A CALL FOR SANITY IN A SCREAMING AGE

I’m not a political commentator or a zealot for anything other than Jesus. I’m just a preacher from Alabama. I’m not an extremist. I’m not trying to hurt anyone—I just want to help if I can. And I need far too much grace and forgiveness myself to judge or condemn you.

So I’m simply speaking as a concerned citizen: if the moderate and sensible men and women of goodwill on all sides do not come together, this will not turn out well. We need to think more and shout less—talk more and stop drawing lines.

We’ve been overtaken by people who act like children. Adults learn how to speak respectfully, listen carefully, and work together. They seek common ground. And if they believe in Jesus, they must also believe in the brotherhood of humanity—that every person we meet is a unique creation of Almighty God, made in the image of God.

We can do better.

Obviously, something has gone terribly wrong with our public life. Not merely politically, but spiritually and morally. We are not just divided; we are discipled by outrage. We have trained ourselves to think in absolutes, to speak in slogans, to sort every human being into neat and hostile categories. If you do not agree with me entirely, you must be against me completely. If you question one plank, you must be loyal to the whole platform of the other side. Nuance is treated as weakness. Thoughtfulness is mistaken for compromise. Silence is assumed to be cowardice.

And yet many people are silent for reasons far more complicated than fear or apathy.

There are thoughtful men and women who do not agree with many things the current administration promotes. They see excesses. They sense drift. They feel concern. But they do not rush to join the loudest voices on the right, because those voices often come bundled with their own forms of blindness and cruelty. In the same way, there are those on the left who remain quiet, not because they lack convictions, but because dissent inside a tribe is punished as harshly as opposition outside it.

We live under an unspoken rule: you must choose a side, and once chosen, you must defend everything your side does, or risk being cast out.

That rule is toxic.

It produces people who no longer think, only react. It creates a culture where disagreement is moralized, where every issue is framed as a final battle between good and evil, and where love for neighbor is sacrificed on the altar of ideological purity. In such an atmosphere, it becomes nearly impossible to say something as simple and sane as this: I agree with some things, I disagree with others, and I refuse to reduce human beings to caricatures.

Take the cultural issues that inflame us most. There are real questions about how we protect the weak, how we define boundaries, and how we cultivate virtue in a confused age. These are serious matters that deserve sober discussion, not mockery or hysteria. It is possible to believe that encouraging certain behaviors is unwise, or that some public expressions cross lines, without hating anyone or denying their dignity. It is also possible to reject cruelty, bullying, and dehumanization without affirming everything done in the name of tolerance.

But our current climate does not reward that kind of careful speech. It rewards volume, certainty, and outrage. So many choose silence, not because they have nothing to say, but because anything short of total alignment is treated as betrayal.

The tragedy is that the loudest voices now shape the narrative, while the most reasonable voices retreat. The result is a public square dominated by extremes, where love is dismissed as weakness and restraint is confused with indifference.

Followers of Christ, especially, must resist this madness. We are not called to be the chaplains of any political machine. We are not commanded to baptize a platform or sanctify a party. We are called to speak truth with humility, to love without qualification, and to refuse the lie that righteousness requires rage. The Word of God does not train us to shout people down; it forms us to bear witness, to exercise self-control, and to pursue peace without surrendering conviction.

The world does not need more partisan fury. It needs moral clarity joined to compassion. It needs people brave enough to say, I will not be owned by either extreme. I will think. I will listen. I will love. I will speak when conscience demands it, and I will remain silent when speech would only add fuel to the fire.

Balance is not cowardice. Reason is not betrayal. Love is not weakness. In an age addicted to outrage, calm faithfulness may be the most radical witness left.

Let me make a proposal—simple, fair, and desperately needed.

If you would speak out against abortion being treated as a casual form of birth control, perhaps others would find the courage to speak out against the mistreatment of immigrants made in the image of God.

If you would raise your voice against drag queens reading stories to children, perhaps others might also raise their voice against the way the current president speaks—how mockery, cruelty, and dehumanizing language corrode the soul of a nation.

If you would speak out against racism—calling it what it is: evil, moral sickness, sin—others might actually listen to you when you speak about your views on culture, politics, or faith. Silence on clear injustice undercuts credibility. You don’t have to adopt slogans or focus on anything other than Christ; you just have to tell the truth. Racism dehumanizes people made in the image of God, and that should never be negotiable for anyone who claims the name of Jesus. When you draw a clear line there, people know where you stand—and they’re far more likely to hear you when you speak about everything else.

Moral concern cannot be selective without becoming hollow. If we expect honesty from others, we must model it ourselves. If we want balance, we must practice it. And if we desire a culture shaped by truth and love, then we must be willing to challenge what is wrong on our own side as readily as we challenge what is wrong on the other.

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Lord Jesus, keep our hearts from hardening and our minds from being captured by anger. Teach us to speak with wisdom, to love without fear, and to stand for truth without losing compassion. Make us peacemakers in a divided land, and let Your Spirit govern our words and our lives. Amen.

BDD