Right and wrong are not partisan colors or determined by polls, platforms, or popularity

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I once heard a question asked that stuck with me: Are public policy and faith mutually exclusive?

At first glance, it feels like a trap of a question, one designed to force people to pick a side. But the longer I’ve lived, prayed, and wrestled with real life, the more I’ve realized that the answer isn’t found in extremes. It’s found in what I call the gray area.

Now, when I say, “gray area,” I don’t mean moral confusion or compromise. I actually mean the opposite. The gray area is where people refuse to be owned by one political camp or another, where they resist being pulled fully into red or blue thinking.

Right and wrong are not partisan colors. Right and wrong are not determined by polls, platforms, or popularity. Right and wrong are defined by the Word of God, plain and simple.

Somewhere along the way, many of us stopped checking our thinking against God’s Word and started checking it against whatever algorithm shows up on our screens.

The problem comes when we start measuring truth by culture instead of Scripture. We scroll our news feeds, hear a talking head, read a headline, and suddenly we think we have a fully formed moral opinion. Somewhere along the way, many of us stopped checking our thinking against God’s Word and started checking it against whatever algorithm shows up on our screens. As Christians, that should bother us deeply.

Faith was never meant to be something we pull out only in private moments. It was meant to shape how we live, how we speak, how we vote, how we serve, and how we love people. That doesn’t mean we force faith onto others, but it does mean we hold ourselves accountable to it. Before I speak an opinion, I should first ask: does this line up with the truth of God, or does it just line up with how I feel?

Here’s the honest truth: nobody is really trying to hear what I think. And they’re not trying to hear what you think, either. What people are desperate for is truth. Real truth. Truth that doesn’t shift with the times or bend under pressure. If what I’m offering isn’t rooted in that truth, then I shouldn’t be surprised when people walk away. And if I’m not telling the truth, I should expect to lose people.

But, if someone sets themselves apart from me because they are clinging to truth, I have to respect that. Because truth is the only thing that actually sets us free in this world. Not ideology. Not outrage. Not influence. Truth. And God is the source of it all.