Years ago a friend and I would greet people at our church and tease friends who would show up with their shirts tucked in or be semi-dressed up for church.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We\u2019d often welcome them to church and ask what they were dressed up for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sometimes we would even untuck their shirts for them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My wife called me out on it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She helped me understand what was really happening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By telling people they shouldn\u2019t dress nice for church, we were becoming the same dress code police we had grown tired of in other churches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We were telling people like herself, who often enjoyed dressing up, that they weren\u2019t really welcome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We were enacting the same inhospitality that we disliked seeing elsewhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I see the same thing happening around me today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
People are writing others off because they don\u2019t adhere to the same strict beliefs as others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Maybe you\u2019ve seen it too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The coworker who sees your disagreement as disloyalty. The progressive who dismisses anyone using the wrong terminology. The conservative who questions someone\u2019s faith over political disagreements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By definition, fundamentalism isn\u2019t just holding strong beliefs\u2014it\u2019s requiring others to perform agreement with those beliefs to earn your acceptance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fundamentalism isn\u2019t just about what rules you believe \u2014 it\u2019s about insisting others follow your rules to belong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You can believe something is absolutely true and still create space for disagreement, questions, and dialogue. The problem isn\u2019t your conviction (even if I may entirely disagree with it) \u2014 it\u2019s the forced coercion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The challenge is taking a step back and being honest enough to say, \u201cI don\u2019t see it that way, and I believe I\u2019m right about this\u2014but help me understand how you came to see it differently.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2026and then really listening, not to surrender truth, but to love the person in front of you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A friend once said something about someone that stuck with me, \u201cI know he doesn\u2019t agree with me and my choices, but I know he loves me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In our politically charged environment, I hope that can continually be said of me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Years ago a friend and I would greet people at our church and tease friends who would show up with their shirts tucked in or be semi-dressed up for church. We\u2019d often welcome them to church and ask what they were dressed up for. Sometimes we would even untuck their shirts for them. My wife … Continue reading The Fundamentalist<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-misc"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pEnSo-3IX","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/84"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14319"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14319\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14320,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14319\/revisions\/14320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}