Our Values

And Three Key Questions

These sessions are designed to highlight the core values at the heart of our learning design: dignity, respect, courage, openness, compassion, and justice. We believe these values are the essential nutrients in the soil of a healthy democracy. Without these values the institutions and processes of elections, laws, and public discourse will be frail and mistrusted. Without these values, citizens will turn to cynicism and apathy, undermining essential civic participation.

But values cannot be entirely taught with direct instruction. Rather, they must be experienced. Groups will discover that the texts in each session inspire a wide range of reactions, at times quite passionate. Participants will likely see their preconceived political positions supported or attacked. Facilitators should honor these reactions and then turn them into opportunities for group reflection. The following questions are go-to reminders that this is a spiritual context, not a political, partisan, academic, legalistic, or even a policy conversation. We hope to create a spiritual container where participants experience our democratic values in action.

What do these words mean to you and what experiences have you had with these words before?

Often, responses are echoes of rhetoric heard elsewhere, and by asking for personal experiences with a phrase or catchphrase, we can penetrate beyond meme-thinking and talking points. This will encourage courage and honesty as participants share the backstories of how they came to their beliefs.

What do these words say to you about what it means to be an American?

Connecting the text to the larger project of defining American identity is a surefire way to escape conversational cul-de-sacs and unnecessary controversies in the room. Also, the project of establishing national identity is, by definition, shared, which automatically generates respect for varied perspectives and enforces an assumption of dignity within the conversation.

How do you think other Americans might hear these words?  

Activating the imagination will elevate the value of compassion as participants consider voices not present, or unspoken. Simultaneously, since the circle of American storytelling has grown wider and wider over our nation’s history, including more groups and individuals into the normative version of our national narrative, considering alternative perspectives works toward justice.

The hypothesis of this program is that studying American scriptures can activate participants’ imaginations to see how the narratives of our country, which are also the basic ideas behind citizenship, should profoundly affect our behavior both within and outside our congregations. We have seen program participants begin to understand how narratives can shape the way we view our institutions – such as our synagogues and local communities – and have brought American Scripture Project thinking to those environments. We believe this can be replicated.