Does your political affiliation keep you from friendships?

[ilovejcsog]

I have a hard time understanding those who choose friends or dispose of them based on their party affiliation. Help me understand what their affiliation has to do with what is inside them. Love, kindness, sympathy, character, honor? Does that hold true with Christians? Does their political affiliation keep them from Christians that are opposites politically?

 

[bekkilyn]

I have a hard time understanding those who choose friends or dispose of them based on their party affiliation. Help me understand what their affiliation has to do with what is inside them. Love, kindness, sympathy, character, honor? Does that hold true with Christians? Does their political affiliation keep them from Christians that are opposites politically?

Nope, I have friends and family whom I love on all sides of the political spectrum. I typically avoid talking politics with them though, and limit any debate to appropriate places on the internet, such as political forums.

I'm personally of the mind that our loyalty needs to be for Christ rather than a political party, as we are primarily citizens of God's Kingdom and only his ambassadors while here on earth. To put a political party or person above God is idolatry. To put a nation or country above God is idolatry.

 

[Phil 1:21]

Not at all, but I tend to avoid people consumed by hate.

 

[Newtheran]

I have a hard time understanding those who choose friends or dispose of them based on their party affiliation. Help me understand what their affiliation has to do with what is inside them. Love, kindness, sympathy, character, honor? Does that hold true with Christians? Does their political affiliation keep them from Christians that are opposites politically?

What party you are affiliated with is a fairly strong indicator of what you believe and how you live. Why is it that you find it difficult to believe that people wpud choose friends on this basis?

If you oppose me politically, here are some of the things you support: Sharia law, sodomy, abortion, illegal immigration, socialism. While I recognize that Christians can disagree with me on certain issues, it is clear to me that these aren't among them.

 

[bekkilyn]

What party you are affiliated with is a fairly strong indicator of what you believe and how you live. Why is it that you find it difficult to believe that people wpud choose friends on this basis?

If you oppose me politically, here are some of the things you support: Sharia law, sodomy, abortion, illegal immigration, socialism. While I recognize that Christians can disagree with me on certain issues, it is clear to me that these aren't among them.

Those evil, no good, dirty Samaritans! Surely God hates them just as much as we do!

 

[ilovejcsog]

.I think you can miss out on a lot of good people if that is how you choose friends. Why not find the goodness in people and then choose if they don't meet your expectations? Diversity is the spice of life. Personally, the thought of having friends that are just like me is boring among other negative things You also learn a lot more from people that are different then you. To each his own. I just don't understand that kind of close mindedness.

 

[bekkilyn]

.I think you can miss out on a lot of good people if that is how you choose friends. Why not find the goodness in people and then choose if they don't meet your expectations? Diversity is the spice of life. Personally, the thought of having friends that are just like me is boring among other negative things You also learn a lot more from people that are different then you. To each his own. I just don't understand that kind of close mindedness.

Indeed, and we have to remember that when Jesus chose his disciples, he chose both Matthew (Levi) who was one of those vilified Jewish tax collectors for Rome, and Simon the Zealot, who as a Zealot believed that Rome needed to be completely driven out of their land. Two disciples on two completely different sides of the political spectrum. Now why would that be if one side was as completely evil as the other side believed them to be?

 

[The Barbarian]

One of my friends, I met on a forum like this. Every time we interacted, it was combat. A few years ago, we managed to meet with our wives for lunch. It went great. We are now friends. He's a Trump supporter.

Doesn't matter. I like him. He apparently likes me.

 

[Maria Sweet]

I have a hard time understanding those who choose friends or dispose of them based on their party affiliation. Help me understand what their affiliation has to do with what is inside them. Love, kindness, sympathy, character, honor? Does that hold true with Christians? Does their political affiliation keep them from Christians that are opposites politically?

I consider my political views to be center-right. I vote Republican, but I don’t identify as one. Even though I’m a moderate conservative, I’ve had plenty of friends who are liberals. We may disagree on politics, but we can still be friends, right? Consider this: how boring would the world be if everyone thought the same, acted the same, and believed the same? It’s precisely our diversity of views that makes the world a more interesting place.

 

[The Barbarian]

What party you are affiliated with is a fairly strong indicator of what you believe and how you live.

I sure hope not:

Donald Trump bragged in vulgar terms about kissing, groping and trying to have sex with women during a 2005 conversation caught on a hot microphone — saying that “when you’re a star, they let you do it” — according to a video obtained by The Washington Post.

Trump: "I am very pro-choice."

Donald Trump has become defined in his presidential campaign by his misogynistic language and a recent downpour of accusations of sexual assault against him. But it’s not exactly a recent phenomenon. One of the defining characteristics of his personal life over the last three decades has been his seemingly insatiable lust for women and a kind of laissez-faire attitude about marital status. He has boasted of courting married women in the same breath as suggesting that because he is a celebrity, he is entitled to kiss women whenever he pleases.

“Do you think adultery is a sin?” Trump was asked in the February issue.
“I don’t think it’s a sin but I don’t think it should be done.”

A federal court approved a $25 million settlement on Tuesday with students who said they were duped by Donald Trump and his now-defunct Trump University, which promised to teach them the "secrets of success" in the real estate industry.

Donald Trump admits paying Stormy Daniels hush money to lawyer

US President Donald Trump engaged in tax schemes that included cases of fraud in which he and his siblings helped their parents dodge millions in taxes,

I know republicans who don't do any of that. There's a lot of them. Maybe even most of them.

Why is it that you find it difficult to believe that people wpud choose friends on this basis?

Because it would be classifying all republicans as sleezebags, and not all of them are.

 

[Chesterton]

Does your political affiliation keep you from friendships?

I think it does. Others tell me it's my body odor.

 

[HannahT]

I have a hard time understanding those who choose friends or dispose of them based on their party affiliation. Help me understand what their affiliation has to do with what is inside them. Love, kindness, sympathy, character, honor? Does that hold true with Christians? Does their political affiliation keep them from Christians that are opposites politically?

One true way of growing as a human being is to see things through the eyes of others. I don't have any issues with friends that feel differently from me politically. We tend to listen to each other, and disagree when we must. Most of the time they will tell you WHY they believe a certain way - as I do at times - and that helps in the long run. You can still disagree, but it doesn't have to be hostile like you see much to often today.

The ones that tend to cut off others outside their train of thought tend to be WAY to invested with their 'tribe' as they call it today. It's popular to place the nuttier ones on TV, and try to show how they represent the 'whole' of the other side of viewing things. Gullible people will always be with us, and those are the ones that tend to believe such nonsense. This dynamic feeds the news cycle, and make the media a load of cash too.

 

[WolfGate]

No, I am non-partisan and theology drives my support of issues rather than political party alignment. So friends who are partisan tend to be in agreement with me on some issues and disagreement on others. No problem.

 

[The Barbarian]

WolfGate, and HannahT, your messages are encouraging to read. If we start segregating ourselves to include only those who agree with us as friends, we are encouraging the tribalization of America that has so damaged this country in the last few years.

And while it's popular to blame Trump for this, that's a mistake. He's taken advantage of it, but he didn't start it. And the blame can be equally attributed to the left and the right.

As McCain said about Obama, "he's a good man, with whom I have some fundamental differences."

If we can't be Americans before we are liberals, libertarians, and conservatives, we can't be Americans, period.