Has Safe Middle Ground Disappeared?

Over the past six months to say that I have struggled with social media and how it has changed us is an understatement.

So listening to a Ted Talk podcast this morning really clarified it for me that my thoughts that being in the middle isn't safe any more.  

He compared social media to the invention of the machine gun which changed warfare forever.  Suddenly it was really important to build a trench and hide there, because if you went outside that one trench and into the middle you were shot at and killed immediately.

Social media has done that, not only to all of humanity, but to the church.   We have found ourselves, regarding every issue, forced to pick one trench or another.  And, should we choose to venture out into the middle, we are shot at by both sides.

But I want to stand in the middle because I believe that is what Jesus would do.  I believe that he could look with compassion into both trenches and understand why they believed what they believed and love them regardless.

I have great fear that as the Church we have forgotten that the only way to convince people that Jesus is who he says he is is to demonstrate the values that he lived out and proclaimed.  Love, mercy, grace, forgiveness and compassion for everyone.

It's not my job to decide who is in and who is out -- who's a sinner and who is not (I'm pretty sure that we are all sinners).   

I keep falling back to Micah 6:8.  My life is too full and too complicated and I have two little energy and time left to try and wrestle with a lot of big issues.   I want to do what is required and leave the rest to God.  According to that verse it is simply three things:

Do Justly.

Love Mercy.

Walk Humbly.

That's it.  It doesn't include all the other stuff.   If I can do those three things I don't need to do the rest.

The tricky part that is I've kinda concluded that it's hard to do those things in either trench and that the more I speak out about the middle, the more risk I take at being shot at by both sides.  

So far it's been my decision to keep most thoughts to myself so I have the energy and the strength to do those three things above.    And the more I think about letting people know that I don't 100% agree with either side, the more I worry about the repercussions.

And so I choose daily to pray for God's guidance to help me to do what is just.   I practice grace and offer mercy to anyone I come in contact with.  And I humbly admit to not having all the answers and when I have opinions about one trench or the other, it's best for me to demonstrate my humility by keeping those thoughts to myself, because people who have chosen a trench aren't going to come out and join me in the middle.

And now I have to decide to be brave enough to post this... and that, my friends, makes me saddest of all.