Jon Barlow gives some good, necessary points for a fruitful discussion

For good, productive dialogue, here’s what’s needed at a minimum:

1. An attitude of self-risk. All “sides” of an issue have to be willing to approach each other with humility, with the idea that ‘I could be wrong’ or even ‘I could have misread him’

2. Trust. All ‘sides’ of an issue need to trust that they are all doing their best to understand each other and be understood, rather than hiding from each other.

3. Preparation – all the participants in a discussion need to be prepared and educated about the issues to be discussed.

4. Academic Freedom (for lack of a better label) – the idea that we can hash out these issues without worrying about being labeled a ‘heretic’ during the process.

5. Creative “best hopes” – each side has to treat the other as if they were honest and forthright and as if they were fair and judicious. Of course, it is possible that there are malicious and “bad” people on any side of this issue, but you have to leave that aside in productive debate and pretend as though each party is sincere and in it for the right reasons.

From the comment of this post

Hey, look! The Gospel of Matthew has a literary structure… it must not be literal history!