“Peacemaking involves assessing the claims of groups in conflict and making a judgment about who is correct and who is incorrect. Peacemaking, then, cannot be separated from truth telling.”
-Esau McCaulley, Reading While Black
Recently in the news I saw that Dan Darling, a prominent conservative evangelical, was let go from his position at National Religious Broadcasters for one seemingly innocuous (pun intended) reason. He had the audacity to publicly encourage Christians to take the covid vaccine. In defending their actions, NRB claimed that their official position on the vaccine is one of neutrality.
Neutrality. In our context it seems to me that neutrality is little more than a deliberate and purposeful distance from an issue that divides. At first glance this might seem to be the most Christian approach. Staying above the fray and refusing to take sides might seem wise, godly, and even peaceful. But it is not. The reason is because in reality, this is peace in appearance only. In reality it’s often a posture of disregard cloaked in niceness. As Christians, we are called to be peacemakers, and though they may appear related on the surface, neutrality and peacemaking are not the same thing. Neutrality is actually more closely associated with the concept of peacekeeping. Whereas peacemaking looks like righting wrongs, upholding fairness, and making sure the most vulnerable have a voice, peacekeeping often looks like suppressing conflict for the sake of being undisturbed, and it almost always comes at the cost of the weaker party(ies).
Peacemaking on the other hand, isn’t accomplished by simple niceness. Agreeable politeness that simply wishes for “everyone to get along” is a weak and dysfunctional dynamic that allows injustice and untruth to persist in society and in the Church. As Jemar Tisby puts it so succinctly, “justice takes sides.” Spending any amount of time in the Old Testament will reveal a God who is intensely involved with both the minutiae and the far-reaching strife of our daily lives. He is a God who is nearby, attentive and concerned, providing laws that govern innumerable scenarios that might today be labeled as beneath our notice, or worse still “unnecessary drama”. Because this is the God we serve, we have reason to believe He calls us to a sacred attention to the lives of those around us. Keeping silent when lies proliferate, reducing systemic injustice to a personal conflict, or simply choosing to “stay out of it” are not options for a Christian desiring to know God and follow Jesus.
Often I see Christians and even pastors encouraging people to disengage from “worldly” affairs, criticizing time spent on social media or reading the news. There is certainly some wisdom in this. Filling our hearts and minds with the sin and brokenness of the world and the voices and opinions of pundits and partisan actors can lead to anxiety, overwhelm, depression, confusion and credulity. We are finite creatures with a limited ability to take in and process information, and it’s not sustainable for us to continually stretch beyond our capacities. And after all, Paul did tell us in his letter to the Colossians to set our minds on things above, not on earthly things. But let’s back up, because what did he mean by that? What does it mean to have our minds set on things above? We as Christians are not to be ruled by the cares and concerns of this world, but that doesn’t mean we don’t engage with those concerns as we seek to love our neighbors. To completely remove ourselves emotionally would be a form of stoicism that Jesus neither modeled nor endorsed. What would compel Jesus to become human and “move into the neighborhood” as Eugene Peterson says, if not to become involved in our affairs? When He wept at the death of Lazarus or decisively drove dishonest people out of the temple, He was both emotional and concerned. And likewise, to physically disconnect ourselves from the pain and suffering represented in the news cycle is to miss the calling on our lives to show compassion (which usually requires our physical presence) to our neighbors in need. When we labor under the pretense that our eternal security and the spiritual nature of our lives means that the physical, earthly realm has no meaning, we forget Jesus’s very embodied work on earth. And we miss the blessing of having our own embodied work fueled by the comforting knowledge that our citizenship is in Heaven. We’re not beholden or enslaved to the patterns of this world, and this promise is actually the soil where a mind set on things above can flourish. Keeping our mind set on Christ has direct implications for the here and now.
In the face of conflict, I often hear calls for unity put forth prematurely, as though unity is something that can be forced into place or accomplished apart from justice. I believe a more robust definition of unity includes serving and loving one another across differences, not submitting to or tacitly endorsing injustice, falsehood, or sin. Someone will say, “how can we achieve this dynamic in instances when one party believes there is sin while the other does not?” And the answer is, I don’t know. But I think that our cultural moment demands humility, nuance, and a willingness to subordinate all our beliefs, but especially our secondary and tertiary concerns, to the Great Commandment. In other words, is my stance on issue XYZ helping me love and obey God and love my neighbor as myself? And, am I allowing God to define love for me? Am I following Jesus in laying down my life in service of others?
Instead of striving to be neutral let’s strive to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God. Instead of looking to create environments where no one is challenged, let’s continue to spur one another on to love and good deeds. We don’t have to, nor should we, forsake gentleness and kindness in these pursuits. We can carry truth and love together in our hearts, and if we want to achieve the unity Jesus prayed for, we must.