***This is Part 3 of a series of articles on the necessity of Christian Love in the Political Arena. Here are links to Part 1 and Part 2.***

Who Do You Love? A Dispatch from the Culture War

Shane Windmeyer is the executive director of Campus Pride, an LGBTQ organization that focuses on rights for college students. He is a lifelong advocate who describes himself as “an out, 40-year-old gay man.” Campus Pride began hearing from students who were concerned about Chick-fil-A’s presence on campuses across the nation. The company, of course, has taken a public position in favor of the traditional, one man and one woman, definition of marriage. Chick-fil-A had also donated money to organizations that carried that definition into the political and social realms. Windmeyer decided to organize a Campus Pride campaign against Chick-fil-A.

Dan Cathy is the Chief Operating Officer of Chick-fil-A and the son of the company’s founder, Truett Cathy. Not long after the campaign against his company started, Windmeyer got a phone call from Cathy. He expected to be threatened, intimidated, or, at minimum, asked to cease the effort to damage Chick-fil-A. None of those things happened. The two had an hour long conversation, which led to more phone calls and texts between the two men. At no point did Cathy ask Windmeyer to end Campus Pride’s campaign. Instead, they got to know each other. Windmeyer writes, “throughout the conversations, Dan expressed sincere interest in my life…in return, I learned about his wife and kids and gained an appreciation for his devout belief in Jesus Christ and his commitment to being a ‘follower of Christ.’”

Chick-fil-A was not interested in changing its definition of marriage. Cathy, and the company, viewed that as non-negotiable. At the same time, Chick-fil-A wanted to make sure that, as a corporation, it treated all people with dignity and respect, regardless of their beliefs, including LGBT people. Chick-fil-A shared documents that defined their internal values with Windmeyer, who began to understand that more was at work than definitions of marriage and politics. Windmeyer was equally unwilling to change his basic belief in the viability of same-sex marriage. Instead of parting in a stalemate, the two forged ahead. As Windmeyer recounts:

It is not often that people with deeply held and completely opposing viewpoints actually risk sitting down and listening to one another. We see this failure to listen and learn in our government, in our communities and in our own families. Dan Cathy and I would, together, try to do better than each of us had experienced before.*

Even if Cathy and Windmeyer viewed, at one time, each other as enemies, they transcended what divided them. They talked. They spent time together. They sought to understand each other’s perspective, not only on the issues that separated them, but on areas of commonality. The pair discovered their dispute, or the desire to advocate for political and theological definitions of marriage, should not prevent them from recognizing their shared humanity. “It is about sitting down at a table together and sharing our views as human beings, engaged in real, respectful, civil dialogue.”

The cultural divide that confronts us is so large it feels as if nothing can span it. “No man’s land,” which separates the trenches full of combatants, sprawls to the point that few venture into it. After all, careers, influence, and friendships are destined to die there. Christians are uniquely positioned, and theologically required, to love even those on the other side of issues near and dear to us. We, the living sacrifices, should be the bridges built of love that reach hopefully across whatever separates us.

Bo Diddley, the theologian of our age, who masqueraded as a blues singer and guitarist, had a famous song, “Who Do You Love?” The chorus is a long-running lamentation aimed at an unknown target. “Who do you love? Who do you love? Who do you love?” Christ says that to love those who love you is the norm. God calls us to the divine. “Who do you love?” If our answer to Bo Diddley’s question is something less than “my enemy,” we have fallen short. Christ was thinking of at least a political enemy in his sermon and so should we.

The Culture War necessitates that our enemies are not only political in nature, but they are fellow citizens, neighbors, and family members. Our enemies are progressives or conservatives. They are FoxNews or CNN. They are Rush Limbaugh or Stephen Colbert. They are pro-life and pro-choice. They are same-sex marriage advocates and religious traditionalists. They are lawyers, journalists, professors, and politicians that line up on the other side of the trench. Who do you love?

Do you love Donald Trump and Barack Obama? Clarence Thomas and Elena Kagan? Nancy Pelosi and Paul Ryan? Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer? More personally, do you love your crazy uncle that makes everything political? Do you love your hipster cousin who judges everyone that eats meat? Do you love the grandmother that seems frozen in cultural time? If your love is bifurcated by politics and skewed by ideology, your love is incomplete. It is not godly or Christ-like. Who do you love?

Pondering a question on politics, culture, the Christian life, or really any topic? Submit it to mailbag.bereans@gmail.com! Your question may feature in Matt’s Marvelous Monday Mailbag.

*Shane Windmeyer, “Dan and Me: My Coming Out as a Friend of Dan Cathy and Chick-Fil-A,” Huffington Post (blog), January 28, 2013, https://www.huffingtonpost.com/shane-l-windmeyer/dan-cathy-chick-fil-a_b_2564379.html.