Agree or Disagree - Should I Weigh In?

 

I just read that the President has once again fired someone who disagreed with him. This time it was a statistician who was saying unemployment was up and job opportunities were down. The President wants the opposite to be true, and felt the statistician was being disloyal and untruthful. It’s true, you can lie with statistics, and you certainly can bend them or use them to sound better than they are (80% believe this to be true – so it must be true, but what about the other 20%? Or one quarter of the country says….but that means seventy five percent believe something else entirely). Not sure this statistician was doing any of that number bending, however.

Sometimes I think it would be nice to get rid of everyone who disagrees with me; nothing heinous, just fire them, or have them go somewhere else. Of course, that means I think I’m always right. And even though I might like that to be true, it is far from correct. We get into trouble when we think it’s all or none, black or white. It is rarely that simple. But still, it would be nice to not have so much disagreement.

Relationships can feel like minefields. I keep thinking the Covid disagreements are over (did it really exist, was it really so bad, didn’t vaccines kill more people than the virus, were masks really that effective…?), but recently I stumbled right into one. The person with whom I was talking believed the polar opposite from me about vaccines. It took me by surprise, I think because I assumed they had the same view as me. But no, they did not.  So, in that moment you can decide to step into the field and share your views, or you can skirt the field for the sake of the relationship, bite your tongue and find another topic.

Has it always been this way and I just wasn’t aware, or are we more prone to being “us versus them” in these issues, creating the minefield?  I know families who have been torn apart over politics, refusing to be around one another because they can’t hold their tongues and let the argument pass.  Sometimes it is just too hard to let the other person go without hearing your opinion, and most often that is because we feel our opinion is right and theirs is wrong, with no middle ground.

I find myself wondering how such intelligent people can believe such weird stuff, only to realize they think the same of me. Maybe we are all crazy.

There was a time, not so long ago, I would have waded into the minefield to send some volleys of my own across the field.  Now I try to pick my battles more carefully. Choosing to get into it or not by weighing the effect on the relationship. Is it worth it to rock this relationship or not? Could the relationship be strong enough for us to agree to disagree?

I’ve written a lot about my feelings regarding LGBTQ+ issues. The bottom line, I care more about the people I know than I do about whether they are Gay or Trans or whatever. But as a Christian that is a slippery slope. For many Christians they have to stake their territory on LGBTQ+ being wrong, sinful, period.  We have to choose the Bible, and the Bible says being gay is a sin.  OK, but it also says being angry and judgmental is a sin. And it is clear that to God even what we consider misdemeanor sins are still monumental to Him. Jesus died to pave the way for sinners to be forgiven, regardless of whether their sins were large or small, consequential or inconsequential – humanly speaking.  All sin put Christ on the cross in our place because we are all sinners.

Recently friends spoke about putting truth before relationship. I took that to mean that truth, what the Bible says about something, is most important. I happen to believe it is both/and not either/or.  The Bible has a lot to say about sin, but the bottom line truth is we are all sinners. Period.  There is no hierarchy of better or worse sins. God put relationship first by dying for our sins, so we can be forgiven and live eternally with Him.  That is truth, maybe the most important truth. Jesus said “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.” So to stand for a biblical truth and believe that gives us permission to turn away from relationship – I don’t think so.  Jesus didn’t shy from relationships with sinners, because that would mean He couldn’t have associated with anyone other than Himself. And the people He called out were the sinners who felt themselves somehow beyond sinning and were judgmental of those they deemed sinners. They put truth before relationship.

I accept the truth that we are all sinners and only God’s grace can save all of us from ourselves. Christians still sin. We don’t have a free pass to heaven because we are Christian. The pass came as anything but free, Jesus giving His life for us, dying for our sins in our place. God has forgiven all of us, regardless of what we do, not because we didn’t deserve punishment for our sins, but because He was willing the pay the punishment so we could be in relationship with Him.

So as I stand in the minefield of controversial conversations today, the one’s I pick to fight are the ones that I feel maybe a little biblical perspective wouldn’t hurt. In the recent conversation, rather than say I thought my friends were wrong about truth versus relationship, I just shared that I feel, since we are all sinners, the truth God is asking me to pursue is to love whoever God brings into my life. Forming relationships with people gives me the opportunity to be Christ-like, loving, accepting and maybe a door will open for them to ask questions about what I believe and why. So if they are part of the LGBTQ+ community, and I have an opportunity to get to know them, that is what I will do. And not with some type of agenda, but rather because I feel that is what Jesus did. He just enjoyed the company of all people. And I can live my truth as I form relationship.

Why make an issue of the “sin” (whatever it is) when God took care of the sin issue on the cross?  Why focus on other’s perceived sins rather than focus on all of our need for God in our lives?  If God forgave all sins, then my sins and yours are indeed forgiven. The issue is what are we going to do with God’s gift? And if I keep pointing out your sins, while pretending I don’t have any, or any as bad as yours, why on earth would you want to hear about God’s forgiveness and love?  But if I accept you as you are, and just enjoy your company, and maybe develop a friendship, perhaps sometime you’ll see Christ in me and want to get to know Him too. 

Yes, sometimes I wish I could “fire” people with whom I disagree. But, I can’t, and it would be wrong. They are entitled to their opinions. For the sake of relationships I need to carefully pick what issues need weighing in on. Mostly it’s not worth it to lose the friendships.  I cherish friends with whom I can totally be myself, and we can agree to disagree where we do disagree. Those friends are few. Otherwise I need to ask, “will speaking my truth help or hinder this relationship?” If the latter, then I stay out of the minefield.