For many of the key issues today, it’s challenging to simply agree to disagree. Not only do we have serious differences in opinion and belief, but how we choose to act in light of them can have profound consequences.
How, then, should we live together? Is compromise a necessary component of community?
In a forum originally titled “Can Truth and Tolerance Coexist,” theologian Mirsolav Volf (Yale) and Dean of Students Vijay Pendakur (Cornell) delve into the complexities of a diverse, democratic society. Volf and Pendakur discuss how we can go beyond simply agreeing to disagree, what the role of physical and emotional safety is on college campuses, and what speaking the truth in love really means.
Their conversation was held at Cornell University in 2019. Thank you to the Forum planning team at Cornell university for making this event possible.
We sometimes put justice and truth on the opposite sides of one another, but actually commitment to truth is a commitment to just relationships. ... [Truth] creates a foundation of trust on which we can build a life together.
The transcendent truth is not something that we claim and desperately hold onto, but truth is something that takes us into freedom, that moves us into itself rather than we being possessors somehow of the truth.
Is it possible for us to be truth seekers while at the same time being social pluralists? I would say for myself that absolutely I am a social pluralist because of my commitments to the Christian faith. I'm not a social pluralist as a compromise to these beliefs.
