Pick Up Your Cross, Not Your Political Pitchfork: How to be Friends With Different Viewpoints

We never should have been friends.

At least, that’s what we laugh about, as Shivangi, one of my best friends tells me, “Kristin, I never thought I’d want to be friends with someone like you.”

Shivangi’s and my backgrounds are strikingly different. Born in India and raised with Hinduism, Shivangi and her family immigrated to the U.S. at a young age. Her childhood and teen years were plagued by financial strain and bullying-her darker skin a target. I grew up in a wealthy community in Southern California, and sports, cheerleading, friends, boys, and cute clothes were what consumed my mind, while attending a church youth group on the side.

Yet when we met as adults, we were both married, had young children, attended the same church, and lived in the same neighborhood. But more salient than the similarities we shared, and deeper than the clear differences that still remained, was the bond we had through both being radically changed in young adulthood by the grace of God and growing a love for Jesus. The friendship we grew was sweet and life-giving.

So when we found ourselves accidentally stumbling into a political conversation one night (and many thereafter), we knew we were treading into dangerous waters. Though neither of us fit squarely in one political party, we found ourselves on opposite ends of the spectrum in a handful of areas. We only had to look around at the bitter political climate around us to know we might have been facing a hurricane in our relationship.

The present political atmosphere can feel to me like a vengeful war of landmines and verbal grenades that flood our governing leaders’ interactions, cloud our social media and news channels, and pollute our relationships. It’s easy to grow tired of the name-calling, mean and spiteful comments, the bitter arguments, the slander, and the inflammatory rhetoric – all in the name of “passion” and “right views.” I recently read a tragic story of three grown siblings that were once very close, raising their children and spending ample amounts of time together in the same town; they now completely avoid each other because of horrible political arguments. The siblings’ eighty-six-year-old mother, near her deathbed, is devastated.

Political conversations are destroying relationships, and perhaps even worse, dividing churches.

And yet as Shivangi and I left our political conversations, we weren’t emotionally bruised and bloodied, and we weren’t simply surviving in our friendship, but actually thriving. We have since asked ourselves: What was it? What enabled us to navigate through these muddy waters and be closer than ever before? We discovered that the main, underlying ingredient infused deep within our conversations was: Humility.

Humility was not put on in our own strength as a behavioral band-aid, but it was given by God himself and injected deep within our hearts.  James 1:21 says, “In humility receive the word implanted,” and we saw this word in action. Our humility was:

–Being quick to listen, and slow to speak (Jas 1:19).

-Not having to give up our own interests, but being willing to look at and care about the interests of each other, including political interests (Phil 2:4).

-Admitting that some political issues are not clearly expressed in Scripture, and we can only understand God’s heart on some of these issues and what He desires in a limited way (1 Cor 13:12).

-Laying aside any selfish ambition or empty pride, and thinking of each other better than ourselves (Phil 2:3).

-Admitting that we are not God (Isa 45:5)…and God is not a Democrat, a Republican, or any other political party.

-Being able to disagree respectfully on the minor issues, but ultimately, to “agree in the Lord” (Phil 4:2).

And even in the midst of the humility God gave us, we made mistakes. I made arrogant assumptions. I was unintentionally offensive at times. I misunderstood. She unintentionally hurt and offended me. She made wrong categorizations. But she was safe, because she was humble. She was safe for me to make mistakes, to share viewpoints I knew needed correction, because in humility she loved me.  And I did the same for her.

Humility allowed us to thrive in political conversations, not simply survive, because we were more committed to growing closer to Christ and his heart than we were about winning a debate. Indeed, we spoke truth and disagreed at times, but the truth we spoke sought to be in service to one another and to God, not just from a desire to be “right.” God clothed us in compassion, because of the call, “In humility, count others more significant than yourselves” (Phil 2:3). We’ve left our conversations closer, not more divided. And while some of our viewpoints are more aligned than they ever have been, many still remain far apart.

We can maintain our unity in God during these conversations if we lay down our political pitchforks and pick up our cross – the cross of walking in a manner of which we have been called, as Christians, as those who bear the name of Christ and the light of hope in this world:

    With all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. – Ephesians 4:2