Beyond Being Right
In an age when political disagreement feels like existential threat, an 18th-century play about three brothers and a ring offers unexpected wisdom.
In 1779, Enlightenment philosopher Gotthold Ephraim Lessing published the play Nathan the Wise. The play is set in Jerusalem during the 11th century at a time when the reigning magistrate of the city was Saladin who was the founding Muslim Sultan of the Ayyurbid dynasty. The Sultan was an historical figure, but the play dramatizes his interaction with Nathan the Wise. The Sultan called Nathan the Wise, a Jewish leader, to consult him on how to govern a religiously diverse city. Nathan's advice comes in the form of a parable—The Parable of the Three Rings.
Nathan tells a story about a father who possessed a ring believed to make its wearer beloved by God and others. Traditionally passed to the most beloved son, the father instead secretly commissioned two identical copies because he loved all three sons equally. He gave each one a ring before his death. Afterward, the sons quarreled over which ring was authentic, but no one could tell them apart.
A judge ultimately advised them that instead of trying to prove which ring is "true," each son should live in such a way that the ring's supposed power is demonstrated in his life. Over time, the true ring, if it exists, will reveal itself through the character of its wearer.
Fast forward 245 years from Lessing's stage to our social media feeds, and the sultan's question about governing religious diversity feels startlingly urgent. The seasons around elections are too often filled with aggression between groups. One of the most effective strategies for cultivating a base of devotees for politicians, parties, and organizations is creating a "they" from whom "we" need to be protected.
Monica Guzman in her book I Never Thought of It That Way refers to this as "othering." She explains, "Othering is about opposition. Wariness. Suspicion. It ranges from the relatively harmless to the hateful and deadly" (p. 17). While we may want to dismiss as "harmless" the political othering popular today around Christian Nationalists, Muslims, Transpersons, or billionaire insurance company executives, we have seen a rise in religious, ideological, and cultural violence in recent years. "Othering" has consequences.
This past Memorial Day, as we honored those who gave their lives to defend our nation's freedoms, we also lament that the freedoms of religion, speech, and assembly are being threatened by people here at home who are being formed in hatred: by broken religious communities, by weaponized rhetoric, and by the echo chambers they inhabit online.
The rise in politically, religiously, and culturally motivated violence is a symptom of deeper fault lines emerging in our country. Social psychologists have a name for one of those fault lines: affective polarization. It's the sense that people who disagree with us theologically or ideologically are not just people who see things differently. More and more, they are felt to be bad, dangerous, even hated enemies. And researchers tell us that this kind of affective polarization has been steadily rising in the United States.
Bridging the divide between disparate people has always been a central mission of the church, and it is so desperately needed in this moment in our history as people seem determined to fragment into increasingly specific and increasingly aggressive pockets of identity.
The judge's wisdom in Nathan's parable shifts the question from "Who is right?" to "How should we live?" This reframing is precisely what's needed when affective polarization makes people view disagreement as existential threat. What if our churches became laboratories for the judge's wisdom—communities where we demonstrate truth not through claiming it exclusively, but through living it lovingly?
The parable reminds us that truth reveals itself through loving action, through gentleness and devotion, not through claims of superiority. In a fractured world, perhaps our calling is to wear our own "ring" as members of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in the Southwest in such a way that its power is proven in how we love, not in how loudly we insist we're right. What would change in your community if you approached those who disagree with you as fellow ring-bearers, each called to demonstrate truth through love rather than debate it through division?