A beginning caveat— this is written to believers in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. All are welcome to read it, of course, but I am writing this to followers of Jesus, so if you do read it, please do so in this light.

As we have lived through this season, I am almost speechless to describe it. We are walking through a pandemic that is ravaging bodies, economies, and relationships.  At the same time, cultural upheaval of a magnitude I have never seen is rippling through our communities.  Amid this sits the beautiful, often broken, complicated, holy, and redeemed Bride of Christ—the Church.  Oh, how I love her—she is not perfect, but God is holding her, challenging her, rooting out sin, and calling her to show grace in a world that has lost its healing songs of mercy.  

Mercy’s songs, I humbly appeal, are quieting because we often cannot hold difficult realities about ourselves together.  Right now, culturally, we are struggling with our complexities and would rather label one another as “good” or “bad” based on one opinion, one mistake, one difference among us.  We have started putting people into these camps, categorizing one another as “this” or “that,” boxing complex human beings into spaces in which we will not let them escape.  We are even doing this sometimes in the church.

Yet, we who follow the Bible know how convoluted we are, for we bear both His image and a sinful nature simultaneously.  And, that reality gives us nuances that are not easily inserted into a simplistic duality.  Even when we have claimed the blood of Jesus as our righteousness—we have been born again, we still have not been glorified yet and face the challenge of our flesh daily.

Indeed, we are all made up of healthy and unhealthy elements; we are a convoluted jumble of it all.  As a wise counselor shared with me, we are all made up of parts— some functioning well and some not.  We have so much going on all at once. That is why we must resist the labeling of one another in exclusive, binding, and unyielding ways.  

Dividing ourselves into camps and words solely based on experiences and identities is so limiting.  That is not to say that these realities do not matter; they do— God made us specifically, beautifully, and purposefully in these ways.  But, our first identity as Christians must be in the blood of Jesus.  

As Christians, somehow, we have to reach through all this and grab the splintery Cross.  I see our hands there, all different, reaching through the darkness and terror to that Cross, holding there together.  As we do so in the midst of these crises, our compassion towards one another has to be so very strong, our love so very wide— wide enough to feel the stretch of Christ’s arms on the bloody cross.    

We need such humility to find one another.  Let me say that again to you and to myself—we need such humility to find one another.  

In the church, may we be found calling each other sister and brother first.  May we hold one another together.  May we have difficult conversations about our sin individually and corporately, hear one another anew, and walk in each other’s shoes more than we have.  But, but, but, we cannot divide ourselves in the church.  

Please, church, stay at the Cross.  Stay near it.  Let the blood of Christ be our foundation.  Everything must be handled in the shadow of the Cross.  That is where we must begin and eventually end.  And, if we think that anything or anyone other than Jesus can change a heart, we, too, will find ourselves bowing before a godless idol of humanistic ideology that will eventually devour our souls.   

​Instead, let us be found at the Cross, singing songs of mercy to a world that needs to see us finding unity in all our differences because of the blood of Jesus.   And may our songs of humility, redemption, and praise to our Father lead others to Jesus, in Whom streams of Living Water forever flow.

Grace has left our culture with a swiftness and totality that takes my very breath away.  There is hardly any margin, mercy, or grace to be found. The art of disagreeing agreeably seems a lost and alien art.  Now, contempt has come calling, and we have drunk of it deeply. 
 
The stakes are truly high without grace.  Being candid with those whom you disagree can cost you something very tangible like your job and, even worse, the intangible yet invaluable good--your reputation.  One “wrong” statement or opinion can forever alter your present and future.  The very integrity I have tried so hard to live can be rendered moot by one interaction, one simple opinion fraying it completely. 
 
The Bible says that “a good name is more desirable than great riches.” (Proverbs 22:1)  But, how do we deal with a vitriolic culture that can wreck your name because you view the world differently than it does?  The coldness of our world scares me completely.  As David says in Psalm 69, “Scorn has broken my heart and has left me helpless; I looked for sympathy, but there was none, for comforters, but I found none.” (20)
 
Sadly, another level of malice is often layered to our disagreements.  If one is on “the wrong side of an issue,“ many people often declare the person with the other viewpoint to be “evil,” as well as ignorant, spreading further malice.  When I think of someone who is evil, I think of the Devil, Hitler, Stalin, terrorists.  Sadly, we are calling our neighbors, friends, church members, fellow citizens with this same term just because we disagree.  And, it is utterly suffocating. 
 
I humbly argue that contempt is the true evil here.  For, when we feel contempt, we secretly believe in our soul that we are “better” than others, more enlightened, etc.  While stroking our egos, we secretly wish others could be like us— so rational, intelligent, and advanced.  Oxford Living Dictionary gives this definition for contempt—“The feeling that a person or a thing is worthless or beneath consideration.”  How aptly this describes our culture right now when we disagree; we are so swift to completely render others “worthless.”
 
Sadly, most of us choose not to do the hard work of truly, vitally disagreeing with someone while keeping his/her motives and humanity in check.  It is much easier to write off people as “quacks” than to hear their hearts, even if you think their conclusions are fundamentally, ethically, morally, and even egregiously wrong.
 
Being a Christian is helping me challenge this tendency in myself.  Because of my beliefs, I think all humans are made in God’s image—the Imago Dei, and this belief catches me in my contempt.  When I remember we are made in His image, it is harder to hate, harder to dismiss, harder to compartmentalize someone into a “bad” category.  Even my “enemies” in ideology are stamped with the divine. 
 
What does this mean for me?  Right now, it means that I have decided not to put myself out there politically/ideologically in the social media realm.  That could certainly change, but for now, it helps me practice what I preach— to dialogue with humans face-to-face or one-on-one regarding these hard issues, forcing me to surrender contempt as I stare into someone’s eyes, smile, and frown. 
 
But, I am not running, so if you want to know my view on abortion, immigration, refugees and vetting, President Trump, Democrats, Republicans, theology, marriage and gender issues, or just anything in general, please email me so that we can have a personal chat.  I will gladly tell you all these things in relationship but not on social media where it is too easy for me to hide and not look into your eyes.  We must see each other as human during these hard, vital, crazy, emotional, but, hopefully, respectful conversations/debates.

I ask you to join with me in fighting this contempt that so easily creeps into our insecure and vain souls.  No matter how you feel led to share your opinions to the world, I pray you would lay down your contempt as you do it.  I am trying right along with you, battling often on my knees to do this very thing. 
 
May humility be the cloak we wear and grace be the fragrance we leave when we share our opinions.