{"id":3083,"date":"2026-07-01T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-01T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/?p=3083"},"modified":"2026-07-06T14:31:39","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T18:31:39","slug":"come-sit-with-me-so-we-can-disagree","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/2026\/07\/01\/come-sit-with-me-so-we-can-disagree\/","title":{"rendered":"Come sit with me, so we can disagree"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
If, then, there is any comfort in Christ, any consolation from love, any partnership in the Spirit, any tender affection and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or empty conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus\u2026
 <\/em>Philippians 2:1-5<\/em><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
As we celebrate the 250th<\/sup> anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence<\/a> I\u2019ve been reflecting on the unique quality of our democracy. In particular, I think the freedom of speech and the freedom to innovate are our most precious possessions. Without these two liberties the United States of America would have quickly become a recapitulation of the aristocratic societies of Western Europe. There\u2019s a patriotic zeal that can justly set our hearts aglow for the advancement made possible by the freedom to debate issues openly, to worship in different ways, and to innovate in technology and social systems. These freedoms led to the (legal) end of American Slavery, to Women\u2019s Suffrage, and to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. These freedoms led to the building of trains so that ordinary folks could move across the vastness of our country. These freedoms led to the invention of the telephone, the transistor (electronics), the kinetograph (moving pictures=movies!), the airplane, the moon landing, the internet, the microchip, and so much more\u2026 (like baseball and bread-slicing machines and cancer research). Without our freedom to speak and worship and work and dream and innovate, the whole world would be seriously impoverished. These accomplishments truly make our country great, and our innovating spirit is worthy of all our fireworks and singing and dancing (I\u2019ll take a hot dog too, extra pickles please).
 
The dark shadows between our fireworks are also worth noticing: that when these liberties are curtailed, our nation is heartbreakingly impoverished. How many tens of millions of brilliant women were kept from speaking and inventing and innovating in the last 250 years? How many millions of Native Americans must there be, or African-Americans, or Immigrant or Queer Americans must there be whose genius and hard work have not benefited the whole because those with legislative power in state and church allowed the freedoms to speak, to lead worship, to work, and to innovate be the rights of some and not all? What technologies have not been invented\u2026 what medicines have not saved lives\u2026 what music has not been composed\u2026 what poems have not been written\u2026 what philosophies have not blown our minds\u2026 what bridges have not been built\u2026 because those with legislative power have yet to take fully to heart the \u201cself-evident truth,\u201d that human beings are coequal in their right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness, which has to do with a meaningful life characterized by flourishing.
 
In the text above from Paul\u2019s letter to the church at Philippi, we discover what it would look like to actually live into the implications of our Declaration of Independence. In Paul\u2019s theology of the Cross (read verses 6-13<\/a>), all benefit when all are set free from the mistake of thinking that the flourishing of some must mean the poverty of others. When we live our lives for mutual flourishing, the tribalism which characterized the infancy of our species over the last 200,000 years begins to go away. This realization gives a compass heading as we look at the future of the church\u2019s ministry in society. In particular, we need to learn again how to disagree: how to respond to those we don\u2019t understand with curiosity and emotional equanimity. Disagreement is good; disagreement is health. Emotional violence and psychological manipulation are forms of abuse that have no place among the people of Christ. So over the next few months, as we approach our next major election cycle, we are going to begin working intentionally together to learn what it means to sit with one another so that we can disagree. It\u2019s not going to be easy, but if church is going to be anything more than a pleasant aspect of our lifestyles, we\u2019re going to have to admit our differences. We\u2019ll need to take the Apostle\u2019s teaching seriously and stretch ourselves, extending the right to speak and lead and innovate into every corner of the congregation. We\u2019ll need to listen closely to the Apostle so that we can remember that for God to actually bless America, we\u2019re going to have to do what God has required of us. Public politics will go wherever its loudest voices take it. Within the beauty and sacred fellowship of the community of Christ, however, we will quiet our hearts and minds, and respond to disagreement with generosity, vulnerability, and hope. Some will come among us, and some will go, but those who stay will learn together what it means to have the same mind in us that was also in Christ Jesus\u2026 what it means to consider the rights of every other person alongside our own. Disagreeing peaceably as the temperature in our nation rises will feel like an innovation. But the great wealth of truly knowing and loving each other is worth the discomfort we may have to invest.
 
May the peace of Christ be with you.
Jonathan+<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If, then, there is any comfort in Christ, any consolation from love, any partnership in the Spirit, any tender affection and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or empty conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus\u2026 Philippians 2:1-5 As we celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence I\u2019ve been reflecting on the unique quality of our democracy. In particular, I think the freedom of speech and the freedom to innovate are our most precious possessions. Without these two liberties the United States of America would have quickly become a recapitulation of the aristocratic societies of Western Europe. There\u2019s a patriotic zeal that can justly set our hearts aglow for the advancement made possible by the freedom to debate issues openly, to worship in different ways, and to innovate in technology and social systems. These freedoms led to the (legal) end of American Slavery, to Women\u2019s Suffrage, and to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. These freedoms led to the building of trains so that ordinary folks could move across the vastness of our country. These freedoms led to the invention of the telephone, the transistor (electronics), the kinetograph (moving pictures=movies!), the airplane, the moon landing, the internet, the microchip, and so much more\u2026 (like baseball and bread-slicing machines and cancer research). Without our freedom to speak and worship and work and dream and innovate, the whole world would be seriously impoverished. These accomplishments truly make our country great, and our innovating spirit is worthy of all our fireworks and singing and dancing (I\u2019ll take a hot dog too, extra pickles please). The dark shadows between our fireworks are also worth noticing: that when these liberties are curtailed, our nation is heartbreakingly impoverished. How many tens of millions of brilliant women were kept from speaking and inventing and innovating in the last 250 years? How many millions of Native Americans must there be, or African-Americans, or Immigrant or Queer Americans must there be whose genius and hard work have not benefited the whole because those with legislative power in state and church allowed the freedoms to speak, to lead worship, to work, and to innovate be the rights of some and not all? What technologies have not been invented\u2026 what medicines have not saved lives\u2026 what music has not been composed\u2026 what poems have not been written\u2026 what philosophies have not blown our minds\u2026 what bridges have not been built\u2026 because those with legislative power have yet to take fully to heart the \u201cself-evident truth,\u201d that human beings are coequal in their right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness, which has to do with a meaningful life characterized by flourishing. In the text above from Paul\u2019s letter to the church at Philippi, we discover what it would look like to actually live into the implications of our Declaration of Independence. In Paul\u2019s theology of the Cross (read verses 6-13), all benefit when all are set free from the mistake of thinking that the flourishing of some must mean the poverty of others. When we live our lives for mutual flourishing, the tribalism which characterized the infancy of our species over the last 200,000 years begins to go away. This realization gives a compass heading as we look at the future of the church\u2019s ministry in society. In particular, we need to learn again how to disagree: how to respond to those we don\u2019t understand with curiosity and emotional equanimity. Disagreement is good; disagreement is health. Emotional violence and psychological manipulation are forms of abuse that have no place among the people of Christ. So over the next few months, as we approach our next major election cycle, we are going to begin working intentionally together to learn what it means to sit with one another so that we can disagree. It\u2019s not going to be easy, but if church is going to be anything more than a pleasant aspect of our lifestyles, we\u2019re going to have to admit our differences. We\u2019ll need to take the Apostle\u2019s teaching seriously and stretch ourselves, extending the right to speak and lead and innovate into every corner of the congregation. We\u2019ll need to listen closely to the Apostle so that we can remember that for God to actually bless America, we\u2019re going to have to do what God has required of us. Public politics will go wherever its loudest voices take it. Within the beauty and sacred fellowship of the community of Christ, however, we will quiet our hearts and minds, and respond to disagreement with generosity, vulnerability, and hope. Some will come among us, and some will go, but those who stay will learn together what it means to have the same mind in us that was also in Christ Jesus\u2026 what it means to consider the rights of every other person alongside our own. Disagreeing peaceably as the temperature in our nation rises will feel like an innovation. But the great wealth of truly knowing and loving each other is worth the discomfort we may have to invest. May the peace of Christ be with you.Jonathan+<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":3084,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[15,369,226],"class_list":["post-3083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-from-our-newsletter","tag-community","tag-inclusion","tag-spirit"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/635716391205604932-just-two-dudes-smaller.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3083"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3083\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3085,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3083\/revisions\/3085"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}