Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look at an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth for the Colson Center on Johnstone Street. Rodney King's famous question: Can we all get along? is never easily answered, but especially in an age of such deep ideological, political, and cultural division. Christians should constantly strive to engage friends and family with what is true, whether at home or in the workplace or on social media, and especially in person. The issues that are at stake are many, and many of the issues at stake.
Are incredibly consequential. But what is the right tenor and tone? What is the Christian approach to these conflicts? At least part of the conflict today that we feel is within the different camps within Christianity, promoting contrasting strategies.
Some are calling for a more aggressive approach, justifying harsh and personal attacks. Others are calling for Christians to be winsome and nuanced. And there are plenty of us that find ourselves somewhere in between these two options.
Now, on its own, the call for mere civility is important, but it also falls short. The word civility shares a Latin root with the word civilization and citizens.
So to be civil is to point to something beyond our disagreements, to things that connect us as citizens and within a larger civilizational cause.
However, we've lost so much of that ground on what our shared citizenship could possibly mean and what our civilization is about, that finding common ground will often mean abandoning essential non-negotiable truths. And that realization has led so many Christians to respond to the downward spiral in our cultural moment, especially when it comes to things like human sexuality and marriage and life and other issues, with a call for a more offensive and bold posture. Too often, winsomeness has meant compromise, as if loving our enemies meant never getting around to telling people the truth. A helpful framing for how to think about the challenges of this moment can be found in the writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the 20th century Christian who stood with conviction. And courage in the face of Nazi Germany in response to the rise of Hitler and the Third Reich.
In his book Ethics, he called on Christians to be faithful in the here and now, writing this quote, do and dare what is right, not swayed by the whim of the moment. bravely take hold of the real, not dallying now with what might be. not in the flight of ideas, but only in action, is freedom. make up your mind and come out into the tempest of the living. You see, for Bonhoeffer, the Christian faith was incarnational.
It had to be lived in whatever time and place God put us. To be human is to be in a tempest of the living. Christians, Bonhoeffer believed then, belonged in the fray. We cannot be paralyzed by fear of what others think, nor should constant concern over how we will be heard or interpreted be the thing that keeps us silent and inactive. The Christian voice is needed.
Even more, Bonhoeffer believed, the Christian is needed. That's no justification for gratuitous coarse language or bombastic attitudes or simply being a jerk. As a Colson Center colleague of mine likes to say, a jerk for Jesus is still a jerk. That's where the wisdom that's promised by God is so essential. Different moments do require different responses.
Different opponents will interpret our actions with various degrees of either good faith and understanding or not. We need the wisdom of when to speak, how to speak, and why to speak.
Sometimes a mild voice of reason is certainly best, as Paul demonstrated in the book of Acts when he reasoned with the pagans in Athens. Other times, correction and confrontation provide necessary contrast and clarity. That can look like, as Proverbs states, providing a word fitly spoken, or like Paul who also boldly confronted Peter to his face. But of course, we should know that any approach to communicate truth today, especially on certain issues, will likely be called offensive, unloving, maybe even unchristian. But the fact that someone's offended by the truth of Christ does not mean that we've done anything wrong.
The truth by its nature will be arresting and will offend those who have no tolerance for it. Though different moments do require different responses, every moment requires our commitment to truth, our ultimate loyalty to Christ, and the willingness to go where the battle is the hottest. The wisdom that Christ provides will overcome the world. And that's what Christians must pray for and cultivate in shifting and changing circumstances. The truth won't change, but the circumstances of our fallen world do, and have, and will continue to do so.
So, Christians must exercise wisdom and display what the Bible calls sober-mindedness so that we can best respond in each and every situation. If you want to grow in your understanding of biblical wisdom, make plans now to attend the 2027 Colson Center National Conference. The theme is Pursue Wisdom. You'll hear from world-renowned speakers and engage with other faithful Christians who are pursuing the kind of wisdom found only in the eternal truths of Christ as applied to the contradictions, confrontations, and confusions of our time and place, this time and place where God has called us. To join us on this journey of wisdom, visit colsonconference.org.
That's colsonconference.org. For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street with Breakpoint. Today's Breakpoint was co-authored with Andrew Carico. If you're a fan of Breakpoint, leave us a review wherever you download podcasts. And for more resources or to share this commentary with others, go to breakpoint.org.
