Before They Are Opponents, They Are Family

The longer I serve in the church, the more convinced I become that one of our greatest challenges isn’t theological. It’s relational.

We have become remarkably skilled at talking about one another while becoming increasingly unwilling to talk to one another.

The recent conversations surrounding Concordia Ann Arbor, synod leadership, worship practices, institutional priorities, and nearly every other pressure point facing the LCMS have revealed something troubling beneath the surface. We have become experts at assigning motives. We assume we know why people vote the way they vote. We place someone into a camp because of the worship style they prefer, the conferences they attend, or the name attached to a candidate they support. We hear a concern and assume an agenda. We see a position and assume a posture.

The problem is that assumptions rarely produce understanding. They almost always produce division.

I’ve been guilty of this. More than I want to admit.

It is far easier to construct a version of someone in my mind than it is to sit across a table from them and listen. It is easier to react to a post than to ask a genuine question. Easier to label than to love. And that path, the easy one, never leads anywhere good.

The church should know this better than anyone. Paul warned the Corinthians about dragging their disputes before the world. His concern wasn’t simply procedural. It was about witness. What does it say to the watching world when God’s people cannot resolve their disagreements as brothers and sisters in Christ? What message do we send when our conflicts become public spectacles screenshot by screenshot, post by post, grievance by grievance?

From the outside, it often looks like we cannot keep our own house in order.

And perhaps more sobering: we have largely adopted the world’s methods without noticing. The culture around us thrives on tribalism. It rewards outrage. It trains people to divide into competing camps and view everyone outside their camp with suspicion. The church was supposed to offer an alternative to that. Too often we have simply mirrored it.

Jesus said the world would know His disciples by their love for one another. Not by their voting blocs. Not by their social media fluency. Not by their ability to win an argument. By their love.

Not a sentimental love either. The love described in 1 Corinthians 13 is patient and kind, yes but it is also something more demanding than sentiment. It refuses to keep score. It does not insist on its own way. It believes the best about people before assuming the worst. It hopes. It endures. And perhaps most countercultural of all, it extends the benefit of the doubt.

That last part is where most of us (yes myself included) are failing.

Consider how quickly we connect dots that may not belong together. Someone supports a particular candidate, therefore they must hold every position associated with that candidate’s perceived allies. Someone prefers a different worship style, therefore they must be carrying a theological agenda. Someone wants a change in leadership, therefore they must want a change in confession.

Those conclusions say more about our assumptions than they do about the people we’re drawing them about.

Wanting different leadership does not automatically mean wanting different doctrine. Questioning a direction does not mean rejecting a confession. And healthy organizations, in every sphere of life, regularly experience leadership transitions without that being treated as a crisis of identity. We recognize this principle everywhere except, apparently, when it touches institutions we love or leaders we personally support.

That inconsistency needs to be wrestled with seriously.

None of this means convictions are secondary. They aren’t. Theology matters. Truth matters. The confession matters. Honest disagreement is not the problem. It is part of what it means to be a community of people who take ideas seriously.

The problem is forgetting that the people with whom we disagree are still our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Before they are a voting bloc, they are baptized children of God. Before they are a label, they are people for whom Christ died. Before they are opponents, they are family.

The church does not need less conviction. It needs more conversation. Fewer assumptions and more questions. Fewer posts and more phone calls. Fewer labels and more listening. The courage to sit down together, not to win, but to understand. Not to perform, but to speak honestly, graciously, and directly.

And most of all, we need repentance.

Not their repentance.

Ours.

Mine.

Because every time I choose assumption over conversation, criticism over understanding, or winning over loving I am part of the problem I claim to lament. I cannot call the church to a better way while quietly exempting myself from the cost of it.

The path forward begins there. Not with them changing first.

With me.