Keeping the Witness of Jesus in a Divided World
With cultural pressures intensifying, we sat down with Dennae Pierre someone to ask: How do we hold up a firm, historical Christian witness that refuses to be swallowed by culture wars?
Our political moment is marked by polarization. On both the Left and the Right, ideologies often flatten complex moral and theological vision down to the lowest common denominator: slogans, soundbites, and tribal loyalty. It’s easier to rally people around outrage than around the long, slow, beautiful work of faithfulness.
But the Church is called to something older and deeper. The witness we inherit is not reactive but rooted — not crafted to win in the news cycle but to embody the love of Christ across generations. This is the tension Dennae Pierre wrestles with: what does it mean to resist reductionist ideologies while embodying a hope that transcends partisan lines?
Dennae’s Response:
It’s striking how easily words can be used to create opponents where we need conversation and action. Christians are called to love God and neighbor, yet we often reduce complex human beings into caricatures, framing disagreement as a war in which we must stand up and fight. Even before the tragic murder of Charlie Kirk, rhetoric was used that draws on early church martyr narratives. Christians speak as though they are a persecuted minority, even though American Christians wield enormous social and political influence that the early church did not have. That’s not to say there have not been examples of Christians having rights infringed upon, but for the time being, the winds of power blow in the direction of what many self identify as “the Christian right.”
The danger of claiming early church martyr narratives when Christians are in power is profound. When we talk about our neighbors as though they are enemies, we set ourselves on a path that Scripture repeatedly warns against. Even if they truly were enemies, Jesus calls us to love them, to pray for them, to act with mercy. But when we treat someone or a whole people group as “the other,” out to take what is ours, we reduce them to a category. That reduction inevitably dehumanizes them. And when we dehumanize outsiders, we ourselves appear less human, less capable of empathy, compassion, and restraint. This is the logic of war and around and round it has gone, in the name of Christ, for thousands of years. When life is lost in the midst of this kind of ideological war, it’s not so easy to say it’s simply because Christ was proclaimed. Something more than the proclamation of Christ is going on amongst the various factions within our nation and every act of violence should stop us in our tracks and ask us to take account of how we are participating.
“When we talk about our neighbors as though they are enemies, we set ourselves on a path that Scripture repeatedly warns against. Even if they truly were enemies, Jesus calls us to love them, to pray for them, to act with mercy.”
When confronted with people or groups who dismiss values we care about we struggle to hold tension and nuance. As “the left” reduces “the right” to the worst versions of themselves, and “the right” minimizes or dismisses the harm of racist or sexist rhetoric, and “the middle” stays out of it altogether in ways that keep too far of a distance to engage in neighbor love we must ask… where is all this headed?
Already lives have been lost in the name of an ideological war, Kirk being the most recent. The tools differ: some do it in the name of standing up for a nationalistic Christianity, others in the name of secular ideals or political convictions. But the effect is the same: we erect barriers of suspicion, caricature our opponents, and justify harsh language to describe them. All the while, the injustice among vulnerable people groups that all sides claim to care about continues to unfold day after day.
For followers of Jesus, our biggest concern should be with anything done in the name of Christ. The weight and power of influence that Christians hold in America makes Christianity’s fueling of culture wars even more serious. Christians have resources, platforms, and authority that the early church did not have. The early martyrs could only survive and witness through endurance in the face of oppression as a small minority population with little collective power to force political changes; today, many Christians in America navigate a landscape of political, social, and cultural influence. How we exercise that influence to dehumanize and dominate rather then serve, listen, and love carries consequences that ripple far beyond our immediate context and solidify attitudes toward “the other” for generations to come.
True discipleship calls us to resist the urge to weaponize words or create opponents. It calls us to remember that every human being is made in God’s image. It calls us to humility, to listening, to seeking understanding without immediately categorizing. It calls us to wield our influence not as a sword, but as a tool for reconciliation, for justice, for mercy, and for the flourishing of those opposed to our own values and way of life.
The lines have been drawn too thick, the caricatures of opponents too wide, and the name of Jesus thrown around too flippantly. What good is proclaiming a partial gospel and finding rapid converts if it hardens entire people groups to the powerful good news of Jesus?
The kingdom of God sounds and smells like Jesus, who describes himself as the Good Shepherd. Jesus leads his followers out of church buildings where we struggle to navigate various opinions of those “inside” our church buildings and into the street where a big banquet table awaits for the peacemakers and merciful and those hungry for righteousness.
After all, it’s the people the churchgoers have the most fear and contempt for that Jesus sends last minute invitations to join his kingdom. They are the ones that get to sit across from their enemies and their wounded friends and see first hand how violence and fear, injustice and evil eroded their shared humanity. They get to discover the preciousness of Jesus who removes the scales from their eyes as he breaks bread and shows them that they belong to one another. They get to be captivated by Love’s transformative presence while those holding religious power are too busy protecting their religion and fighting with their opponents.
Let’s meet at that table, the one outside the walls, right in the midst of the crossfire and learn to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with Jesus.
Dennae is part of Roosevelt Community Church and a long time leader within our city’s church ecosystem. She serves Christian movements such as City to City, Surge, Crete Collective, and CAC. She writes and trains on Restorative Leadership.
