Quarantine led to an increase of my use of social media–as it did for many around the world. In an effort to connect with others, I created new accounts, learned to use new platforms, and became much more aware of different trends that were taking place worldwide and particularly within evangelical America.

Suddenly, I found myself encountering posts from commentators like Candace Owens and Ben Shapiro as many with whom I grew up found great comfort, clarity, assurance, and direction from their words.

While I found myself angry and responding publicly from a charged place of too much emotion (that regrettably damaged relationships with people I love), I eventually began wondering how I had come to see the world in such a different light than those with whom I had once found myself living in lockstep.

Today, I find myself in a similar place though from a different vantage point.

Once again I find myself surrounded by opinions that wildly differ. There are many I know who revere Charlie Kirk as a man of God who spoke God’s truth while others despise the things he had to say as hate-filled rhetoric. Many I know are antagonistic towards immigrants (both documented and undocumented), while many I know and love are immigrants (both documented and undocumented). Many believe racism is extinct and white privilege is a lie, while many others share stories of harmful, racist things that happened to them and the structural inequities they have faced and fought to overcome.

My fractured world is divided by party, by policy, by race, by religion. But here I push back.

I’m tired of the hate, of the vitriol, of the us and them, the right and wrong.

Yes, many say hurtful things–myself included.

I have made an utter mess as I’ve tried to find my way forward. I have deeply hurt people who mean the world to me, some with whom I’ve reconciled and some with whom I haven’t and perhaps never will. These are scars I will always carry with me.

I spent the first twenty years of my life steeped in evangelical America. The next ten were spent rebelling in liberal academia. The last five have been questioning.

Questioning:

• Why are my world’s so disjointed and separate?
• Must I hate one to be accepted by the other?
• Is there a way I can bring the two together?

There has to be an alternative way to read the world and interact with one another. One that centers love, grace, compassion, empathy, and humanity.

This is my aim. To create a space where we can engage and learn and reflect and grow together. Regardless of where we grew up, of what we believe.

I believe, we can make this world a little better, a little brighter, and little more filled with hope and joy.

Join me, please.

It will hard. It will be messy. And, I believe, it will be worth it.