In high school, I was on the debate team.
I loved it so much it was worth handing over a few cool points.
I’ll never forget when my English teacher, Mr. Mitchell, recruited me, “you’re smarter than you think you are.”
Some teachers change everything, don’t they?
I loved debate, and when you were assigned a topic, you were charged with learning everything you could about it so that—and this is huge—you could argue either side.
Our job was to obtain an understanding that was bigger than the binary of conservative or liberal because we never knew which side we’d have to defend.
And when you hold political issues with an open hand and a greater understanding, something radical happens…
You empathize with people all along the spectrum of political opinion.
High school debate kids know that the biggest difference in opinion has more to do with someone’s personal experience than any other factor.
If you were raised by a single mother who worked hard but couldn’t afford a full month of groceries without assistance, that experience likely formed your opinion about government support.
If your dad took you out to shoot guns every weekend so that you could spend quality time together, your past experience probably affects your current opinions about gun control.
Debate kids know that people’s politics have more to do with experience and exposure rather than right or wrong.
When you trace someone’s beliefs back far enough, it makes sense why they landed where they did.
Without realizing it, we were collecting the building blocks for becoming peacemakers in an era of extreme political polarization.
In modern politics, this understanding doesn’t exist because the political binary is what sells.
And we’re being sold every day.
When you turn on the news or scroll social media, you’re being sold how wrong someone else is, how afraid you should be of their ideas, and how unworthy they are of your respect because of how they identify politically.
Instead of being informative, political commentary has become entertainment that gets clicks and views.
And when a something makes money, we do it 1000x because we really like money.
We’re being sold someone to blame, to fear, and to hate because there are people who need you to keep reading, scrolling, and tuning in to make money.
But the role we’re supposed to play is clear in Matthew 5:8:
Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called children of God.
It’s safe to say that our news media is not cultivating or training up a generation of peacemakers.
And yet, as Christians and people of faith, we consume and identify with it anyway.
As debate kids, we didn’t condemn people for their opinions.
After all, we had to understand why someone had those opinions, and we had to practice this understanding every time we stepped up to the podium.
We had the rare ability to disagree while still validating and respecting someone.
This understanding left very little room for hostility, judgement, fear, hate, or exclusion.
If high school kids can come to understand that political issues aren’t black and white because people and their politics are more complex than that…
Why can’t adults do the same?
How did we—adults with fully formed brains and all of the information in the world in our hands—end up in such a hateful, polarized place?
How can we change this and be peacemakers at a time when they’re desperately needed?
We need to move towards understanding and empathy with the knowledge that how someone ended up with their opinions is how I ended up with mine.
We lived, and we decided.
And while all of this gets a little foggy as hateful statements are made from political leaders, remember our leaders benefit from the political binary too.
They perpetuate the hate and distrust because it helps them get re-elected.
But people aren’t every opinion of the politician they vote for.
They are still people.
So rather than hating a group because of their vote, refrain from unhelpful labels and broad generalizations, and start conversations with your loved ones—in person or on the phone, not on text or social media—instead.
It’s not your job to judge the millions of voters you’ve never met anyway.
In a world where we have more one-on-one conversations, we all become a bit more moderate.
And in moderation, peace can be made.
So how do we live as peacemakers in matters of politics?
We refuse to demonize anyone with a different set of values.
We detach from our own opinions enough to learn about what we don’t understand.
And finally, when we can hold differing opinions with people while still validating their experiences and values, we’ll know we’ve come full circle.
Try it, and you’ll see.
The next time you engage someone with whom you disagree, that spark of love, cultivated through understanding and empathy, will drown out the hate you’ve been sold.
This is how we make peace in politics:
We refuse to make an enemy out of the people we’re called to love.
Love is the answer yet again.
Who would’ve guessed.