The stage was set: two embryologists, a hospital chaplain, and protracted conflict in the making over fetal tissue research. The embryologists, using the language of science, insisted that the research was absolutely essential for medical advances and patient well-being. The chaplain, using language based on revelation, asserted that such research promotes abortion and, therefore, murder. The outcome was predictable: heated exchanges, adversaries talking past each other, bad blood. In other words, a conversation to be missed.

This is a familiar story, sometimes with issues like euthanasia or homosexuality, with a variety of belligerents, and always a plot line that goes nowhere. In confronting these exchanges, some propose practical solutions to avoid the incivility—avoiding derogatory language, respecting the opponent, and the like. But these solutions can cause additional moral problems. Some wonder whether agreeing to civil discourse could signal abandoning deeply held beliefs, and in the process moral integrity. So why even engage in civil discourse with so much to lose?

The necessity for civil discourse in a democracy is fairly evident: where there is no authority in a position to resolve conflict, a civil forum and procedures must be available to resolve differences. While civil discourse is a condition for a democracy, it does not settle why or how persons with strongly held religious views should be involved in civil discourse. This uncertainty is why the Bulletin takes up this issue. Ample public conversation about civility now blankets the nation— from the halls of Congress to local PTAs. However, for persons interested in the relationships among health, faith, and ethics, it is less clear and less discussed whether or how persons with faith convictions should be involved in civil discourse. If you have a deeply held religious belief, why fraternize with the enemy?

Informing the debate about the place of religion in civil discourse is a tale of two languages. One language is authoritative, informed by revelation and/or ideology, a language of assertion with little toleration and certainly no cooperation. The other language is one where faith seeks reason. This language is malleable, open to transformation, and could be described as a clumsy, overburdened bellhop fumbling to keep up with, and make sense of, modernity—scientific advances in particular. For the first language there is very little room for civil discourse; it is a one-sided conversation of pronouncement. For the second, civil discourse is a risk. It could require that the participants change language and modify their theology—its views of the transcendent and human nature. As most of this issue's contributors describe, involving religion in civil discourse might not change the fundamental moral convictions of a person, but the process has the ability to generate understanding, create heretofore unimagined options and perhaps transform the people involved.