For this assignment you will be choosing someone in your life – friend, family member, co-worker, neighbor, classmate, etc. who has different religious and/or political views as you.

For this assignment you will be choosing someone in your life – friend, family member, co-worker, neighbor, classmate, etc. who has different religious and/or political views as you. The idea of this assignment is to learn to listen to someone who sees differently on religion/politics and to try to better understand their viewpoint and why they came to that position.

 

In general, we tend to already have our minds made up concerning religion, politics and the relationship between the two. Through this assignment, I am hoping that you will be able to:

 

improve your listening skills

learn the importance of understanding others, even if you don’t agree with them

learn something new about a different political perspective

be more open to have conversations with those you don’t agree with, and be better prepared to have those conversations remain respectful and civil

To achieve the objective(s),

 

read the list of questions that I have provided below

identify someone in your life who would be open to being interviewed for this assignment

be prepared to just LISTEN and not try to convince your interviewee of your own opinion!

See the directions and rubric for more details1. Identify someone in your life that you could interview who has a different religious and/or political outlook as you

 

2. Ask them if they would be willing to give you about 30 minutes of your time for this interview

 

3. You can offer to show them the list of questions that you will be asking them beforehand if that would make them more comfortable

 

4. Arrange a time that you can do this interview with them (it can be done in-person or over Zoom/Facetime but it does need to done LIVE so that you are actually listening to them answer these questions)

 

5. Conduct Your Interview by asking your interviewee the following questions:

 

Do you identify as a member of a religious tradition? If so, what religion?

Do you engage in any regular religious practices, such as prayer, meditation, scripture study or attending a house of worship?

Have your religious beliefs, affiliation or practices changed over the course of your life?

Do you have a political party affiliation? If so, what is it?

Have you always been a member of the same political party? If so, why? If not, why did you change?

In general, what do you think the relationship between religion and government should be in the US?

Have you had any personal experiences that have shaped this view?

How do you understand the phrase “wall of separation between church and state?”

In general, do you think that the American political system is improving, worsening, or has always stayed about the same in terms of its competence, efficiency, and effectiveness?

In what ways would you like to see the American political system improved in the future?

In your ideal world, what would American politics and society looks like in 50 years?

6. Write a 650-word paper answering the following questions:

 

Who did you choose to interview and why?

What did you understand about their religious/political views before the interview?

Did you learn anything new or surprising about this individual over the course of the interview?

How difficult was it for you to simply listen to what this person had to say and not try to convince him/her/them of your own point of view?

Did the interview make you rethink any of your own previously held beliefs?

Do you think that this interview brought you closer to this person, or created more division between you?

Choose 3 questions from the ones above that you found your interviewee’s responses the most interesting and transcribe their responses at the bottom of your paper.