>Fear of conflict.<\/li>\n<li>Fear of dividing a congregation.<\/li>\n<li>Fear of being disliked, rejected, or penalized for prophetic witness.<\/li>\n<li>Feelings of inadequacy in addressing prophetic concerns.<\/li>\n<li>Discouragement that prophetic witness does not make a difference.<a href=\"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/preaching-across-the-political-red-blue-divide-using-the-sermon-dialogue-sermon-method-in-the-purple-zone\/#_edn3\" name=\"_ednref3\">[iii]<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>[10] My preaching survey provided some quantitative data that fleshes out Tisdale\u2019s theories.\u00a0 The data indicates that nearly a quarter of mainline Protestant preachers in the United States rarely \u2013 or never \u2013 preach about controversial justice issues.<a href=\"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/preaching-across-the-political-red-blue-divide-using-the-sermon-dialogue-sermon-method-in-the-purple-zone\/#_edn4\" name=\"_ednref4\">[iv]<\/a>\u00a0As I examine the data, it appears that for the pastors surveyed, the reasons for not addressing issues of public concern boil down to four main fears:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Fear of harming or dividing their congregations<\/li>\n<li>Fear of compromising their pastoral ministry<\/li>\n<li>Fear of receiving negative push-back for being \u201ctoo political\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Fear of loss \u2013 loss of members, money, and their own positions<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>[11] With all of this in mind, is there a way for clergy to preach prophetically without endangering their positions of trust and rupturing their pastoral relationships with parishioners? Is there a way for preachers to avoid the extremes of quietism on the hand, or risk losing their positions on the other?\u00a0 In other words, can we \u201cthread the needle\u201d in a prophetic yet pastoral way when engaging issues of public concern?<\/p>\n<p><b><strong>The Sermon-Dialogue-Sermon Method<\/strong><\/b><\/p>\n<p>[12] These were the questions that concerned me and my colleague Gregg Kaufman, a retired ELCA minister and research associate at the Kettering Foundation, when we first worked together to train a group of Lutheran clergy in the Upper Susquehanna Synod (Pennsylvania) at a bishop\u2019s retreat in 2016.<a href=\"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/preaching-across-the-political-red-blue-divide-using-the-sermon-dialogue-sermon-method-in-the-purple-zone\/#_edn5\" name=\"_ednref5\">[v]<\/a>\u00a0 To help the pastors prepare for what was likely to be a contentious political climate in light of the presidential campaign and election, Gregg trained the pastors in the process of deliberative dialogue developed by Kettering and the National Issues Forum Institute.\u00a0 Then I worked with these pastors on establishing scriptural and theological principles for engaging controversial issues in their sermons with strategies for preaching in the Purple Zone.\u00a0 Together, Gregg and I began to see how preaching, discipleship, and citizenship intersect in a way that strengthens democracy through implementation of the church\u2019s role as servant in the world.<a href=\"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/preaching-across-the-political-red-blue-divide-using-the-sermon-dialogue-sermon-method-in-the-purple-zone\/#_edn6\" name=\"_ednref6\">[vi]<\/a><\/p>\n<p>[13] I now serve as a member of several of the Kettering Foundation\u2019s research exchanges focusing on\u00a0deliberative dialogue used in faith-based settings.\u00a0 Through my work with them and in teaching seminary courses on the sermon-dialogue-sermon process, I have found the deliberative dialogue approach and the NIFI issue guides to be ideal tools for helping congregations engage difficult social issues.\u00a0 There are, of course, other organizations that specialize in civil discourse and dialogue.<a href=\"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/preaching-across-the-political-red-blue-divide-using-the-sermon-dialogue-sermon-method-in-the-purple-zone\/#_edn7\" name=\"_ednref7\">[vii]<\/a>\u00a0But I believe the NIFI deliberative dialogue approach and nonpartisan issue guides are easily adapted to a congregational setting. In addition, there is potential for deliberative dialogue to help congregations discern how they can best respond to the needs and concerns of their communities thereby answering Jesus\u2019 call to care for \u201cthe least of these\u201d (Matthew 25:40).\u00a0 In this way, clergy can help their parishioners to find the purple zone within the red-blue divide of their churches and communities.<\/p>\n<p>[14] One of the keys to Purple Zone preaching is approaching both scripture and the sermon itself with a \u201cdialogical lens\u201d for interpreting the Bible which is informed by a public theology for preaching.\u00a0 It is preaching that stands at the crossroads of church and society, finding ways to create dialogue through listening, understanding, discernment, and finding common values.\u00a0 This dialogical lens tills the soil for the\u00a0<em>sermon-dialogue-sermon method<\/em>\u00a0\u2013 a process I have developed for helping preachers name and frame issues of public concern together with their congregations.\u00a0 Rather than a once-and-done approach to addressing social issues, this method requires the preacher to think expansively and more long-term in their preparation and planning.<\/p>\n<p>[15] In this process, the pastor begins by choosing a social issue they want to address with their congregation and introduces it with the first sermon, the Prophetic Invitation to Dialogue. In this sermon, instead of taking a stand on an issue, the preacher acknowledges its complexity, considers many voices and perspectives, and frames it within a scriptural and theological context. Listeners are invited to participate in a deliberative dialogue about the topic, assured that the Holy Spirit\u2019s gift of discernment is part of this process within the Body of Christ.<\/p>\n<p>[16] Deliberative dialogue involves small groups of diverse individuals in face-to-face round-table discussions using non-partisan issue guides available from the NIFI.\u00a0 Moderated by a facilitator, participants begin with ground rules for how they will conduct themselves in the dialogue. They then share what is at stake for them in this topic and how it has touched them personally.\u00a0 Next, they weigh the pros and cons of three different approaches to the issue. Together they discern what common values emerge.\u00a0 These values provide a basis for \u201cnext steps,\u201d such as continued dialogue or specific actions to engage the issue within the congregation or in the larger community.<\/p>\n<p>[17] The follow-up sermon after the deliberative dialogue is called the Communal Prophetic Proclamation.\u00a0 This sermon is informed by the \u201ccollaborative\/conversational\u201d form described in John McClure\u2019s\u00a0<em>The Roundtable Pulpit<\/em>.<a href=\"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/preaching-across-the-political-red-blue-divide-using-the-sermon-dialogue-sermon-method-in-the-purple-zone\/#_edn8\" name=\"_ednref8\">[viii]<\/a>\u00a0By incorporating aspects of the deliberative dialogue and lifting up different perspectives that were explored, the sermon highlights the shared values discerned by the group as well as possible next steps the congregation could take to move forward on the issue.\u00a0 In this sermon, the preacher raises up a prophetic witness as arising from the dialogue, rather than from just her or his own position on the issue.\u00a0 This sermon emphasizes God\u2019s presence in the midst of the complexity and the Spirit\u2019s guidance within the dialogue.\u00a0 This enables the congregation to see beyond partisanship in order to move into more genuine community.\u00a0 Thus, the culture of the church begins to transform from that of\u00a0divisiveness or avoidance\u00a0to one of healthy conversation and faithful engagement with the issues that concern the common good.<\/p>\n<p>[18] In workshops and seminars, seminary courses, as well as individual consultations with parish pastors, I have introduced over one hundred clergy, seminary students, and laity to the sermon-dialogue-sermon method.\u00a0 Forty of these students and clergy received intensive instruction in the method.\u00a0 Based on their feedback, I have found that preachers emerge with new insights and healthier relationships not only within the church, but for civic and public discourse in our communities and our country.<a href=\"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/preaching-across-the-political-red-blue-divide-using-the-sermon-dialogue-sermon-method-in-the-purple-zone\/#_edn9\" name=\"_ednref9\">[ix]<\/a><\/p>\n<p>[19] Currently, I am researching the effectiveness of the sermon-dialogue-sermon method in more detail through a grant funded by the Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Religious Education.\u00a0 My project is bringing together a group of pastors and laity to be trained in the method and then carry it out in their congregation.\u00a0 We will follow these pastors, lay leaders and congregations for a year to see what changes result in their willingness to engage in civil discourse and social justice.\u00a0 This, in turn, will help us gain insight into how seminaries might structure or restructure their pedagogy to incorporate deliberative dialogue.\u00a0 In this way, we hope to bridge the divide between theories about social engagement and the actual practice of these pedagogical strategies in classrooms and ministry settings.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>NOTES:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/preaching-across-the-political-red-blue-divide-using-the-sermon-dialogue-sermon-method-in-the-purple-zone\/#_ednref1\" name=\"_edn1\">[i]<\/a>\u00a0I calculated my optimal sample size (1051) based on information collected from the statistics and research departments of eight mainline Protestant denominations to arrive at an estimate of the total number of pastors currently serving congregations.\u00a0 While I received responses that represented over 16 different denominations, I calculated my sample pool (67,701) based on the number of active, non-retired clergy currently serving congregations in eight denominations in the United States \u2013 United Methodist, Presbyterian Church \u2013 USA, Episcopal, Lutheran (ELCA), American Baptist, United Church of Christ, Disciples of Christ (Christian Church), and Reformed Church in America.\u00a0 The number of responses (1205) exceeded the optimal sample size needed for a statistically accurate sampling at a confidence level of 95% with a 3% margin of error.\u00a0 It is important to note that not all questions were completed by all participants, so the confidence level and margin of error is adjusted accordingly for each question.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/preaching-across-the-political-red-blue-divide-using-the-sermon-dialogue-sermon-method-in-the-purple-zone\/#_ednref2\" name=\"_edn2\">[ii]<\/a>\u00a0For a fuller treatment on the concept of \u201cneighbor-love,\u201d see:\u00a0 Cynthia Moe-Lobeda,\u00a0<em>Resisting Structural Evil: Love as Ecological-Economic Vocation<\/em>, Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2013.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/preaching-across-the-political-red-blue-divide-using-the-sermon-dialogue-sermon-method-in-the-purple-zone\/#_ednref3\" name=\"_edn3\">[iii]<\/a>\u00a0Leonora Tubbs Tisdale,\u00a0<em>Prophetic Preaching: A Pastoral Approach<\/em>, Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2004, 10 \u2013 20.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/preaching-across-the-political-red-blue-divide-using-the-sermon-dialogue-sermon-method-in-the-purple-zone\/#_ednref4\" name=\"_edn4\">[iv]<\/a>\u00a0How does this data compare to other surveys of preachers?\u00a0 According to Guthrie, research conducted by Stark and Glock in the early 1970s indicated that nearly one-third of preachers claiming a liberal political position remained silent on social issues (Stark, Rodney, Bruce D. Foster, Charles Y. Glock, and Harold Quinley. 1970. \u201cThe sounds of silence.\u201d\u00a0<em>Psychology Today<\/em>, 3 [11]:38-41, 60-61, as described by Guthrie, 82).\u00a0 However, Guthrie also notes that, \u201cKoller and Retzer replicated this study a decade later (1980), challenging what they perceived to be a liberal bias in the first study\u2019s design. They surveyed 232 Protestant clergy in North Carolina asking them about their sermon topics on controversial issues, and their attitudes toward preaching. Their survey showed that preachers ten years into their ministries and in this more conservative context were in fact more likely to preach on social issues. Four out of five believed it was part of their duty to speak about such issues from the pulpit, and only 13% had not preached on any of the topics in a list of twenty key issues of the day,\u201d (Guthrie, 82 \u2013 83, referencing Koller, Norman B., and Joseph D. Retzer. 1980. \u201cThe sounds of silence revisited.\u201d\u00a0<em>Sociological Analysis,\u00a0<\/em>41 [2]:155-161).<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/preaching-across-the-political-red-blue-divide-using-the-sermon-dialogue-sermon-method-in-the-purple-zone\/#_ednref5\" name=\"_edn5\">[v]<\/a>\u00a0The Kettering Foundation, based in Dayton, Ohio, was founded in 1927 by Charles F. Kettering, an inventor with over 200 patents (most notably, the automobile self-starter).\u00a0 The nonprofit, nonpartisan research foundation trades insights from its research with a broad network of institutions, organizations, and individuals from over eighty countries.\u00a0 The foundation focuses on basic political research, striving to understand how citizens and political systems can work together. Since the early 1990s, the foundation has researched how democracy can be strengthened. The foundation\u2019s primary research question is: What does it take to make democracy work as it should?<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/preaching-across-the-political-red-blue-divide-using-the-sermon-dialogue-sermon-method-in-the-purple-zone\/#_ednref6\" name=\"_edn6\">[vi]<\/a>\u00a0Gregg Kaufman has worked with teams at Kettering to develop faith-based leader guides for several of the NIFI issue guides to enable houses of worship to more easily adapt the secular materials to their faith-based setting.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/preaching-across-the-political-red-blue-divide-using-the-sermon-dialogue-sermon-method-in-the-purple-zone\/#_ednref7\" name=\"_edn7\">[vii]<\/a>\u00a0Other organizations include Better Angels, (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.better-angels.org\/\">https:\/\/www.better-angels.org\/<\/a>), Sustained Dialogue Institute (<a href=\"https:\/\/sustaineddialogue.org\/\">https:\/\/sustaineddialogue.org\/<\/a>), National Institute for Civil Discourse (<a href=\"https:\/\/nicd.arizona.edu\/\">https:\/\/nicd.arizona.edu\/<\/a>), and Teaching Tolerance (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.tolerance.org\/\">https:\/\/www.tolerance.org\/<\/a>),\u00a0to name a few.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/preaching-across-the-political-red-blue-divide-using-the-sermon-dialogue-sermon-method-in-the-purple-zone\/#_ednref8\" name=\"_edn8\">[viii]<\/a>\u00a0Other resources for \u201cconversational preaching\u201d include: Lucy Atkinson Rose,\u00a0<em>Sharing the Word: Preaching in the Roundtable Church,<\/em>\u00a0Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1997; Ronald J. Allen and O. Wesley Allen, Jr.,\u00a0<em>The Sermon without End: A Conversational Approach to Preaching,\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2015; Ronald J. Allen, John S. McClure and O. Wesley Allen<em>, Under the Oak Tree: The Church as Community of Conversation in a Conflicted and Pluralistic World<\/em>. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2013.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/preaching-across-the-political-red-blue-divide-using-the-sermon-dialogue-sermon-method-in-the-purple-zone\/#_ednref9\" name=\"_edn9\">[ix]<\/a>\u00a0<em>Preaching in the Purple Zone\u00a0<\/em>contains chapters that explain the sermon-dialogue-sermon process in detail, equip pastors and congregations for carrying out the process in their churches, and provide numerous case studies of preachers who have used this method in their ministries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[1]\u00a0Parts of this article are adapted from Schade\u2019s book\u00a0Preaching in the Purple Zone: Ministry in the Red-Blue Divide\u00a0(Rowman &amp; Littlefield, 2019). [2] In the first two months of 2017, I conducted a survey of mainline Protestant clergy in the United States to assess how preachers were approaching their sermons during this divisive time in our [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,48,49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christian-living","category-politics","category-preaching"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Preaching Across the Political Red-Blue Divide: Using the Sermon-Dialogue-Sermon Method in the Purple Zone - Journal of Lutheran Ethics<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/preaching-across-the-political-red-blue-divide-using-the-sermon-dialogue-sermon-method-in-the-purple-zone\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Preaching Across the Political Red-Blue Divide: Using the Sermon-Dialogue-Sermon Method in the Purple Zone - Journal of Lutheran Ethics\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"[1]\u00a0Parts of this article are adapted from Schade\u2019s book\u00a0Preaching in the Purple Zone: Ministry in the Red-Blue Divide\u00a0(Rowman &amp; Littlefield, 2019). 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