by Herb Gunn

[Grosse Pointe Farms, Mich: March 11, 2008] Diane Rehm, longtime radio journalist and host of her own program on National Public Radio, wrapped up the 2008 Lenten lecture series at Christ Church, Grosse Pointe, that focused on “Faith and Politics: How the two intersect in American Culture and Media.”

The Sweeny Memorial Lecture Fund at Christ Church sponsored the final symposium on March 11.

“I love the fact that this is a church, an Episcopal Church, and I am part of that Episcopal Church,” said Rehm, a journalist in Washington, D.C., for the past 35 years, in her opening remarks at Christ Church. “The Episcopal Church is truly my home, a church that has provided me with comfort, challenges, friendships, faith and acceptance.”

Rehm touched on the divisions within the Episcopal Church as well as the fractured nature of American politics and called for a deeper commitment to listening in order to bring civility to modern debate.

“The act of listening becomes an expression of generosity and compassion, which can lead to the creation of new and more harmonious society. True listening, I believe, is a form of spiritual hospitality,” she said.

“Democracy is not necessarily synonymous with Godly behavior, and that’s being tested the world over. You’ve been hearing in the last few months the extent to which religion itself has injected itself into our political life. Whether it is in the Episcopal Church itself and its battles over women in the priesthood [or homosexuals in the priesthood and marriage] or more basically, the interpretation of scripture itself.

“Religion and politics, the two subjects that our parents said should never be discussed in public, have become the subjects under discussion in our current presidential political campaign,” said Rehm. She said she recoils when she hears the political statement: “This is a Christian nation.”

“As a Christian myself, I feel profoundly offended, especially since we are profoundly diverse as a nation. We are not only Christians. We are Jews. We are Muslims. We are Coptic Orthodox. We are Buddhist. We are Mormons. And we are, God forbid, atheists.”

Rehm reminded the standing-room-only crowd, which spilled into the undercroft to watch on a large screen television, of the 1980s-era promotion “Reading is Fundamental.”

“The slogan I’d like to see in the coming years, and especially in this election year, is ‘listening is fundamental.’ In this day and age, of e-mail, voice mail, office memo, text messaging,” she said, “we hardly hear each other in real time any more, much less do we actually listen. Many of us have forgotten how to listen.”

Rehm noted that reflections on the events surrounding 9/11 reveal that had not government agencies refused to share information, the potential for disaster might have been reduced.

Rehm said she envisions a much more enlightened approach to the nation’s perceived enemies than refusing to dialogue and talk.

“Might we not try to move this endangered and fragile world toward ‘an axis of cooperation’ rather than to shut out of our hearing those we label the axis of evil?”