Truth Unites - How Can Christians Disagree Better?

Episode Date: October 5, 2026

Gavin Ortlund shares five practical strategies for navigating disagreement with curiosity, wisdom, love, listening, and persuasion.Get my book, The Art of Disagreeing, here: https://www.amazon.com/Art-Disagreeing-Conversations-disagreement-resolution/dp/1802541403/truthunitesbo-20Truth Unites (https://truthunites.org) exists to promote gospel assurance through theological depth. Gavin Ortlund (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) is President of Truth Unites, Visiting Professor of Historical Theology at Phoenix Seminary, and Theologian-in-Residence at Immanuel Nashville.SUPPORT:Tax Deductible Support: https://truthunites.org/donate/Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/truthunitesFOLLOW:Website: https://truthunites.org/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/truth.unites/X: https://x.com/gavinortlundFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/TruthUnitesPage/

In this video, let's talk about how to conduct disagreements in a way that honors Christ. I think this is a huge issue in our society right now. I just read recently, I mentioned this in my book, The Art of Disagreeing, that Thanksgiving meals are getting shorter because of political disagreements. I thought, what a telling indicator of where society is going. That's harder to even spend as much time with people because of disagreements. But I especially think about for Christians. Many of us have difficult, painful disagreements in our lives with family members, with friends,

with those in our very church. And we know that how we conduct these disagreements bears upon the credibility of the gospel for onlookers. And so we want to do this in a Christ-honoring way, but it's very difficult. This video, hopefully you'll experience this as a pressure release valve, not any sense of judgment or pressure,

rather just practical steps forward. Here are some strategies for how to make some progress in the midst of difficult disagreements. And sometimes you have to play the long game, too, and it's going to be many years of just working at the relationship and so forth. Now, the thumbnail for this video is meant in humor in response to Trent Horn's hilarious thumbnail from last week, but also because I'm going to mention Trent as a great model for how to do disagreements as well as several others, just a little bit in this video.

So let's work through quickly. I'm going to go a little bit off script and just speak from my heart here. Here are five strategies for how we might make progress in honoring Christ in the midst of a disagreement, curiosity, study, kindness, listening, and persuasion. Those last two are the most practical. And at the end, I want to share an illustration from Corey Tinboom that is so moving. I might get choked up when I read it because it's so, it's just the heart of it all, which is the love of Christ flowing through us. But first, very briefly, let's work through some of these. Curiosity. Do you ever think we can be more curious about our disagreements? Years ago, I read a pastor who

responded to critiques of a book he wrote, and he had instead of areas of agreement, areas of disagreement, he had areas of agreement and intriguing. I thought, what a great way to categorize disagreements. Of course, this doesn't work for every disagreement. But as a general habit, it's good to cultivate curiosity about our disagreements. Without disagreements, life would be more boring. Somebody once said, you get married for your similarities, but you stay married for your differences. Disagreements are fascinating. to say, why does that other person genuinely look at this situation differently? The Inklings, which is the literary group that C.S. Lewis and J.R. or Tolkien belonged to,

had a lot of disagreements. I mean, talk about, you know, a Catholic to Protestant disagreement, of course, between Lewis and Tolkien, but even just on literary taste, they had disagreements. And according to George Watson, Lewis valued them and even tried to prolong them. Quote, Lewis did not share the views of friends like Tolkien in matters concerning literature or religion, or not always, but then agreement would have spoiled the game. And Lewis tried in debate to keep disagreement going for as long as he reasonably could and sometimes longer. And then he says, basically what he learned from Lewis is the art of disagreement.

Just picture this, you know, in the pub there, the inklings are gathered around and something has come up. Some difference of literary judgment about a work of literature they're reading together. And Dyson or Tolkien just won't budge. And Lewis is over here and he won't budge. and there's this joyful elevation as they're contending for their points, and there's a twinkle in Lewis's eye and so forth. Handled well, the best of disagreements can be like this.

They can be productive and enjoyable. Of course, they're not always going to be like that. But at the very least, we want to ask, where can we be more curious, especially about kind of the garden variety disagreements we have? Maybe it's a great way to learn. You know, that's a good step to start with. Second of all, study, and what I mean here is studying about the psychology and sociology of disagreement.

So, for example, in the heat of the moment, we will often experience disagreements as annoying. And there's this unpleasant feeling of cognitive dissonance that comes up, and you think, how in the world could they say that? You have this feeling. There's a reason for that in our psychology. Jonathan Haidt has written this fascinating book about our disagreements called The Righteous Mind, how good people are divided on politics and religion. And one of his insights is that we're wired by nature to be very loyal to a tribe. He says, people are groupish.

We love to join teams, clubs, leagues, and fraternities. And he's exploring these social dimensions as well as the role of our intuitions and emotions in our disagreements. Now, none of that removes the fact that somebody's right and somebody's wrong or it's 50-50 or whatever. This doesn't solve the disagreement. but it's helpful to be reflective on our own psychology in the middle of the disagreement. And to realize there's a reason why these feelings come up and we need to be prepared for them

and even just understanding a little bit about different human personalities. And we tend to assume that our way of doing things is the normal way and others' way of doing things is the abnormal way. But in reality, of course, we're all a little different and we handle disagreements differently. So here's just one example. You don't have to really like or agree with this exact example to appreciate the broader principle here. But in social psychology, there's a theory about two contrasting ways people deal with disagreement.

Rhinos are more aggressive and they charge when they're disagreeing with someone. Hedgehogs are more defensive and they use their prickles as a shield. And so these are two animals that have these different behaviors. Here's how one book puts it, just as animals respond differently to attack, so people react differently when hurt and angry. There are two major patterns of behavior, and it would appear that the population is split roughly 50-50. Half of the population are like the rhino. When they are angry, they let you know it. The other half of the population are like the hedgehog. When they feel angry, they hide their feelings. Now, again, maybe you would dispute that. Maybe you'd say, no, it's not 50-50.

That's fine. There's the broader principle here of being aware of our own unique temptations. if you're a rhino, for example, or if you're a hedgehog. Either way, you're going to have unique temptations. Because sometimes godly disagreement means speaking up. Doesn't always mean just being conciliatory. Look at Christ in the Gospels is a great model for us. But knowing our own temptations helps and then knowing that other people will handle the disagreement differently. Not everyone handles disagreements the same way. And just learning about that can be profoundly helpful, not for necessarily resolving things. By the way, also the internet. Just studying how the internet is exacerbating our disagreements is really helpful to know right now

and how the algorithms are preying upon us. And you can see my recent video on the dangers of online apologetics for more on that. Third, and this may be the heart of the video and the main thing I want to say, and that's the role of kindness. Now let me make a qualification here. I'm talking about ordinary garden variety disagreements. None of this is formulaic. All of this is very nuanced and complicated. So let's leave space for the more extreme disagreements, like if you're dealing with an abusive person or a violent person, because I'm going to talk a lot about here open-hearted kindness to other people in the midst of a disagreement. I just want to be clear to make this distinction that that doesn't apply the same way in every situation and in more extreme situations,

it's totally valid to protect yourself. In fact, I think one important discipline is knowing when not to engage. And that is a biblical principle. You see in Titus 3, this idea that after one and two warnings don't continue on in disputes. And there's other warnings in the pastoral epistles about getting into foolish controversies and so forth. Jesus gave this command to his disciples, shaking the dust off your feet in certain situations. So we're not called to be friends equally with everybody. There's a time to protect yourself and not engage. But in the general course of the events and I'm thinking of you're watching this video and with a parent or with a roommate or with another friend or with a person at your church, there's a deep-seated intractable disagreement.

You're trying to figure out how do we make progress on this? I will say the power of kindness to clarify the disagreement is easy to undervalue. As the years go by, I think about this more and more and more. There's something about kindness that not only makes the disagreement more pleasant, but actually makes clearer where the disagreement lies. I often think like, you know, heat and light. So the more heat there is, often the light goes down. And the more angry people get, the harder it is. And pretty soon you're saying, what are we even disagreeing about in this kind of thing, right? And so the simple practice of praying for the person that you disagree with and in your heart, wishing well upon them. Now, I know this is complicated. You may not have an equal relationship

with every person, but you can still do this. To picture that person, if, if God were to work positively in their life. And let's say that if they're not a Christian, God draws them to himself, and let's say that you're now imagining them one million years into heaven. Okay, picture what they would be like. Think of them in that state,

and then in your heart, wish that upon them. That is a great practice for navigating your disagreements. Next time you go into a conversation, pray, think of someone like them, pray them toward that, and then have the disagreement.

In the great novel of Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky. The hero is a 20-year-old young man named Alyosha. He's a very unusual hero because he doesn't do much, in contrast to the more active characters around him. He's very just quiet and receptive. But when all the dust settles, it's what's represented by him that triumphs

and redeems everyone else around him. And what above all stands out about Alyosha is his lack of contempt for others, even in their own wretchedness, he doesn't have disdain and contempt for them. I love the counsel he gets at one point about the power of love. Quote, at some thoughts one stands perplexed, especially at the sight of men's sin, and wonders whether one should use force or humble love. Always decide to use humble love.

If you resolve on that once and for all, you may subdue the whole world. Loving humility is marvelously strong, the strongest of all things, there's nothing else like it. I think sometimes people have the wrong idea about kindness, and they think kindness is weakness. No, loving your enemies, praying for those who persecute you, wishing well upon people, even if you're not engaging with them, you still wish well upon them and pray for them. That is not easy. That is very difficult to do, but it's a powerful way to honor Christ amidst our disagreements. And when you have the sincerity of Alyosha in your heart to not have contempt for people,

it can clarify things over the years. Two ways that we can grow in that. number one is we can avoid, because I know we can't just put that in our hearts. Number one, we can avoid speaking contemptuously about people when they're not around. If you have in your heart towards someone just this rolling of the eyes exasperation with them, and you're constantly venting about them to others. And then when you go to speak to that person, it's going to be hard to switch gears. So if you need to speak negatively of someone, do it in a measured way as is necessary,

not just venting and so forth so that your heart is not poisoned toward them. Second of all, and this is really key in all of our disagreements, give thought to the experiences and above all to the pain or fear that may be underneath the disagreement. And a lot of disagreements, all we see is the tip of the iceberg, and we don't see everything else that's going on underneath. You have no idea what that person may be going through. You know, and it helps you see their humanity, if you remember, they may be profoundly

suffering or profoundly anxious. Maybe not, but just good to remember that and give consideration to that. So I'm just saying in this point, kindness helps our disagreements. And I just want to take a second to give thanks to those who disagree with me, but provide a good model of how to do that. And I could mention so many people here. I mentioned Trent Horn in the thumbnail, and I mentioned him earlier. He's just the one who immediately comes to my mind of someone who, you know, he and I

have deep disagreements. and we've debated each other and gone back and forth over the years, making our cases for where we disagree. Never once. In all of that, have I ever felt a sense of disdain or contempt, or he's trying to poison the well, or he's trying to attack me and tear me down personally and destroy me and this kind of thing? Unfortunately, that happens on the Internet, but I've never felt that from him. On the contrary, he just keeps it on the arguments and so forth, and then after we debate, we still have a good relationship. And I think that's how it can be, and that's a good model for us all. There's so many other people like this that I could mention.

I recently had the honor of going on Matt Frad's podcast, and we talked things through, but he had just written an article offering a critical perspective on praying to the saints, and he had this really insightful dialogue written out. I had the same feeling after reading it. I read this, and I thought, this is how it can be. There's no sense of contempt and disdain and hatred and so forth. It's just, we're just arguing about where we disagree. And there's this sense of kindness and humanity in the disagreement.

And I just think that's a good model for us all. There's so many people I can mention like this. I try to mention a few others, Justin Sheber and I. He and I, he's a, I think, still, I think he'd call himself an atheist. But I remember having our dialogue on divine hiddenness. And I remember thinking, that was just a lot of fun. And it was just the sense of carefully working through things and seeing where we disagree. And I thought, this is how it can be, right?

It doesn't need to have the enmity. In the Eastern Orthodox tradition, Father Stephen DeYoung and I have had numerous discussions about deep-seated disagreements. Never once have I had the feeling from him that he's trying to tear me down personally or discredit me or paint me as this toxic person or these other things that you see out there. Rather, we're just having a professional disagreement working through things. When I was at the marriage conference in California last year with Father Josiah Trenum and many other Eastern Orthodox Christians,

the same thing. There's just this sense of, yeah, we have deep-seated disagreements, but that doesn't need to lead to any enmity or lack of charity and that kind of thing. These are, I'm just mentioning some good models because I want us all to try to aim toward that and conduct our disagreements with charity. Okay, one last point before we move on. Earlier I mentioned, sometimes it's hard to know when to keep engaging with someone and when not to engage. In my book, I give a number of questions to work through that might help us. I'll put them up on the screen. I won't take time to read them through right now.

I'll just say, if you're struggling with knowing, when do you keep on talking, when do you not, these questions might be helpful to consider. And the book, The Art of Disagreeing, goes into that more. All right, let's finish quickly here. Let's talk about two more areas we can make progress in our disagreements. Number four of these five is listening, one of the most undervalued skills.

And this is because disagreement is usually not just about an explicit difference of judgment. it usually relates to a deeper difference of value or experience or presupposition that we don't fully see. And the only way to make progress in really seeing why the other party disagrees so much is to slow down and listen. And so this is how it goes, where in any conversation, you may not fully see things right away and you have to kind of listen and try to draw the other person out and try to make progress and understanding. This is powerfully illustrated in this often cited image that you may have seen where a man is holding onto a woman at the edge of a cliff.

And the man cannot see the snake that is biting the woman's arm. The woman cannot see the boulder that is crushing the man. And so each one is going to be tempted to be exasperated. The man might think, why doesn't she pull herself up? Can't she tell that I'm being crushed? The woman might think, why won't he pull me up? Can't he see? I'm getting bitten.

I'm about to fall. And I suspect something like this can happen in many disagreements where you don't, you're not fully aware of the pain or anxiety or even thought process that's there on the other side, the only way to make progress is to carefully listen. A couple ways we can do this. Number one, we can be patient in arriving on a conclusion. Part of listening is you hang in there a little bit and you don't immediately feel like you have to come to rush to judgment.

James 119 says, be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger. What a great reminder for us in our disagreements. We don't have to immediately have an opinion. We can just hang in there and keep drawing the person out a little bit. A second thing we can do is ask clarifying questions. Sometimes you're in the middle of a disagreement and you realize somehow we've gotten on different wavelengths. And I'm not sure how, but we're just not in sync.

And one helpful way to try to get back on the same wavelength is to ask questions. and especially in a non-adversarial way, like, help me understand this or tell me more about that. I'm curious why you said this over here. And you always need to be sincere in asking these questions, but these kinds of questions can helpfully get you back synced up together. Listening helps, again, clarify where the disagreement even is. Oh, I have a lot more to say about this.

I think I'll just say this last thing, and that's pay attention to the little details of what someone says. careful listening involves embracing complexity and nuance and treating each person on their own. Sometimes a little stray comment will give you enough information to follow up on, and this can result in ministry as well. Let me give a scenario. Somebody mentions that their father is ill, but they don't make a big deal out of it, but you are paying attention to the little details. And so you remember, six months ago, this person also said that their father was ill. Is he ill again? And so you go and you just ask them, hey, I noticed you mentioned. your father was ill. I remember you said that before. Is there anything I can be praying for you about?

This is a great thing you can do even for people who are not followers of Jesus, just offer prayer. And it's amazing the ministry opportunities and the open doors for progress that can come about with little questions like that, noticing, offering prayer. But it starts with noticing the little details. Lastly, number five, let's talk about persuasion. So listening is the more receptive part of a disagreement. Persuasion is the more active part, and it is not wrong. to be persuasive. I've discovered a lot of people feel negatively about persuasion because they associate it with manipulation. And that can happen. But it is not necessarily the case that persuasion is manipulative. You can have a very loving and charitable attempt at persuasion. And the book of Proverbs has a lot to say in praise of persuasive speech. So how do we grow in persuasion? By the way,

most ancient cultures, not in most, many ancient cultures valued rhetoric as an area of study alongside math and history and other things like this. Here's to finish off with two ways we can grow in our persuasion. Number one, trust, and number two, tact. Before I say these, though, let me say persuasion has never been more difficult, I don't think. I recently read an article from the New Yorker called Why Facts Don't Change Our Minds. And it was basically from a study done at Stanford in the 1970s, just documenting how once people have formed an opinion, it's very difficult for facts and data to dislodge that opinion. And the article says, coming from a group of academics in the 1970s, the contention that people can't think straight was shocking. It isn't any

longer. And this has been clarified more and more. And of course, we see this increasing probably today with the role of the internet. It's very difficult to persuade people. And this is the first point I want to make on trust. If you think about how do you build trust with someone, right? In ancient Greek rhetoric, the three skills of persuasion were often broken down into logos, pathos, and ethos. Logos is the content of your speech, how you use logic to influence people. Pathos is your appeal to emotions and your own emotions to try to influence and persuade. Ethos refers to your credibility. It's the overall trustworthiness. Now, all of these are obviously important, but many studies suggest that the most important of these three is ethos.

And this is such a paradigm shift for many of us. If we're trying to make progress in a disagreement, right? We often assume that what will really make the difference is having a stronger argument. Or saying the argument in a more compelling way. But actually, the biggest ingredient in any act of persuasion is simply, is the speaker trusted. Trust is the most important ingredient in all communication. And this is a paradigm shift. If we think about this, we realize, okay, that's, we need to focus on that. Now, obviously, we can't fully control whether other people trust us, but we can do some things to try to

help build that. Acting like Paul in 2.13, 217, being sincere and speaking in the sight of God. I love that metaphor. Speaking in an open and transparent and trustworthy way. When we have lost trust, sometimes being willing to apologize for something can be a way to reestablish trust. Sometimes it really helps to just be very sincere and honest and candid. For example, in a disagreement, it probably won't help trust if you're not being really open about where you're coming from and what your goal is in the conversation. And then just being human, being kind, being honest, being vulnerable, can establish trust over time. Just being aware of that helps us to know trust is key in any act of persuasion. The second thing is tact, which means saying things in a way

that reduces defensiveness and helps the other party save face whenever we can, not making them feel like a deer in the headlights. Now, all of this is complicated. In some disagreements, you have to be more blunt, right? But especially early on, it's worth considering how can we reduce adversarial language. How can we, you know, there's all these ancient figures of speech like this too, like lightities, which is stating a positive in a negative. So it's a form of understatement. Or there's ways of reframing. So if you work in a shoe store and someone is trying on shoes, there's a difference,

a subtle difference, but it is different between saying, your foot is way too big for this shoe versus saying, oh, this shoe is too small for your foot. You see, you're saying the same thing, but the other one subtly puts a little less pressure on the other party. I'm just saying these are the kinds of things you think about, how can I persuade this person? How can I win them over, right? There's all kinds of scenarios I've thought of

and worked through in classes about this, but let me just say, it's not wrong to be diplomatic, and it's not contrary to truth to try to think of the most persuasive and effective way to make your case, provided you're doing it with charity and sincerity. Let me finish, though, with this.

Even when you do your best, and all of us fall short, we are all humble pilgrims, None of us is here saying, oh, our team does disagreement right and you do it wrong. I do it right, you do it wrong. No, no, no. Jesus is our model. We're all humble pilgrims trying to do better.

And this video is trying to just give us some practical steps. But what do you do when you're doing everything you can and you're still facing tremendous hostility from a person? Well, as I say, sometimes you have to set a boundary and protect yourself. But how do you keep your own heart pure before Christ in that moment? And that can be hard, right? It's so hard to keep an alyosha-like purity and lack of contempt when you're facing real hostility. I think the answer, and what I want to leave you with, is radical focus on Jesus.

Spend much time with Jesus. His love is so, it's like gushing out of his heart like this endless waterfall, and it can work through us. We don't have to manufacture the love. We can just collapse at the feet of Jesus, experience his love, and then it will flow through us to others. Let me give an image of that to finish with. Corrie Tinboom, this wonderful Christian, was struggling with forgiveness once, and I won't go into the details of that. It's very tough. But she could not feel forgiveness in her heart for this man, but listen to the answer she found

and let this encourage you. His hand was thrust out to shake mine. This was a man who asked for her forgiveness. And I, who preached so often the need to forgive, kept my hand at my side. Even as the angry, vengeful thoughts boiled through me. I saw the sin of them. Jesus Christ had died for this man. Was I going to ask for more? Lord Jesus, I prayed, forgive me and help me to forgive him. I tried to smile, and I struggled to raise my hand, but I couldn't. I felt nothing, not the slightest spark of warmth or charity. And so again, I breathed a silent prayer. Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give me your forgiveness. As I took his hand, the most increasingly, the most incredible incredible thing happened. From my shoulder along my arm and through my hand, a current seemed to

pass from me to him, while into my heart sprang a love for this stranger that almost overwhelmed me. Here it is. And so I discovered that it is not on our forgiveness any more than on our goodness that the world's healing hinges, but on his. When he tells us to love our enemies, he gives, along with the command, the love itself. And I just want to encourage all of you in situations amidst all the other complexities and nuances of knowing how different situations work and the Lord will give you wisdom with that but underneath it all this is available to us as well you don't need to be strong enough or wise enough just collapse at the feet of Jesus let his love come to your heart first

and then flow through you to others and that is the way we will heal the world thanks for watching everybody let me know what you think in the comments