The American church needs more humility and less politics | Opinion

After I recently published an op-ed in this newspaper about unity and division in the American church, a dear conservative friend sent me a short Instagram video. Their message arrived in all caps: “THIS IS WHAT CHURCH SHOULD LOOK LIKE!!!”

The video showed a packed auditorium. Hands were raised high, as if in worship. On stage stood a speaker before a massive screen — without scripture, without a cross and without words from Jesus — filled instead with photos of Charlie Kirk, an image of Abraham Lincoln and a large American flag. The speaker called for “unity in the church,” while denouncing what was labeled “the idolatry of skin culture in the Black church.”

The message was self-refuting.

There was no olive branch, no invitation to listen and no effort to understand. It illustrated the concern raised in my earlier article: In too many places, Christianity in America has been fused with political branding, “baptized” in either right-wing exceptionalism or left-wing moralism and weaponized for cultural conflict rather than reconciliation.

The speaker was not calling for unity. They were calling for conformity. Conformity is not the unity for which Jesus prayed.

The cultural disconnect we don’t see

Much of the anger in that clip stems from something deeper than politics: Western cultural blindness.

Christians shaped by an individualistic Western worldview often struggle to cognitively process the worldview of Christians shaped by collective identity, including many in the Black church. When a community’s cultural “operating system” goes unrecognized, judgment quickly replaces understanding.

The Western worldview assumes the individual is the primary unit of meaning; that identity is personal, not communal; unity means ignoring race, culture and history; and conflict is solved through abstract universal principles.

By contrast, the Black church, like most cultures across the Global South, operates from collectivism, communal memory, shared suffering, historical consciousness, group identity as sacred and God-given, and scripture interpreted through lived experience.

To the Western mind, race-blindness appears virtuous. In practice, it often erases difference rather than dignifying it. Saying “I don’t see race; I just see people” assumes everyone experiences America the same way. To many who operate in a collectivist lens, it feels like denial.

The Bible’s culture was not individualistic

The world of the Bible was not Western. Jesus, Peter and Paul were Middle Eastern men shaped by collectivist values: identity flowed from the group; honor and shame were public realities; loyalty and belonging were sacred; and community good outweighed individual comfort.

Nearly every New Testament metaphor — body, family, household, nation, people — is collectivist at its core. When Western Christians dismiss collective identity in the Black church, they unknowingly dismiss the cultural world Jesus inhabited.

Perhaps less harshness toward the person shouting from the stage is warranted. The words may have come from cultural ignorance rather than malice. In the West — across universities, seminaries and pulpits — many of us remain unaware of what we do not know.

Cultural blindness carries spiritual consequences. When politics becomes the liturgy and nationalism merges with worship, the humility of Jesus is displaced.

How can people love those they refuse to understand?

A journey through 100 conversations

The most transformative part of my journey has been engaging in what I call my “100 Conversations” — intentional dialogues with Black, Latino and Asian individuals, creating safe spaces simply to listen, like Jesus.

Listening to their stories in humility shifts power away from the listener and restores dignity to the speaker. We don’t just learn about the implicit cognitive processes of others, it also reveals what remains hidden within us.

More than once, these conversations have ended with words I never imagined saying years ago: “As far as someone who looks like me can feel the collective trauma of people who look like you, I just want to say I’m sorry.”

This is not an admission of personal guilt, but an act of shared humanity — a willingness to mourn with those who mourn.

This is where bridges to unity begin. Not in shouting or blaming, but in listening deeply and loving across invisible cultural forces.

When this happens, the gap closes. Healing begins. God is glorified — not in triumphalism, but in the example of the humility modeled by Jesus.

Mark Dahlin is the department chair of Undergraduate Biblical Studies at Epic Bible College and Graduate School and adjunct faculty in the Graduate School of Leadership & Culture at The King’s Seminary.