Get guidance on Bible study from C.S. Lewis - Free Course!

How to Survive (and Enjoy!) Talking Politics at the Dinner Table

  • Julie and Jacob Sanders Contributing Writers
  • Updated Nov 25, 2020
How to Survive (and Enjoy!) Talking Politics at the Dinner Table

Placing the family dishes, I turn the painted flowers towards each chair. I anticipate how the meal will bring us together. I’m hopeful.

Special occasions bring out tableware from ages past, pieces having endured heaping portions, hot servings, and vigorous washings. On holidays we add place cards, once written with childish letters, now grown up into calligraphy.

The menu includes a combination of salty and sweet for the palate, a variety of color in a feast for the eyes, and traditional favorites with the aromas of our heritage. Thoughtfully setting the table helps ensure we enjoy the food, but ultimately serves to feed the relationships.

Less predictable than our Sanders Sweet Potato Pie recipe passed down to generations, the conversation we dish up has the potential to leave a sweet or bitter taste. In an age of polarized political views and issues swinging to extremes, such topics need care if they’re to be easily digested by those with a place at the table. 

More than a culinary event or even a holiday occasion, the kindred table is a setting for gathering with those God connects by relationship or name. Serving a conversation during times we intentionally set aside creates communion.

Debate seems out-of-place at these opportunities for unity. After all, we come together to share a fresh experience, to commune around what connects us, and at times to celebrate.

Do politics fit between appetizers and dessert? How can we have a political conversation around the family table?

I posed this question to my twenty-something son. Fresh off of a Congressional internship and launching life during a time of political pandemonium, “How do we set the table to talk about politics while preserving our family table?”

Do Politics Have a Place at the Table?

Our opinions are as much a part of us as any other piece of our identity.

As such, any time we gather to commune with our family, to share our time and our thoughts and feelings, our opinions do and should play a large part in our conversations. Usually, that includes our jobs, churches, hobbies, and struggles. These things make up day to day concerns and guide long term goals. 

Similarly, immediate things build the basis for our relationships. But political discussion is unique in that it at once concerns everyone. It directly and indirectly touches each of our lives, and yet is so fundamentally disconnected from our day to day concerns. While our relationships are built on our immediate realities, our political concerns exist somewhere between our immediate and more wider concerns.

It often feels like political issues become the focus in family gatherings over and above the things of life, so where is the line? The connection and balance? When political views are more polarizing and, to be fair, far less understood than our immediate realities, how do we freely share opinions with strong feelings attached, without disrupting relationships outside the discussion?

Growing up in an opinionated family, I have always appreciated varied perspectives on the very real values at stake in the larger political environment. But, within our opinionated extended family, holiday gatherings have sometimes become a pressure cooker apart from the harmony of the season, even a debate.

The loser of dinner debates is never a political party or legislative value, but relationships between family members. Avoiding tension is tricky, but there are a few steps to orient political discussions and protect the communion of the family table.

1. Listen First

Before jumping to share your perspective, remember this is not a Facebook post. This is your family. Opponents are not mindless, wrong conclusions, but real people with the same capacity to think, deliberate, and decide as yourself. 

As a young person, there is a distinct cultural trend in bucking parental opinions for a certain political worldview. Not every young person agrees with political trends of the Millennials and Gen Z, but it is impossible to ignore the tendency to react negatively to more traditional views.

Perhaps, in some ways, this is good, as every young person needs to question and work through the same intellectual problems which created traditional views in the first place. No political view is wholly without flaws, so healthy skepticism should remain a reliable tool in worldview development.

However, the Bible is abundantly clear in the foolishness of ignoring the instruction of parents entirely, and political views are no different. It only takes about seven verses before the author of Proverbs explicitly tells the reader:

“Listen, my child, to what your father teaches you. Don’t neglect your mother’s teaching. What you learn from them will crown you with grace and clothe you with honor.” (Proverbs 1:8-9)

The book continues reminding the reader of this throughout the book, contrasting one who listens with a foolish child who ignores their parents. Does this mean every elder family member is correct on every legislative policy? Not even close. But entering into a political discussion without giving the benefit of respect for those who have had decades more to work through the issues is foolish.

On the flip side, dismissing the burgeoning perspectives of children and young people is equally foolish. As much as I and many of my peers would hate to admit it, we are largely clueless about the majority of what we talk about. The older I’ve gotten, the more I’ve realized this reality may not be a unique quality for young people. The value in discussion for youth is to express, discuss, and build ideas.

A patient, intellectual discussion can have an immense payoff for a maturing worldview, whereas a strong rebuke or quick dismissal will only create a target to disprove rather than another perspective to hear.

Regardless of issues at hand, focusing on listening before expressing creates a more humble heart and a more peaceful discussion. Do not listen in order to find a logical weakness or intellectual oversight. Listen to hear, because, again, this isn’t a Facebook post to scroll past, but a family member to love.

2. Allow Everyone to Speak

Like our own dear bicameral legislature, the fastest way to create deadlock and disarray at the table is to establish two polarized sides. Red and Blue may be the easiest example, but allowing two fervent voices to drown out the rest is the quickest route to transforming the dinner into a debate.

It’s simple, selfish, and easy to do, but remember this dinner is about your family. As such, invite the whole family to build into the conversation. 

I am one part of a family of four. Not a large family, and yet in any political question, there are always four different perspectives. Being quick to ask, to listen, to another voice can quickly calm a debate between two sides and create a conversation as a discussion of four voices instead of a debate of two sides.

In such a case, rather than jumping to defend my own opinion, I must ask, “How have three rational, thinking minds whom I love all come to a different conclusion than myself?”

“People who despise advice will find themselves in trouble; those who respect it will succeed.” (Proverbs 13:13)

Now this is not to say just because more people think one way means they are right. But communing with family is not about being right, it is about communing. Communion requires accepting other perspectives with respect, welcoming input rather than committing to a debate.

3. Accept Your Differences, and Pass the Potatoes

At the end of any meal, the point is still communion between family. There is a place to create legislation, but odds are good that your family dinner table is not that place.

Instead, it is a place to express, converse, and share time together. It is a good thing for a family to discuss permanent and powerful issues, but those things exist outside of the lives and power of your table. What exists within the lives and power of your table are the parts of life which concern us day to day.

As such, political issues and perspectives should not have the power to disrupt familial fellowship.

There has to be a point at which one or all members at the table recognize each is a rational, whole person deserving respect, and a political party, leader, or issue is not sitting at the table—you are. You who are family and capable of having independent thoughts, as well as full lives and interesting perspectives on many things beyond politics and worth talking about. 

Discuss and share as you will, but do not do so at the cost of communion and relationship. Family connections endure beyond election cycles, administrations, congresses, and ballots. If the conversation becomes too much, be eager to change the subject. Even if you feel deep in your bones that you are right:

“Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty...Never be wise in your own sight.” (Romans 12:16)

The family table is a table for community. Debates and arguments can wait. It is alright to protect the communion of the table at the cost of changing the subject for the moment. For believers, it is well and good to work through difficult and divisive issues with humility and without costing the family’s own harmony, which can coexist with opposite opinions.

Holy Spirit sourced love and grace are more than able to accomplish that. So at some point, put a pin in the politics and pass the potatoes.

I’m glad I asked my twenty-something for his thoughts. Jacob is right about listening to others, letting others speak, and accepting our differences. I pray he picked up some of those insights around our table and that he’ll pass them on in future family gatherings.

With such potential, these times together are worth basting in prayer. We may host a spread of paper plates and barbecue or gather around lace and fine fare. While the Sweet Potato Pie is legendary, the food really has little to do with the lingering taste of the meal. 

May our occasions when kindred communion binds us together not only be for a passing of our plates, but for the sharing of our lives. While political conversation wants a place at the table, let us guard the sacred nature of meals we share by listening first, allowing others to speak, accepting our differences, and passing the potatoes.

Photo Credit: ©GettyImages/monkeybusinessimages

Julie Sanders and sonJulie Sanders and her son Jacob Sanders gather around their family table in the Pacific Northwest. Their Sweet Potato Pie recipe is a family secret. Julie is the author of The ABCs of Praying for Students, helping parents pray intentionally, nurture conversations, and feed family relationships. Find Julie at juliesanders.org