Why are so many Christians diving into deeply divisive politics?
As Jesus was being crucified, something truly unthinkable occurred. There he hung, unjustly condemned, nailed to a wooden cross, bleeding to death and struggling to breathe. The physical punishment alone was unbearable, but worse yet, he was surrounded by both his enemies and those who had betrayed him.
And in that moment, he prays to God on their behalf, “Father, forgive them.”
At the literal crossroads of Christian theology, Jesus reaches across a deep, bitter divide to seek reconciliation and peace.
It’s not the way the world usually works. Our normal instincts are to defend ourselves, to fight back, and to survive. Yet somehow this unthinkably gracious moment invites us onto an alternate path that somehow feels right – deep, gut-level right.
For the Christian, this example is paramount because at the end of the day, the goal of the Christian life is simple: live like Jesus did. In this case, “Be a people who reach across deep divides to seek reconciliation and peace.”
Meanwhile, we see news feeds and status updates filled with Christians who are self-immersed in politically-charged, divisive rhetoric. What’s the disconnect?
It shouldn’t be this way, right?
There are a lot of visceral disconnects between the words and actions of Jesus and the those who follow him.
One of the most elemental, gut-level disappointments people experience about Christianity is the aptitude believers seem to have for divisiveness.
Why are so many Christians leaning heavily into political divides?
Why are so many of them willing to divide humans with hurtful labels and categories?
Why do so many Christians see themselves as being at war with culture and against the world?
Why are so many of them willing to support a president who marinates in divisive rhetoric and ideology?
And in the end, isn’t this wrong? To many of us inside and out of Christianity, this divisiveness feels deeply, bitterly wrong.
There’s good news and bad news.
Bad news first.
This is an ancient problem with deep, twisted roots.
The very disciples who traveled with Jesus during his ministry bickered and argued about who was the greatest and who truly belonged. So, before the Christian church was even born, this was a thing.
Most of the letters of the New Testament are designed to address divisive issues in the early church.
Today, one look at a local church directory and its many options proves that Christians still haven’t figured this out.
But there is good news.
Your gut hasn’t let you down. A divisive spirit runs counter to the cores of Christian theology and to truths far more ancient and elemental.
And for the Christian, there is no quarter for tolerating or embracing the kind of division that’s so present today.
In fact, the call of the Christian is to overcome divides and play the role of peacemaker.
The problem is, most Christians aren’t aware how deep that call truly goes.
The good news is that the story of Jesus does point us to something beautiful. It points to a truth we rightly expected that there is a faith narrative that empowers us to leap over the walls that divide us.
This call to peace can be viewed from several angles, starting back at the cross.
A Call for Peace in the Face of Injustice
Cruelty was heaped upon Jesus before his actual crucifixion.
He had been arrested, whipped, and beaten to a point that was likely unrecoverable.
He had been placed on trial before the very people who had cheered his “triumphant entry” into Jerusalem only days before and been publicly rejected.
He’d been given a painful crown of thorns to wear as a mockery of his supposed power, and a sign was made to hang above his head on the cross, “King of the Jews.”
He’d been marched down the road to the site of his execution while being forced to carry his own cross. Along the way, the crowds who followed heaped further cruelty upon him.
The very image of crucifixion was meant to demean because it was so common. It was a form of execution meant for common criminals now being applied to a man who had claimed to possess great power. It was a message meant to put him in his place, and to accent the message, he was hung between two common thieves.
The crowd who watched Jesus die was no doubt full of the people who had rejected him at his trial. The Jewish leaders who had had a hand in his execution mocked him, “He saved others, but he can’t save himself!”
The Roman soldiers, members of an occupying military force, had their reasons for joining in the mockery. They had already dealt with their share of violent uprisings in the land they had conquered, and from their perspective, they had just put down the threat of another one.
And all of this physical and emotional pain was inflicted on an innocent man.
And if the story is to be believed, this innocent man is the very Son of God. He is part of the mystery of the Trinity: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. (More on that in a minute.)
In other words, he didn’t have to take it. Like the old gospel song goes…
He could have called ten thousand angels To destroy the world and set Him free He could have called ten thousand angels But He died alone for you and me
Instead, Jesus cried out: “Forgive them.” He cried out for peace and reconciliation – for his enemies and those who had betrayed him.
A Call to Action in the Face of Injustice
Jesus doesn’t just cry out for peace and reconciliation. Theologically, he dies in order to bring peace to the deepest divide in creation.
The endgame of the cross was to restore a broken relationship between God and his creation. Sin had created a division, and Jesus took on the punishment for the sins of all mankind to bridge that division for all time. The endgame was to make sure there was no divide that could prevent us from knowing how deeply we are loved by our Creator.
Even in his pain and suffering, passion for this loving endgame was somehow evident. One of the thieves who hung next to Jesus asked for his help, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom,” to which Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.”
And after Jesus surrendered his life, a Roman centurion who was guarding the site exclaimed, without real context or understanding of Jesus’ life and ministry, “Surely he was the Son of God!”
For the Christian, the cross is not only a means of salvation, it’s a compass for the Christian life. It’s a call to action to the life of a peacemaker.
And if this call to action was born in such a moment of pure intent in the face of pure injustice, Christians are hard-pressed to justify doing otherwise – anytime or anywhere.
So, to recap:
There is indeed a massive disconnect between divisive behavior and the core of Christianity.
There’s also a call to something higher, to the role of peacemaker.
And it gets better, because as deep as the roots of divisiveness run in Christianity, the roots of this call run far deeper than we ever imagined.
Creation was Designed for Peace
At the heart of the Bible is a fascinating argument, that this whole thing, all of creation, every atom and every one of us, was designed for peace.
If that’s true, it means there’s a reason that anyone who’s willing to pay attention feels a severe gut check against divisiveness. It’s working against the fabric of the universe.
So, hang on for a ride. We’re going to leap through a whole lot of theology (and history) real quick to prove the point.
Right out the gate in the gospel of John, we receive a remarkable bit of text:
It’s a Rosetta Stone for the Christian bible.
It’s the prequel to Genesis, a glimpse behind the curtain of what came before creation.
And it’s just enough for what we need to understand.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. (John 1:1-3)
Isn’t that great? It’s very Lord of the Rings and seems pretty cryptic at first, but it points towards the guts of Christian theology and the very fabric of reality. There’s a lot of information packed into this passage.
Meet the Voice of Creation
First of all, for John’s purposes, the “Word” = Jesus. That’s one key to understanding this. The term used for Word is the Greek word “logos,” and its use is a brilliant, tactical choice.
1. John wrote this gospel primarily for a non-Jewish audience which was familiar with Greek philosophy. You could write volumes about this, but in essence, Greek philosophers had wrestled with the idea that there must be a divine force of some kind, a “logos” that binds us together and brings order to the universe.
2. Meanwhile, knowing his work would also be read by and evaluated by people of the Jewish faith, this idea of God as the Word or “logos” was already a term understood to represent God’s presence and authority in the world.
3. To both audiences, John signals, “Here’s your guy! Jesus IS the “logos.” He IS God and the answer that ties everything together: why we are here and what we’re supposed to do. He was here before creation. He was with God, and he was God.”
Meet the Character Behind Creation
“He was with God, and he WAS God.” What?
Welcome to one of the core tenets of Christian theology – the Trinity. The Trinity is God in “three persons.” It’s a fantastic mystery that only makes God bigger because we’re unable to reconcile it.
God is the Father.
God is Jesus the Son
God is the Holy Spirit at work today.
Each person is separate with its own identity, but also one. It’s brain-bending stuff that leads to the prequel I promised.
For the moment, here’s the key, mysterious takeaway. If God is three persons in one, then the three persons lived in relationship and community in whatever existed before creation.
Meet the Purpose of Creation
There’s a moment in the gospels where Jesus is asked to sum up all of the teachings and everything the Jewish leaders understood about God. He replies by deftly quoting Old Testament scripture from Deuteronomy and Leviticus at the same time as if to say, “The answer was in front of you all along,” and he says,
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind. Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Mark 12:29-31)
Love God. Love your neighbor. That’s the whole ballgame.
Meanwhile, the New Testament goes on to explain that God IS love, that it’s the literal stuff he’s made of, and that there is nothing that can separate us from his love because of the act of peace Jesus made on the cross.
Now, let’s go back to the “prequel” and this image of the Trinity existing in community BEFORE creation.
Somehow, before the beginning of time, God existed as three persons.
If God is love, then these three persons lived in a loving, harmonious, peaceful relationship. The three persons of the Trinity were actively loving one another.
So, if the whole story is true, this whole universe was birthed as an act of love. The Word that spoke us into being was love. Love was all that was possible because it’s what God was – both in concept and in action. In this loving community of the Trinity was the “divine ordering principal for all things.”
If the whole story is true, then there is a peaceful design to creation. The universe was birthed for one reason, for us to first be loved by God and then share that love with others.
This, by the way, is pretty comforting. Our natural skepticism suspects that if there is a God, then we were probably created because God was lonely in that dark whatever before the dawn of time. In the Christian narrative, the Word created us because there was more than enough love to go around in the community of the Trinity, and it needed to be shared.
So as promised, that first, short passage in John answers some big questions:
Why are we here? We were loved by God. Full stop.
What are we supposed to do? Be people of peace. Love God. Love our neighbors.
Peace is the Purpose Behind the Cross
Later in the gospel of John in chapter 17, the night before Jesus is crucified, he lays down a beautiful prayer as part of an extended, last conversation he has with his disciples. Foremost on his mind is unity and peace.
John is the king of excessive pronouns, and his prose can be a little dense. It helps to relax into it a bit, but when you do, the thrust of the passage is this as he prays for all believers to come:
I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. (John 17:22-23)
The night before his death, top of mind for Jesus is unity and peace and a concern that others will share in the loving relationship that the Trinity experiences, which he as the Son has experienced from the Father. Jesus remembers what the very purpose was for creation.
The next day, he dies on the cross in order to take on the sin of all mankind in one, epic sacrifice. Sin had caused a cosmic division in the loving relationship between God and his creation, but contrary to what you may have been led to believe about Christianity, sin isn’t the point. It’s the obstacle.
The point is a restoration of the relationship between God and his creation.
The point is that there is nothing God would not do to cross that divide.
So, the call of the Peacemaker has deep roots:
On the cross, Jesus sets up an unassailable standard for Christians that makes peacemaking essential.
And it turns out that far from being an option, peacemaking is woven into the fabric of creation, and alignment with the heart of God requires nothing less, regardless of race, color, creed, gender identity, or political party.
But it still gets better.
The Teachings of Jesus Shatter Divisions and Center on Peace.
If it wasn’t clear on the cross or in the fabric of the universe, we always have the gospels to make it abundantly clear that the teachings of Jesus centered around crossing divides and making peace.
This makes sense. Remember, if this story is true, Jesus somehow IS God and is speaking directly from the heart of the Trinity that gave birth to everything seen and unseen.
Here’s a glimpse at the peacemaking playbook to which Christians are accountable as told in the gospel of Matthew.
Matthew opens with a genealogy of Jesus. If you dig into some background there, it’s pretty interesting, but it’s not a page turner. Then, we get some great detail on the Christmas story, and finally, it starts to rocket off at a fast pace.
The next chapter and some change play out like a superhero origin story. Jesus is blessed and commissioned for his ministry in a supernatural scene at his baptism. Then, he faces off against Satan in a grueling test in the wilderness. His training aside, he is ready for action, and Matthew minces no words about the epic tale to come when he quotes the prophet Isaiah,
…the people living in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death, a light has dawned. (Matthew 4:16)
And then he gives us the mission statement of Jesus’ ministry:
From that time on Jesus began to preach, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.”
Let’s unpack that real quick:
1. “Repent” simply means to make a fundamental change of mind and direction.
2. “Kingdom of heaven” is a phrase often used interchangeably in the gospels with “Kingdom of God.” The key thing to understand is that the Kingdom is not about a place with physical boundaries. It’s about the way we’re meant to live in the world according to the original, loving design of God in Heaven.
3. “Is near” is often used interchangeably with “Is at hand.” Either way, the idea is not future tense but present. “This is going down now. Get on board!”
So it also goes something like this, “Change your path, because a different way to live in this world that’s come straight from heaven is here. Right now. And I’m going to teach it to you.”
At the end of the day, this idea of the Kingdom of God/Heaven is:
How do we get back to the way God designed this world to work before sin disrupted it?
What’s our path back to peaceful, loving relationships between God and man?
And what can we do right now?
The Teachings of Jesus on the “Kingdom of Heaven” Were About the Restoration of Peace
Just as we saw on the cross, Jesus taught in two ways.
Through his actions.
Through his words.
Through His Actions
The next chunk of Matthew is like a montage scene of action clips, like that chunk of Captain America: The First Avenger that just rockets through his wartime years.
Jesus went through Galilee teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people. News about him spread all over Syria, and people brought to him all who were ill with various diseases, those suffering severe pain, the demon-possessed, those having seizures, and the paralyzed, and he healed them. Large crowds from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea and the region across the Jordan followed him. (Matthew 4:23-25)
There are a couple of things you should know here about the teaching actions of Jesus.
First, all of this healing isn’t just practical or kind.
It has a powerful message behind it. In this day, there was belief that your illnesses were a consequence of your sin or even your parent’s sin. The message is, “You’re sick because you’re not right with God.”
Making that sense of isolation even worse was the fact that the sick were usually cast away from regular society. The answer that Jesus offers in his miracles is “That message was wrong, and nothing, not even the natural laws of this world, will prevent me from bridging the divide between you and the God who loves you.”
Jesus heals so that people will know they are loved, and again, if you follow the logic of the Trinity, God himself has literally touched those who were told they were untouchable and restored them to belonging and peace.
Second, the sick were not the only outcasts Jesus would reach out to in his ministry.
He reached out to Romans, the occupiers who had robbed his own people of their freedom.
He reached out to tax collectors, who were seen as traitors serving the Romans and thieves who would line their own pockets in the process. (The very author of this gospel, Matthew, was one of them.)
He reached out to Samaritans, who were considered heretics and mortal enemies of his people.
He reached out to prostitutes, who were seen pretty much the way they often are today.
In the end, there was no end to the divides Jesus would cross to reach people who had been told they were not worthy in God’s eyes.
Third, the people following Jesus weren’t supposed to get along.
Galilee itself was a melting pot of cultures and beliefs, and there were some deep divides between the areas mentioned in Matthew’s list. Something about this Jesus is uniting them and creating peace.
Bottom line, the actions of Jesus, which he’s using to teach his followers about the Kingdom of God, are focused on crossing divides and creating peace.
Through His Words
Right after the condensed action scene of Jesus in ministry comes a magnificent passage, the Sermon on the Mount. If the word Sermon sounds stiff, try this. Biblical scholar Henrietta Mears referred to this passage as “The Constitution of the Kingdom.”
These words of Jesus turn every norm we expect for how the world is supposed to work upside down into a beautiful tapestry of peace.
It’s a huge, epic passage that benefits from some background study on historical context, but it’s still pretty accessible, and here are the big beats of the message.
Part One: The Overture (Matthew 5:1-20)
The Sermon on the Mount, the Constitution of the Kingdom, begins with a sweeping bit of prose that turns our world on its ear. If our prevailing wisdom is that the strongest survive, this section known as the Beatitudes defiantly proclaim:
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:3-11)
Note what’s not there. There’s no “Blessed are the wealthy, the powerful, the vengeful, or the strong.”
The overture continues with the idea that those who live this way will be like salt, which is elemental for life, to the world and that they will light the way for others.
It concludes with the idea that these teachings aren’t meant to contradict anything God was doing before. They’re meant to fulfill all that was leading up to this point of Jesus’ arrival and the peaceful purpose that existed for us before creation.
Part Two: Turn the World Upside Down (Matthew 5:21-48)
A sweeping section here begins to turn the values of the world upside down.
To not forgive is a sin worse than murder.
A survivalist’s value of an eye for an eye is replaced with the peace-making directive to turn the other cheek. It’s positioned not as an act of weakness, but as an act of extraordinary courage.
We are challenged to love our enemies.
This section in particular gets illuminated by proper historical study, but the idea is still clear. The kingdom of heaven operates on a peacemaker’s current that runs opposite to the world and our instincts.
Part Three: Your Will Be Done (Matthew 6:1-13)
Jesus gives his followers a prayer concerning the essentials of living in the kingdom, and it happens to include a pivotal concept for peacemakers, “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” (Or as you may have also heard, “Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.”)
Part Four: A Toolkit for the Kingdom (Matthew 6:14-7:12)
This chunk is full of both encouragements and directives for how to live in this new world order where peacemakers and forgiveness reign.
Part Five: The Warnings (Matthew 7:13-28)
Three back-to-back parables serve as a series of warnings about how the world will react to this kingdom and the consequences of rejecting it.
The Narrow and the Wide Gates: not many people will actually choose to live this way.
A Tree and Its Fruit: you’ll be able to tell which people don’t care about living this way.
The Wise and Foolish Builders: whoever chooses to live this way is like a man who builds his house on a solid foundation, on the rock. Whoever doesn’t is like a foolish man who builds his house on sand:
“The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”
In the sweeping prose of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus restores God’s original, peaceful vision for how we are to live with one another.
He flat out dismisses the values we hold dear of establishing status, strength, and safety nets in favor of something far greater.
One of the biggest misconceptions about Jesus and his teachings on the kingdom of heaven is that it was about a place or, God forbid, a certain organization.
It was about a way of living in this world, a way we were meant to live our best lives.
In case you’re wondering why Jesus ended up hanging on a cross, it’s in part because he threatened to turn the world upside down, and he told us that this counter-intuitive way of living as a peacemaker, with God’s help, was the only way the whole thing actually works.
That kind of message tends the threaten the status quo and those who guard it.
So Why in God’s Name Don’t More Christians Embrace Their Identity as Peacemakers?
We’ve seen how central the idea of the peacemaker is to Christianity:
At the cross
In creation
And in the teachings of Jesus and the very “Constitution of the Kingdom”
Crossing divides and making peace is gut-level central to the calling of Christian life.
So, where are the people who believe this?
Let’s get one thing out of the way. They’re out there, and they’re some of the most beautiful souls you and I have ever met. There are Christians out there who are fervently chasing the heart of Jesus and his will for this world, but like you saw above, the gate is narrow.
Here are at least a few reasons why this has gone haywire:
1. Christians like being forgiven more than the work of building the Kingdom. This sounds harsher than it’s meant, because this is a pretty human thing. It’s easier to accept the forgiveness of God than it is to do the work of building His Kingdom.
2. To make things worse, a lot of Christians were told a narrative where the cross and salvation through Jesus are the climax of their own story. It’s like peaking during high school. Salvation isn’t the climax of our story. It’s the inciting incident that leads to the adventure of living as a divide-crosser and peacemaker.
3. A shocking number of Christians don’t fully understand the teachings of the kingdom or lack a systematic, narrative view of theology that pulls all of these pieces together.
4. Christians in America have been sold a tragic bill of goods that Jesus wants us at the centers of political and cultural power. Jesus spent nearly his entire ministry far from urban, political centers of power, and he based his entire strategy on peacemaking. He built a grassroots movement through authentic relationships, compassion, and love – never by legislation or force.
At the end of the day, this way of living in the world isn’t meant to be done alone. In particular, it’s meant to be lived out in the context of a joyful relationship with a real, active, living, and present God. Strangely, many Christians came up through traditions that didn’t focus much on that aspect of faith. If this whole story is true, it takes the literal power of God to live in a world that doesn’t usually play by his rules.
If All That Is True, Where Is Our Hope for Peace?
Jesus Christ himself was born into a deeply divided world. His own people were divided into religious and political camps. He was born into a divided melting pot of cultures and religions, and all of them lived in a dangerous world of military occupation and complicated political alliances where the powers that be dealt their cards without sufficient concern for the people who lived under their reign.
Bottom line: it felt pretty hopeless then, too. However, our hope comes:
From knowing that in the Christian narrative, there truly is a beautiful intent for a world that is inclusive, expansive, and generous in nature.
From learning that, if this Christian narrative is true, the entire intent of God in making this universe was for us to know we are loved.
From the people of the narrow gate who get these concepts and the promise of Jesus that God’s design is potent – that a little goes a long way in this world.
Things you can do:
Pray. Give it a shot, and pray that Christians who are lost in vengeful ways of that run contrary to the teachings of Jesus learn that they are not living as Christians at all.
While you're at it, pray for God to overcome anything that stands between you and the creator and you and others around you. Pray a prayer for the strength to take action and the making of peace.
Share this and teachings like it to call Christians back to their core identity as peacemakers.
Take action to bridge divides and share your ideas to inspire others.
For Christians, think carefully about the people you choose to support as leaders in this world.
The Christian isn’t left to choose policy over the fundamental ways God has asked us to live in this world. How we live and how we achieve our goals matters. The path is always under a banner of peace and reconciliation that walks in the footsteps of Jesus.
Everything else Christianity has tried, every time, throughout all of history, has failed.
Everything else we have tried has led to tragedy and further division between God and his creation.
In the corners of history, in the margins and the footnotes are the true stories of triumph where the power and potency of the meek and merciful have obliterated the thickest of walls and brought healing and peace to the world.
These are the people who lay their heads to rest at night in true confidence of the promises of scripture:
God, as it turns out, is good.
“And his gospel is peace.”
Confessions from the Bridge
Christianity has disappointed a lot of people. We’re building a bridge between Christianity and those who’ve been hurt by it so we can confess what’s gone wrong and reclaim an expansive view of a loving God.
Comentários