In so many relationships and circumstances in life, we must live with differences. Where vital, our side of these differences should not be denied or abandoned, but as followers of Christ we should live peacefully with others who do not share our values or accept the teachings upon which they are based.
There’s a battle going on in our country to target conservatives and people of faith. It’s the politically correct form of discrimination. We see it coming from Hollywood, from liberals in the media and from the far left in Washington. And now country music is jumping on the bully bandwagon.
We’ve seen enormous overreach from the politically correct crowd to silence conservatives and people of faith in this country. The overreach is one of the reasons President Trump got elected, which is something they still haven’t reconciled.
Our society’s information environment steers the public to view conflicts as just a part of a bigger culture war, a battle of winner takes all in which there is only ever one right and one wrong, and where the only answer to any question is either “yes” or “no.” Such polarizing only hardens our hearts and coarsens our reason.
It is simply a fact that we live in a pluralistic society, and different viewpoints must find a way to contend without defeating one another.
Balance between competing interests, not a war pitting one absolute against another, is a more sure way for our pluralistic democracy. Rights work best when sought and shared by everyone. And since we all live and breathe and move in the same public space, there is no acceptable alternative to working out our differences. A society in which everyone gets all they want is not a democracy but rather a Utopia, a word that literally means “nowhere.”