By Kathy Henderson
As the winter holiday season is waning, have you avoided contentious encounters when it comes to maddeningly misguided political viewpoints espoused by your family, friends or associates?
If your answer is no, head over to the forum taking place from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 8, at the St. Anthony Park Library, 2245 Como Ave. If your answer is yes, same recommendation.
Bill Doherty, co-founder of Braver Angels, will be there sharing his ideas on how to keep your post-election emotional balance while navigating and maintaining relationships in the months and years ahead.
In this era of rising partisan segregation and opposing political righteousness, it is almost inevitable that if you didn’t find yourself in a contentious situation over the holidays, such an encounter is probably in your future. It is best to be prepared.
So, who is Bill Doherty and what makes him such an expert to be giving you advice on how to get along with others?
Lots, actually.
Doherty is co-founder of Braver Angels, described as the largest non-profit movement dedicated to bridging the partisan divide. The national organization teaches skills and moderates workshops that help people engage in constructive non-combative conversations.
However, long before Braver Angels emerged in 2016, Doherty was already a highly-respected professor of family social science at the University of Minnesota-St. Paul campus and an esteemed family and marriage therapist. Upon his approaching retirement last spring after 38 years with the U of M, the “Minnesota Daily” described him as “being among the pioneer researchers defining marriage and family therapy theories … collaborating with colleagues and community to help couples better navigate decisions about divorce through discernment counseling. Doherty’s research has empowered individuals, couples, families and communities.”
To put it succinctly, when it comes to building and rebuilding bridges, Doherty knows his stuff.
But don’t show up at the library on Jan. 8 expecting Doherty to present a Braver Angels infomercial. Instead, be prepared for him to be a wellspring of ideas for coping with conflict.
“We can’t predict with certainty what will happen in the future,” Doherty said. “We have little influence on our own over Washington. But we have a lot of influence over our own lives.”
About three years ago, Harry Boyte, a parishioner at St. Matthews Episcopal Church in St. Anthony Park, brought Braver Angels to the attention of his congregation.
Since then, “Braver Angels has taught us skills and how to use those skills,” said Dan White, who has become a trained moderator. “It is not a method of winning arguments; it is about how can I better understand another person, find areas of commonality.”
Months before the 2024 Presidential Election, Randy Atchison, a member of St. Matthew’s leadership team, helped initiate a series of ongoing Braver Angels conversations—urban/rural, red/blue—with members of the Area Churches Together, a six Lutheran parish group known as ACT located near Kerkhoven in the Willmar area, Swift County. (Election results example: St. Paul Ward 4 Precinct 1, Luther Seminary polling location, 91.5% Harris; Kerkhoven, 70% Trump.)
“As an English priest pastoring an American church during this year’s election campaign, I was just a little nervous,” admitted the Rev. Christopher Rogers, the rector at St. Matthew’s. “The Braver Angels has been an answer to prayer for me and for the whole community, as the group has built our skills in listening to those across the various divides in our society.”
If you are interested but unable to attend the forum on Jan. 8, it will be available for viewing online for a couple of weeks after the event on the St. Anthony Park Library Association’s website under “2nd Thursday Forum” at sapbla.org.
Braver Angels e-learning skill building courses, including “Managing Difficult Conversations,” are available free online at braverangels.org/what-we-do/take-an-ecourse.
Kathy Henderson lives in St. Paul and is a freelance writer for the Bugle.
Photo cutline: St. Matthew’s Braver Angels and ACT Parish at St. John’s Lutheran Church in Pennock, Minnesota. The group met five times in 2024 to overcome the political and rural/urban divides. Photo contributed by Anne Atchison.
