Election rhetoric has become more and more divisive in recent years with misinformation, name-calling and personal attacks, contributing to the "culture wars" and an ever-deepening "red state, blue state" polarization of the nation.

The negative attack ads that have come to dominate elections at every level are unworthy of our great democracy.

Christine Todd Whitman, former New Jersey governor and former Environmental Protection Agency administrator, spoke of differences of opinions in her Republican Party in an interview with the Journal Sentinel earlier this year: "The party is big enough for people to have diverse opinions on certain issues. . . . People are fed up with nastiness in politics, the extremism. We're not a nasty, hard-edged, mean-spirited country, and if you looked at our politics, you'd think we were."

The nasty personal accusations that have been flying back and forth in the attorney general's and governor's races this fall reflect badly on all of us in Wisconsin .

We deserve more from our leaders. There is a better way.

In June, a little more than a thousand lay members and clergy representing 495 congregations in the Wisconsin Annual Conference of The United Methodist Church passed a "Respect" resolution, which offers an alternative to the attack-ad mentality. It encourages United Methodists to write letters to all campaign organizations in the state calling for the elimination of attack ads.

Local United Methodist churches are also invited to seek a positive, considerate tone of mutual respect in public debate by sponsoring public forums in neutral settings, such as schools and libraries, where all parties agree to disagree respectfully on hot-button issues.

We invite our friends and neighbors in Wisconsin to turn away from fear-based campaigning. This is one thing we all can agree about even if we may not agree on how we will vote. A full discussion of the issues by the best thinkers and communicators will serve all sides. Let the issues be debated on their merits. Democracy should be a battle of ideas rather than a mudslinging contest.

Thirty years ago, syndicated columnist Sydney Harris wrote about the need for differences of opinions in a nation: "We would not be better off, we would be worse off if any single viewpoint dominated our national life, whether it be the viewpoint I happen to favor or the one I dislike. Disagreement or dissension are not impediments to national welfare but indispensable adjuncts to every bone and muscle and nerve in the body politic."

This is a paradigm shift, a move away from treating those who think differently as enemy. It means agreeing not to disparage political opponents by suggesting they are less patriotic or not spiritual because they think differently than us.

Who of us can say we have an absolute corner on the truth? As President Lincoln said in the midst of the Civil War, "In great contests, each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be, wrong. God cannot be for and against the same thing at the same time."

My own United Methodist Church was divided over slavery for 95 years. What is obvious to us now was not clear then. Both the Methodist Church North and the Methodist Church South thought that they were on the side of God.

After the two sides reconciled to form one Methodist Church again in 1939, one pastor wrote: "We've been north of God, we've been south of God and now, by God, we are going to get right with God."

It takes years of respectful dialogue to sort out difficult issues.