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Kindness in dialogue is powerful, especially when we are speaking with someone we disagree with.
Kindness opens up not only relational doors but intellectual doors. In other words, it helps us not only to like each other more but to understand each other better.
When we sincerely wish others well, it comes across. People can tell. Similarly, when what is in your heart toward someone is contempt and a “rolling of the eyes” attitude, this also will come across. People usually pick up on what is going on in our hearts as we talk to them. They can feel either our respect or our disdain.
When someone senses that we have goodwill and respect for them, it enables them to lower their defenses and really hear what we are saying. Sincere kindness can therefore help us make progress in a disagreement. It helps unmake caricatures and promote understanding of what the other side is saying. Someone once said, in the context of preaching, that “unless love is felt, the message is not heard.” So it is in our conversations.
Here are five ways to be sincerely kind to someone you disagree with.
The next time you are approaching a conversation you anticipate being difficult, take time to pray for the person with whom you disagree. Get your heart into a place where you genuinely wish them well. Pray earnest blessings on them. Humble yourself before them. Try to lean toward them with genuine openness, showing respect for their dignity and complexity as a person made in the image of God.
This is difficult to do because during a disagreement, we will generally be tempted to place the other party into a category based on the nature of our disagreement—to see them as on the “other side.” We must work actively to remember their humanity and avoid “othering” them. We must seek to avoid despising them no matter what flaws they may have or what our concerns may be.
Avoid speaking contemptuously about the other person to others. It is difficult to switch gears in your heart orientation to someone when you transition from speaking about them to speaking to them. If you speak respectfully about them to others, it is more natural to do so in their presence.
Give consideration to the experiences (and above all the suffering) that may stand behind their disagreement with you. They have not randomly arrived upon their views. Particular events have shaped them. There is often more pain and fear going on in the people around us than we can realize. Bearing this in mind may not change the disagreement, but it can give us more compassion along the way.
Try this out: the next time you are in a difficult conversation, seek with all your heart to wish the other person well while you are talking. The results might amaze you.
In ministry I have often been overwhelmed by the amount of pain in people’s lives. Sometimes the thought comes, “What can I possibly do to help?” In those moments, I have found that offering prayer is an amazingly effective resource.
We don’t need to be sufficient in ourselves. We just commend them to God and ask him to intervene. God can touch people in ways we cannot.
The person with whom you disagree may not be open to you praying for them, or it might feel condescending. But you can still pray for them privately. And I am regularly amazed at how often people are okay with us praying for them, including some who may not even believe in prayer.
In my time when offering to pray for people, I actually don’t recall a single time when someone has rejected the offer. This is a way to show kindness even when you disagree.
People need encouragement more than we are likely to notice.
Sometimes, we simply forget to encourage people. At other times, we are with people who appear successful or confident, and we don’t realize that they still need encouragement.
It helps to have an intentional plan. A simple step, like a planned daily or weekly text message of encouragement, can go a long way.
In fact, as I have practiced this in my own life, I have been amazed at how frequently someone writes back by saying something like “This came at exactly the right time” or “I really needed to hear that today.” I’ve concluded that most people, most of the time, need encouragement.
When you have a disagreement with someone, speak encouraging words and see how it might open up doorways.
As you practice these ways of being sincerely kind to someone you disagree with, join me in praying: “Jesus, give us wisdom to know what kindness looks like and strength to show kindness to everyone, no matter what we are facing!”
This article is adapted from Chapter 1 of The Art of Disagreeing by Gavin Ortlund. Please note another section of this chapter covers what kindness looks like when you are met with malice. Learn more about how to disagree with courage and kindness like Jesus, avoiding divisive arguments, here.
Gavin Ortlund is a pastor, author, speaker, and apologist. He serves as President of Truth Unites and Theologian-in-Residence at Immanuel Nashville. Gavin is the award-winning author of Why God Makes Sense in a World That Doesn't, The Art of Disagreeing, and Finding the Right Hills to Die On. A fellow of The Keller Center for Cultural Apologetics, Gavin is married to Esther and they have five children.
