Society and the mainstream media tries so hard to pit everybody against one another. And they are successful for the most part. Christians must resist this. We must not cave into the cultural pressure of hating those who don’t see things the way we do. Again, we must love those on the other side.

When Jesus told us to love our neighbor as ourselves in Mark 12:31 (and other places), he didn’t mean your literal neighbor. He wasn’t saying, “You need to love those who live next to you, but you can hate those outside your demographic.” Jesus’s call to love our neighbor is a call to love everyone.

Everyone including those who have a different ideology than you.

To preface this, though, we must understand what the word ideology means. Ideology simply refers to “a system of ideas and ideals, especially one which forms the basis of economic or political theory and policy.” Ideology, in one sense, is synonymous with worldview. It’s a way of looking at the world, society, and how we think things should be.

And we are living in a time when our ideological differences are tearing us apart. Divisions are running rampant, strife is wrecking havoc, and relational turmoil is out of control. But it doesn’t have to be that way. As Christians, we can at least do our part of loving those with whom we disagree—even vehemently.

Our culture has lost the art of loving one another even amid disagreement. Most of society says, “If you think differently than me, we can’t be friends.”

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