Polarisation has turned politics into a battlefield where opponents are not just wrong but evil. We need to recover respect, humility, and the courage to talk across our divides.

I know I’m not alone in this, and am not saying anything that many others haven’t already said, and far more eloquently than I can. But I felt the need to write something because I have spent the last week so saddened, sickened, and distressed.

Like many in what can feel like the muddled middle, I increasingly despair at the deepening polarisation of the last fifteen years or so that has swept through the US, the UK, and across much of the West. Political disagreements are nothing new — people have always argued and insulted their opponents. But something has definitely shifted in our time. Increasingly, those we disagree with are not just wrong, they are evil.

The right are branded as Nazis and fascists. The left are branded as communists and terrorists. Scroll through social media and you find each side deriding and demonising the other, as though no one across the divide is worth listening to.

Alongside this demonisation runs a dangerous oversimplification: the belief that complex problems can be solved with neat ideological ‘package deals.’ If you lean left, you are expected to sign up to progressive taxation, LGBTQ+ rights, an expansive welfare state, more open borders, opposition to Israel, and a commitment to net zero. If you lean right, the package is lower taxes, limited government, suspicion of welfare, tough immigration policies, nationalism, law and order, scepticism about climate change, and support for Israel no matter what. This is just one version of the deals but I think they are fairly typical.

But where does that leave those of us who do not fit neatly into either package? I often feel myself caught between the deals of the ‘woke’ left and the populist right. I cannot embrace either entirely, and don’t want to. There are areas where I sympathise with progressives and areas where I agree with conservatives. But aren’t most people like that? Maybe I’m naïve, but don’t most people have something of a hybrid response to the complex social and political challenges we face in our world? I suspect that the so-called ‘silent majority’ that both right and left want to claim for their side are like that. They are neither anti-immigrant nationalists nor radical cultural warriors, but ordinary citizens who can see wisdom and blind spots on both sides. They realise that politics is about the art of the possible and the hard work of compromise, trying to find a way forward between the absolutism of right and left. But this is not a muddled middle; it is an open middle. Open to conversation, open to deeper understanding, open to change our minds, open to find a way forward together, while still holding to our fundamental beliefs.

In the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s killing, I have been reflecting on these things, and become deeply distressed at times. I didn’t follow him closely, and am unclear on all his views. But I know he was a Christian and that there are areas where we would have agreed: the importance of family, the value of fatherhood, the dignity of the unborn child, and the positive influence of Christianity on Western civilisation, for example. I am also sure we would have disagreed on many areas. I cannot embrace Christian nationalism at all, and I have serious questions about the ‘Seven Mountains’ vision. Not because I am a soft liberal leftie, but because I have a different and deeply considered belief about how the kingdom of God relates to the world in this present age. From my Anabaptist leanings, I do not believe the church is called to dominate the culture but to serve as a creative minority, changing the world through loving, gradual, and often hidden influence – not through control or grasping for power. This is the perspective behind A Different Kingdom. Charlie Kirk and I would have had very different views on these things. I found some of what he said quite shocking and disturbing – but I don’t think he was evil! And I don’t think he should have been silenced by a gun!

One thing I understand Kirk emphasised is something I affirm wholeheartedly: we must keep talking across our divides. ‘It is when we stop talking and listening to one another that violence happens.’ I understand that this is something he said and, with a bitter and sad irony, he was proved only too right by what happened to him last week.

It seems to me that it has never been more important to learn to disagree agreeably, to engage in courteous and respectful conversation. To practice civil discourse. I want to learn better to listen to those I disagree with carefully and respectfully. I want to be willing to change my mind if I realise I am wrong, and to stand firm where I remained convinced I am right — but always with humility (I may still be mistaken) and grace (because honouring the person is more important than winning the argument). This is the way of the open middle.

Surely Christians should be leading the way in bringing such humility and grace back into the public square. And yet sadly my social media feed immediately after the killing of Kirk suggests this is not the case for many who continue to deal in demonisation – both from the Christian left and right. It has been depressing to see.

One bright spot among the awful feed was a wise and sensitive reflection by Graham Tomlin on the rage in our culture that leads to such political violence, a rage that is is actually encouraged by our mainstream and social media – perhaps we can start by doing something about that. I also appreciate the work of Unbelievable? who for years now have brought together people of opposing views to have civil conversations. Krish Kandiah and Os Guiness recently modelled this in relation to Charlie Kirk and dangers of this cultural moment in the West. Krish Kandiah is an excellent example of someone who seeks to engage in respectful conversation with those he disagrees with.

As I have reflected over the last few days, W B Yeats’ famous line has comes to mind: “The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.” It seems Kirk’s killer had become driven by such hateful intensity. Others on the far right are too. And some of my friends think my centrism is naïve at best when the issues we face are so vital and require passionate conviction not just conversation.

Perhaps those of us in the ‘muddled middle’ do lack conviction. I hope not. I hope we do hold to at least a few deep convictions: that every person, even the one we fiercely disagree with, deserves respect; that freedom of thought and speech are precious gifts to be guarded; that civil discourse is essential for a healthy democracy; that we must find ways for people of different beliefs to live and dialogue together in peace. We do this by remaining open to listen and talk to one another.

Nietzsche warned: “He who fights with monsters should take care lest he thereby become a monster.” Our opponents are not monsters. But when we demonise them as such, we risk becoming monsters ourselves.

Charlie Kirk was not a monster. He may have been a controversial and provocative commentator. But he was also a Christian brother, a husband, a father, a son, a friend to many. People grieve his loss. That human truth matters more than our political differences, however passionately felt.