“I just can’t get past that.”

I recently heard a story that has refused to leave me.

It came from Tim Burchett, who was reflecting on relationships across political lines—specifically, relationships with people whose politics are not merely different from his, but fundamentally opposed. Burchett spoke about working alongside Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, despite what he described as extreme ideological differences.

But the story that stopped him mid-thought—and stopped me cold—was about another member of Congress from Tennessee: Stephen Cohen.

If you know anything about their public records, Burchett and Cohen could hardly be further apart politically. They represent the same state, but they occupy entirely different ideological worlds.

When Burchett’s father died, Cohen called Burchett’s mother.

Not publicly.
Not strategically.
Not for effect.

He called simply to offer condolences.

Burchett paused as he told the story and said, “I just can’t get past that.”

Neither can I.

Because that single, ordinary act—a phone call—cuts directly against nearly everything our culture teaches us about enemies.

Why This Feels so Disruptive

We live in a moment when disagreement has become moral contamination. To associate with the “wrong” people can feel risky. To show compassion across ideological lines can feel disloyal. Empathy has become conditional—offered only after agreement, or at least alignment.

We have learned to curate our relationships, our grief, and even our kindness. We are careful about who deserves it.

So when someone reaches out in tenderness to the family of a political opponent, it doesn’t register as noble. It feels confusing. Even inappropriate.

And yet—for Christians—this should not be confusing at all.

Jesus Was Not Speaking Figuratively

“Love your enemies.”
“Pray for those who persecute you.”
“Do good to those who hate you.”

Jesus does not qualify these commands. He does not limit them to private sentiment or internal attitude. He speaks of love as something enacted—embodied in real, inconvenient actions.

The Good Samaritan does not change his enemy’s mind. He crosses the road.
Jesus does not wait for repentance before extending mercy. He moves first.
The apostle Paul reminds the church that while we were still enemies, Christ reconciled us to God.

Enemy-love, as Jesus describes it, is not polite. It is costly. It risks misunderstanding. It refuses to let hostility set the terms of our response.

The early Anabaptists took Jesus at his word.

Turning Back – and Moving Forward

In 2006, a gunman entered an Amish schoolhouse in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania. He shot ten young girls, killing five, before taking his own life.

Within hours—hours—members of the Amish community did something that stunned the nation.

They went to the shooter’s family.
They attended his funeral.
They embraced his widow.
They established a fund not only for their own children’s families, but for his.

This was not forgiveness after healing.
It was forgiveness as the beginning of it.

The Amish did not explain themselves with press releases or theological treatises. When asked why they responded the way they did, their answer was disarmingly simple: this is what Jesus taught them to do.

This response did not erase grief. It did not minimize harm. It did not deny the reality of evil. It simply refused to let violence have the final word.

For the Anabaptist tradition, this kind of love is not exceptional—it is faithful. Like Dirk Willems, who turned back on the ice to save the guard pursuing him. Like Michael Sattler, who prayed for his executioners. Like generations of believers who understood that enemy-love is not theoretical. It is practiced in real time, under real pressure, with real cost.

The Question That Won’t Let Go

Stories like these linger because they confront us with a question that is difficult to answer honestly:

When was the last time you picked up the phone to console the loved one of someone you consider an enemy?

Not someone who mildly disagrees with you.
Not someone you find irritating but tolerable.

An enemy.

Someone whose words make your pulse quicken.
Someone whose worldview you find threatening.
Someone you would rather avoid, dismiss, or write off.

To reach out in that moment—to acknowledge grief without condition or caveat—is a profoundly disruptive act in our present climate.

It is also unmistakably Christian.

But What About Small Towns Like Ours?

At this point, many of us quietly object.

We don’t live in Washington.
We’re not surrounded by ideological diversity.
Everyone around here more or less thinks the same.

And yet, that sameness often exists not because difference is absent—but because it is unsafe.

In many small towns, people who hold minority political views, different theological convictions, or complicated stories have learned to stay quiet. They keep their heads down. They participate cautiously. They do not bring their full selves into public view.

Which means enemy-love in these contexts does not start with dramatic gestures. It starts with making room.

We Keep Looking for the Wrong Kind of Answer

Much of our frustration right now comes from this simple mistake:
we are looking for a political answer to political division, an ideological answer to ideological fracture, and a strategic answer to cultural hostility.

And none of those tools can heal what they helped create.

Politics cannot cure what is, at its root, a formation problem.
Ideology cannot repair what has been broken at the level of love.
Winning arguments cannot resurrect relationships.

So long as we keep searching for the solution in the same categories that produced the division, we will remain stuck—angrier, louder, and more convinced that the next right position or policy will finally fix things.

Jesus offers a different way entirely.

Stop Fixating. Start Imitating

Jesus does not instruct his followers to out-argue their enemies.
He does not command them to defeat, expose, or shame them.
He does not say, “Love those who are reasonable.”

He says: Love your enemies.

Which means the call before us is not to think better thoughts about the people we disagree with—but to actively become Jesus to them.

Not in theory.
Not in tone.
Not in branding.

In practice.

The work of the Christian is not to focus endlessly on politics, ideology, and divisiveness, but to focus relentlessly on loving the people those forces have taught us to fear, dismiss, or resent.

Love the Ones You Struggle Most to Love

If enemy-love feels abstract, you’re probably not aiming it where Jesus aimed it.

Jesus is not asking us to love “people in general.”
He is asking us to love specific people—the ones we struggle most to love.

The neighbor whose assumptions offend you.
The relative whose opinions feel dangerous.
The community member whose presence makes church feel complicated.

These are not obstacles to Christian discipleship.
They are the location of it.

Loving these people does not require agreement.
It does not require endorsement.
It does not require silence about conviction.

It requires refusing to let disagreement cancel dignity.

This is How the Church Bears Witness

The local church will not heal division by becoming more ideologically refined or more culturally savvy. It will bear witness by becoming more Christlike.

That witness will not always feel productive.
It will often feel inefficient.
It may even feel like losing.

But this is how the church has always been most faithful:
by showing the world a love that cannot be explained by self-interest.

A love that moves toward instead of away.
A love that listens before it speaks.
A love that shows up for grief even when agreement is impossible.

A love that looks suspiciously like a phone call no one expects.

Start Where Jesus Started

If we are serious about following Jesus, the call to action is not complicated—but it is demanding.

Stop searching for ideological solutions to spiritual problems.
Stop fixating on the forces that divide us.

Start actively looking for ways to be Jesus to those you disagree with.
Start intentionally loving the people you find hardest to love.

Not someday.
Not when it feels safe.
Now.

In a world trained to escalate, the church de-escalates.
In a culture obsessed with sides, the church chooses people.
In a time of division, the church practices love—not as sentiment, but as obedience.

This is not naïve.
It is not weak.

It is the narrow way.


Respectfully Submitted,
Patrick Sprague
Member, North Central Regional Leadership Team