Disagreement

It seems we all disagree on something nowadays.

Everything has become partisan, from whether we tell people how to own guns, to telling people how to go to church, to telling people which restaurants can be open or not, it’s all an “us versus them” issue.

This partisanship has gotten even worse since the election. More and more people are seeing those that disagree with them as the enemy.

Disagreement isn’t a bad thing. We need to disagree. From disagreement we get consensus. It’s an important act, and societies through the ages have often held disagreement in high esteem.

Disagreement makes us stronger.

However, lately there is a cry for unity. A cry to come together, despite out differences. We are told that we need to forget the past and agree on a way forward, no matter what hurts we have received or given to others.

That could not be more false.

Agreement for the sake of agreement is useless.

There are things that are easy to disagree about.

We can disagree about our favorite flavor of ice cream. We can disagree over whether roller coasters are worth riding or not. We can disagree over which city or sports team is best.

Disagreement is healthy. It gives us room to grow. It shows us the areas where we are still developing.

There are things that we must disagree about. There are things that we must confront each other about.

Something we teach our children is that when they apologize to someone, they need to be specific in how they apologize and also be repentant.

If the five year old hits the three year old, it’s not enough for Five to say, “Sorry, Three.” He must be specific: “I’m sorry for hitting you.” He must be repentant: “How can I make this better?”

What use would it be if Five hit Three and we told Three, “He’s your brother, you need to move past this”?

It would teach Five that he never needs to apologize, and he never does anything wrong.

It would teach Three that he is not worthy of an apology, and that he shouldn’t expect restitution from anyone.

They would be unified in the moment, but the long-term rift would be tremendous and catastrophic.

They would agree today, but be in perpetual disagreement tomorrow.

As humans, disagreement is healthy. It shows us the areas we still need to work on. It reveals areas of our lives that God wants to mold and change, and make better.

Instead of calling for those around us to be in agreement, what if we leaned into the disagreement? What if we asked what this moment of disunity and disagreement was supposed to teach us?

What if instead of just calling for those around us to be in agreement—no matter how vile, hateful or just plain wrong their opinion is—we were to ask ourselves what we need to apologize for, and how we can repent?

What if we looked at disagreements as opportunities to grow?

It’s easy to call for unity. It’s easy to just say, “let’s agree to disagree.” But these are lazy copouts that don’t teach us anything.

Let’s look at our disagreements and face them head-on. Let’s analyze them and see what we need to learn.

Let’s not hurt people and leave bad situations in a worse place just because we want to get past any discomfort we may have.

Let’s disagree, and let’s grow from it.

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