The danger of making someone “the other” is not only what it does to them, but what it does to us, writes Alberta journalist Dan Veeneman. Jesus calls Christians to a better way.
It began in an ordinary living room. A group of friends sat together, relaxed and familiar, until someone mentioned a political issue that had filled the news that week. The shift that followed was subtle but unmistakable. Conversation slowed. People measured their words. Someone gently steered the topic elsewhere. Nothing dramatic happened, yet the room felt different.
What had been a space of ease became a space of quiet caution. As I walked away that evening, I found myself wondering how easily we now step back from one another when disagreement appears. It has become so natural that most of us hardly notice we are doing it.
With us or against us
Moments like that have become common enough that they rarely surprise us anymore. Increasingly, disagreement carries relational risk. Psychologists often describe this tendency as dichotomous or binary thinking, a way of interpreting the world through opposing categories such as right and wrong or us and them. While this approach can feel efficient, it oversimplifies complex realities and leaves little room for nuance or curiosity. When people are sorted into “with us” or “against us,” it becomes easier to focus on difference rather than shared humanity, easier to withdraw rather than engage, and easier to judge rather than listen. Once someone becomes “the other,” distance feels justified and even prudent.
Binary thinking may feel tidy, but its consequences are anything but. By reducing complex issues to extremes, it discourages curiosity and stifles creativity. It limits our ability to explore root causes or imagine solutions that do not fit neatly into pre-existing categories. Researchers studying affective polarization have shown that this pattern does more than harden opinions. It deepens emotional hostility and erodes trust between groups, even when disagreements are relatively narrow. Over time, people become more invested in defending their side than in understanding the issue itself. Dialogue gives way to posturing, and relationships begin to fracture under the weight of certainty.
The danger of making someone “the other” is not only what it does to them, but what it does to us. Once a person has been reduced to a category, their story no longer matters. Their motivations are assumed. Their complexity is flattened. At the same time, the one doing the othering becomes less open and less capable of empathy. Cognitive psychology has long identified confirmation bias, the tendency to seek information that reinforces existing beliefs while dismissing anything that challenges them. Over time, this habit reshapes not just how we think, but who we are. We become quicker to retreat, slower to listen, and more comfortable with distance than with discomfort.
The church, of course, does not stand outside this cultural moment. Christians inhabit the same media environments, absorb the same headlines, and carry the same fears. Dichotomous thinking can take hold when theological disagreements are reduced to loyalty tests. Christians who interpret Scripture differently, belong to another denomination, or approach complex moral questions with caution are sometimes treated as suspect or unfaithful. I have felt this tension personally, watching conversations stall or relationships strain not because faith was absent, but because difference felt dangerous. When believers begin categorizing one another as insiders or outsiders, the body of Christ suffers. Unity gives way to suspicion, and fellowship becomes conditional.
A different way
Against this cultural drift the New Testament offers a radically different set of instincts. Jesus gives his disciples a striking command: “A new command I give you. Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another” (John 13:34). He goes on to say that this mutual love will be the defining marker through which the world recognizes his followers (John 13:35).
Paul picks up this theme through a constellation of “one another” instructions that anchor the life of the early church. Believers are called to “be patient, bearing with one another in love” (Ephesians 4:2), to “forgive one another as the Lord forgave you” (Colossians 3:13), to “encourage one another” (1 Thessalonians 5:11), to “serve one another” (Galatians 5:13), and to “carry each other’s burdens” (Galatians 6:2). These commands are not meant to decorate Christian life. They are meant to form it. They describe a posture that refuses to treat fellow believers as strangers or rivals and instead insists that we belong to one another because we belong to Christ.
Christian thinkers have echoed this concern across disciplines. Henri Nouwen warned against either-or thinking that leaves no room for mystery or grace. N. T. Wright, in his book How God Became King, has argued that Christian faith is not a choice between extremes but a call to live fully human lives shaped by God’s restorative work. More recently, Darcy Harris, a scholar examining religious polarization, has shown that religious identity itself can become a tool for division when it is shaped primarily by cultural conflict rather than theological commitment. These insights help explain why churches can so easily mirror the divisions of the world around them.
These tensions were visible during Synod 2023, the annual gathering of the Christian Reformed Church in North America, where discussions surrounding the Human Sexuality Report dominated the agenda. Delegates held strong convictions on multiple sides, yet many found little space for those who did not fit neatly into “for” or “against” categories. Listening often felt strategic rather than receptive. On an issue as complex and deeply personal as human sexuality, binary thinking limited understanding and made it easier to see fellow believers as positions rather than people.
The contrast between othering and one anothering could not be more stark. Othering moves us toward distance. One anothering moves us toward engagement. Othering interprets difference as danger. One anothering interprets difference as an opportunity for patience and understanding. Othering sees people as categories. One anothering sees them as image bearers.
The culture tells us to protect our own and distrust the unfamiliar. Jesus tells us to love as He loved, which includes people who disappointed Him, misunderstood Him and opposed Him. Paul teaches that unity comes not from sameness but from shared belonging to Christ. In this way every “one another” command becomes a quiet act of defiance against the instinct to divide.
People over positions
Living this way rarely begins with dramatic gestures. It begins with choosing to see people rather than positions, with asking questions rather than assuming motives, with giving the benefit of the doubt rather than drawing quick conclusions. It begins with remaining present in conversations that feel uncomfortable and with practising forgiveness before resentment takes root. It begins with carrying burdens that do not belong to us because love makes room for the weight another person cannot carry alone. These habits do not remove disagreement, but they keep disagreement from becoming distance. They train us to stay connected even when unity feels costly.
Congregations that adopt these habits learn that unity is not the absence of conflict but the ability to remain together in the midst of it. Imagine a community where members feel free to speak honestly without fear of being shunned, where differences are acknowledged without being weaponized and where reconciliation is pursued as part of ordinary life. Such a congregation would be striking in a culture accustomed to fracture. It would not be perfect, nor would it be simple, but it would be compelling precisely because it embodies a way of being that runs counter to the instincts shaping the world around us.
The wider cultural moment only makes this more urgent. Analysts speak of rising distrust in institutions, a public square shaped increasingly by grievance and a society in which belonging is often constructed by who we stand against rather than who we stand with. When these forces seep into the life of the Church, the “othering” instinct becomes not only a cultural problem but a spiritual one. It distracts us from the teachings of Christ, distorts our relationships and diminishes our witness. The Church must resist the temptation to mirror the world’s patterns. It must choose the more difficult path outlined in Scripture, the path that insists that followers of Jesus are not defined by who they oppose but by how they love.
This brings us to a hard but necessary question. In our conversations, our relationships, our online interactions and our church communities, are we shaped more by the instinct to create “others” or by the command to create “one anothers”? The answer is not always comfortable. If we are honest, many of us will find that we have drifted toward the easier pattern, the pattern that demands little and costs little. The “one another” life is harder. It requires humility, patience, forgiveness and sacrifice. But it is also the life that most clearly reflects the heart of Christ.
Perhaps this is the moment to take these commands seriously again. Not as ideas to admire but as practices to embody. Not as ideals for the spiritually advanced but as instructions for the everyday Christian. If the world is content to divide, the Church cannot be. If the culture is content to create “others,” the people of Christ must insist on creating “one anothers.” And if we are willing to let that vision reshape our instincts, our relationships and our communities, then the witness of the Church will not only speak but shine. The question is whether we will choose the harder way, the way that costs something, the way that requires us to lay down the habit of othering while we take up the work of love. The choice is ours to make, and the world is watching how we make it.
Dan Veeneman is a writer in St. Albert, Alta. Photo of Toronto crowd: @iandotphotos on Unsplash.