Woolman Peacekeeping Lecture: Toxic Neutrality
Reported By: Benny Schorie
On Mar. 9, Todd Deatherage gave a lecture as a part of the Woolman peacemaking series. He shared experiences from his work with Telos Group, an organization helping Christian Americans better understand the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Deatherage focused on basic conflict resolution techniques as tools for every person to make a difference in their community by developing mutuality and understanding.
He calls all people, especially Christians, to cultivate principles of peacemaking to help create empathy, relationships, and personal growth through peacemaking practices. Practitioners should self-interrogate, approach ideas with humility and curiosity, and advocate by doing something with what they have learned.
Deatherage’s work advocates for an America that looks beyond political differences, caring more about unity and peace more than arbitrary differences. The Telos Group does this work by taking Americans to Israel and Palestine to educate them about America’s role in the conflict by being both pro-Israel and pro-Palestine. But how far does this active neutrality get us in a world riddled with injustice?
The work of Deatherage’s organization is a source of concern. They are not a humanitarian or conflict resolution organization; instead, they take Americans to see war-torn communities and meet locals working for healing and unity, which is a privilege under the circumstances. These trips give Americans the opportunity to observe and understand the Israel-Palestine conflict without making active contributions to promoting justice and peace in the region. The Telos Project also makes minimal efforts to avoid slum tourism (which has been criticized for profiting off of people in poverty) and also lean into participants’ (white) savior complexes. The secondary goal of these trips, according to Deatherage, is to teach people how to advocate for peace and unity once they're back home, which could realistically be achieved without international travel.
Deatherage’s views are not unique to him and his lecture; George Fox University (GFU) commonly maintains neutrality and calls it love. GFU generally avoids taking sides in current social issues to shield itself from potential controversy, and it encourages students to set aside “differences” in favor of simply listening and getting along. But, the differences suggested by Deatherage are about movements like Black Lives Matter vs Blue Lives Matter, Pro-Choice vs Pro-Life, and the gun reform debate.
The problem with this neutrality is it means ignoring the crux of the issues, what’s at stake for advocates, and differing motives. As a result, this kind of neutrality often looks a lot like indifference, which is a sign of great privilege; not every person can choose to look past differences when a movement’s outcome could cause them direct harm. Promoting this kind of worldview to a predominantly white college population compounds this problem of toxic neutrality, which discourages GFU students from confronting their privilege when interacting with social issues, and encourages them to double down and think of themselves as morally superior for their indifference.
Deatherage said, “More than knowing, it’s the doing that matters. Word has to be made flesh.” If this is so, what are GFU and the Telos Group doing to achieve this? To the average student, it appears GFU prefers its own security over supporting tangible justice and change.