Not in It to Win It: Why Choosing Sides Sidelines The Church

by Andy Stanley

Fundamental attribution error describes our tendency to attribute people’s behavior to their character, while attributing our behavior to our circumstances

One ugly reality about hating your political opponents is that you start off hating their vices and end up hating their virtues as well. In your contempt, you begin to believe that everything about them is wrong, even their insights and practices that could improve you.

Instead of forming uninformed opinions or perpetuating one-dimensional caricatures, we are to take cues from our Savior, who surrounded himself with all kinds of people. Real people. Complex people. People like you. Like me.

Are you willing to follow Jesus if doing so requires you to reject portions of your party’s platform?

But if we’re unwilling to compromise politically, we will compromise our faith eventually.

The church reduced becoming a child of God to believing something. Jesus didn’t. Jesus equates it with doing something. According to Jesus, our heavenly Father would like for us to behave like him, not just believe in him.

As long as we’re content to be believers rather than doers, we will be divided. Reducing faith to a list of beliefs provides us with plenty of margin not to love, forgive, provide for, celebrate, and pray for people we disagree with. Reducing faith to a list of beliefs frees us to slander people we don’t align with politically. It gives us license to mock, jeer, and celebrate the failure of people whose views differ from ours. If your version of Christianity leaves the door open to those behaviors, you’re nothing like your Father in heaven. And you’re nothing like his Son.

You are an instrument of disunity. You are working for the enemy.

You are contributing to the very thing Jesus prayed we would avoid. If someone’s political views make their feet too dirty for you to wash, you can be sure your pol...

If what was most important to Jesus is not most important, or at least somewhat important, to us . . . we’re probably not followers. Users perhaps. But not followers.

As it relates to the influence of the church, our nation’s challenges do not stem from the church’s inability to convince unbelievers to behave like believers. Our challenges stem from the church’s inability to inspire believers to behave like believers.

We’ve been so focused on not substituting works for faith that many of us have quit working.

Authentic faith does stuff.

The division currently tearing churches, friends, and families apart isn't fueled by a lack of respect for our infallible text. Division begins with our less-than-infallible applications of the text.

Someone with an unhealthy craving for controversy can always convince himself that he’s a warrior for Christ—instead of a captive to his passions.