The church is divided as never before.
Okay, that may be an overstatement. But I think most Christians would agree that, from personal conversations and from social media scrolling, it certainly feels like the divisions are as bad as ever, and only getting worse. The church has been divided over doctrine before—sometimes for bad reasons, often for good reasons. That is to be expected. What seems new in our day is how Bible-believing Christians who share almost all the same doctrine on paper are massively and increasingly divided over non-doctrinal matters, torn apart by issues the Bible does not directly address.
Think of the three most contentious issues in the church over the past year: racial tensions, Covid restrictions, and the presidential election. On each of these matters, Christians have disagreed not just on interpretation or strategy or where the slopes are most slippery. We have fundamentally disagreed on the facts themselves, and because we disagree on the facts we disagree even more profoundly on the appropriate response.
Is America deeply and pervasively racist? Are people of color routinely and disproportionately in danger of being killed by police officers? Is virtually every aspect of our society hostile to the presence of black and brown bodies? If you answer yes to all these questions—that is, if you believe the facts warrant all these conclusions—then how can you not be engaged in (peaceful) protest? For the church to ignore injustice on this level is to be guilty of indifference at best and moral turpitude at worst. But if our society and our policing is not fundamentally racist, then much of the social justice movement is motivated by false premises.
What about Covid? If the facts tell us that this is a once-in-a-century pandemic, that we are facing 300,000 excess deaths, and that masks are a simple and effective way to limit the spread of the virus, then extreme care and caution are important ways we can love our neighbors as ourselves. If, on the other hand, coronavirus is hardly more dangerous than the seasonal flu, then the worldwide restrictions look rather onerous, if not outright nefarious.
And what about the election? Setting aside the question of whom to vote for, we are now divided over who people actually did vote for. If the election was stolen, perversely overriding the will of most Americans in an act of unconscionable thievery, then we should be marching (peacefully) until we are blue in the face. But if the facts do not support that conclusion, then we help no one by pretending that the loser of the election actually won.
In each set of issues, you can see why the stakes are so high and why the emotions run even higher. If things are as dire as some purport (on race, with Covid, and with a disputed election), then to do nothing displays a cowardly and colossal failure of nerve. But if, in each situation, things are much less dangerous and less insidious than the doomsdayers say, then taking a full-body chill pill would be the better part of valor.
So what are Christians to do?
First, let us be humble, understanding that few of us are experts on these issues. A little epistemic humility—in our hearts and toward others—can go a long way.
Second, let us be measured. This doesn’t mean our default has to be the status quo, but it does mean we should keep our passions in proportion. We should be religiously dogmatic about our religious dogma and not much else.
Third, let us reason together. It is the profound irony of our age: never has there been more information at our fingertips, and never has it been harder to know what information to trust. In most things, whether we realize it or not, we have no choice but to rely upon the expertise of others. We simply don’t have the time or ability to properly investigate every disputed claim. That means it is more important than ever before that we are discerning about the voices we listen to.
And how can we be discerning? 
Read widely—not just from different voices online but from different voices across the centuries. Reading Calvin or Augustine won’t tell you what to think about Covid, but they will help you think better.
Listen to those who know you best and love you most. Of course, parents and pastors and friends can be wrong too, but there is something unhealthy about putting ourselves under the influence of distant personalities while neglecting those who will have to give an account for their care over us.
Where possible, look at the fruit of someone’s life. To be sure, bad people can make good arguments. But in general, if you are honest with other people, honest with yourself, and honest with God, you tend to be honest with facts and ideas. The opposite is also true.
Run through a series of diagnostic questions in your mind. Questions like:

Does the argument I’m reading deal in trade-offs or only in the categories of all-good/all-evil?
Are the terms and definitions clearly defined?
Can the person fairly state the argument he is arguing against? 
Is he willing to acknowledge any fair points on the other side? 
Does the person I’m listening to seem unhinged and unstable?
Is the argument full of emotive reasoning and ad hominem attack?
Does the force of the argument rely on hard words and high passions or on rational arguments and sound evidence?
Does this person have a track record of being fair, accurate, and well-researched?
Does this person have any credentials or experience that would make him worth listening to?
Does the argument make sweeping claims based on personal anecdotes?
Does the argument require me to believe what is non-falsifiable?
Does the argument require a level of highly elaborate clandestine scheming such that only the most disciplined, organized, and intelligent people in the world could pull it off?
Does the argument confuse correlation with causation?
Is the person a jerk on Twitter, constantly self-congratulatory on Twitter, seeking victim status on Twitter, or otherwise living online in a way that seems imbalanced?

Are these questions a magic elixir that will solve all our disagreements? Of course not. But perhaps they can nudge us in the right direction. I’m sure I’m getting things wrong. In fact, I hope on these non-biblical matters in particular that I’m always open to being corrected and learning something new.
For my part, while I believe there are many ways that the relationship between African Americans and police officers can improve, I don’t think the evidence suggests that racist cops are disproportionately killing unarmed black people. I don’t think Covid is deadly for the vast majority of people but it is very dangerous for some. And while I am sure there were irregularities in November’s election, I don’t think there is evidence of voter fraud so widespread that it could have changed the presidential outcome.
I hesitate to share these convictions because that’s not what I want this post to be about, but neither do I want to pretend that any of us can so rise above the fray that we don’t have to reach any of our own conclusions. My larger and more important point, however, is to urge us as Christians to lead the way in thinking carefully, and in carefully engaging those who think differently–especially on these disputed factual matters that can’t be answered (as I would prefer) by reading our Bibles alone or by quoting from Turretin.

Kevin DeYoung (PhD, University of Leicester) is senior pastor of Christ Covenant Church in Matthews, North Carolina, Council member of The Gospel Coalition, and associate professor of systematic theology at Reformed Theological Seminary (Charlotte). He has written numerous books, including Just Do Something. Kevin and his wife, Trisha, have nine children: Ian, Jacob, Elizabeth, Paul, Mary, Benjamin, Tabitha, Andrew, and Susannah.

Recently I spoke at the Baccalaureate service for Covenant Day School, a ministry of Christ Covenant Church and the school my own children attend. What follows is a slightly edited version of that message.
I know that I’m speaking to a lot of different ages this morning. I hope you will all be able to pay attention and learn something from this message, but I want to specifically talk to graduating seniors. I know many of you have heard hundreds of sermons over the years–many of them at church, and for some of you, one sermon a week for the past 12 or 13 years at CDS. And now you have one more. But since you are here, you might as well listen and see what God might want to say to you.
This is a season of milestones for many of you. Final papers. Final exams. Last games, last meets, last classes. You’ve worked hard to get to this point. And you are probably working hard for what is coming next. For most of you that’s college or university. You’ll get ready over the summer. You’ll buy some dorm furniture. You’ll say goodbye to your friends. You’ll say goodbye to your parents. You’ll find your way around a new school and a new place. For many of you, it will mean a new city or a new state. You are making preparations for all that lies ahead. After filling out forms, sending in applications, and narrowing down your choices, you finally made your decision. And in a few months, you’ll start something–whether that’s school close by, or school far away, a gap year, or something else.
You are probably tired of making big decisions. But I want to remind you of one colossal decision that is coming your way. The decision doesn’t seem earth shattering. In fact, it seems much less important than a hundred other decisions you’ve had to make in the last year. It’s a decision so much an afterthought for most graduating seniors that many of you have not even considered it.
Here’s the decision you’ll have to make in a few months:
You are living on your own–in a dorm or in an apartment somewhere. You’ve unloaded your stuff. You’ve met your roommate. You’ve signed up for classes. You’ve had a few meals in the cafeteria. You’ve endured days of boring orientation activities. You’ve done some of the awkward pre-planned fun and games. And after a short night of sleep on your first Saturday in this new phase of your life, you wake up Sunday morning. What are you going to do?
Of all the decisions you’ll face this year, the most important one may be whether you get up and go to church on the very first Sunday when no one is there to make sure that you go to church.
Of all the decisions you’ll face this year, the most important one may be whether you get up and go to church on the very first Sunday when no one is there to make sure that you go to church.
I pastored a church in Michigan that was for many years right across the street from Michigan State University. We saw scores of freshmen visit our church that first Sunday on campus. True, many of them never came back. We saw students who started at church and didn’t last. But we rarely saw students who didn’t start at church and eventually made it there. What you do in those first weeks on your own, especially what you do with your commitment to a local church, will set you on a trajectory where Jesus Christ will truly be Lord of your life or where he will be something that you learned as a young person and then left behind.
Listen to Jesus
I know, I know, this is what you would expect a pastor to say to you: “Be sure to go to church, young man! Don’t sleep in on Sunday, young woman!” You may think, “I’m not against going to church, but isn’t my relationship with Jesus the really important thing? I’ll still read my Bible even if I don’t make it to church.” Some of you will be going to Christian colleges, and you’ll have chapel services and Christian roommates and chaplains wanting to meet with you. Others here will be at state schools, and you’ll look to get involved with Cru or RUF or Campus Outreach. That’s great. Praise God for good campus ministries. Praise God for Christian colleges.

But your chapel is not a church. Your weekly Cru meeting is not a church. Your dorm Bible study is not a church. Remember what Jesus said to Peter in Matthew 16, “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (v. 18). Jesus never promised to build up a Christian college. He never promised to build a Christian day school. He never promised to build a campus ministry. There is only one institution on earth that Jesus Christ promised to build, and that’s the church.
If you want to be into what Jesus is into, you’ll get into a church.
You need to decide before you leave home, what will I do on that first Sunday morning. Don’t wait until that moment to decide, because you’ll probably decide you’re tired, or you don’t have a car, or you don’t know where to go, or you’ll get to it next week. Decide before that Sunday what you will do on that Sunday. You’ll be making all sorts of plans this summer, and one of the most important decisions you may ever make is what you will be committed to that first week and those first months. Will you get up and go to church–not just chapel, not just campus ministry–but a local church, where the people aren’t all your age, where the music isn’t all your style, where the pastor may not be everything you’d want him to be?
A Grotesque Anomaly
One of the most famous pastors from the last century was John Stott who ministered for many years in London. Like a good, refined, English preacher, Stott was not known for overstatement, which is what makes these words, written a few years before his death, so striking: “An unchurched Christian is a grotesque anomaly. The New Testament knows nothing of such a person. For the church lies at the very center of the eternal purpose of God. It is not a divine afterthought.”
Think of three of the main images for the church in the New Testament. The church pictured as a building, as a bride, and as a body. Christ is the foundation, and the church is the building. Christ is the groom, and the church is the bride. Christ is the head, and the church is the body. Each pair goes together. You are not meant to have one without the other. We are not meant to have Christ without the church.
Would you want your building to have a foundation but no house?
Would you call it a marriage if there was a groom but no bride?
Would you want to carry around a head without the body?
In Greek mythology Perseus was the son of Zeus who killed Medusa, the monster-like Gorgon with a head of hair consisting of snakes. You probably remember the story. If anyone looked on Medusa, he would turn to stone. So when Perseus went to kill Medusa, he had to use his shield to look at her reflection so he could approach Medusa in her sleep and cut off her head. Of course, Perseus still can’t look at her head, so he keeps it in a bag, wrapped up so he doesn’t accidentally see it. Later in the story, Perseus defeats the Kraken by taking Medusa’s head out of the bag and holding it out for the sea monster to gaze upon it and turn to stone. It’s a famous scene depicted in ancient sculpture, in artwork, and now in a number of movies.
It’s rather grotesque when you think about it–carrying around a severed head, lifting up a head without its body. Decapitation is not pretty. If you were into severed heads without their bodies, we would think something was really wrong with you.

Except, it seems, when it comes to our Christian lives. Then we think decapitation is cool. Some of us even think it is positively good and beautifully spiritual. Too many Christians think they can have Jesus without the church. They want the head without the body. They want a decorpulated Christianity. They want a decapitated Jesus.
A Worldview and a Rhythm of Life
I am willing to bet that at some point in your years at CDS you’ve heard the word “worldview.” That word is in the mission statement of almost every Christian school. We want to give students a Biblical lens for looking at everything. We want you to be renewed in your minds so that you view the world not just as someone with a great education but as someone with a distinctly Christian education.
That’s all very important. I hope to impart a Christian worldview to my children. But do you know what may be even more important than getting them to think the right things? It’s getting them to instinctively embrace the right rhythms. The most powerful influences in your life are often the things you don’t even think about, the things you do out of habit, the things you do because you always do them, whether someone makes you do them or not.
We are formed not just by thoughts but by habits–study habits, exercise habits, social media habits, personal hygiene habits. These may not be planks in our worldview, but they shape us just as much or even more. It’s just what we do. And in time what we do becomes who we are. Will the local church be one of your habits in the next year? There are plenty of lukewarm Christians sitting in churches every week across this country. That’s not the goal. But you want to know where you can find passionate, on fire, totally sold-out Christians? In church. In fact, you won’t find them anywhere else.
I said at the beginning that this was a message for seniors, but there are things we all need to hear. For the rest of the high school, when it comes time to make your decision about where to live or where to go to school, you should put church at the top of your list. What eternal good will it do you if you find a school with a great cafeteria, a great campus, a great sports program, and a great academic pedigree, but no great church nearby?
For younger students here, many of you are already very committed to church. You go with your parents every week. There is almost no greater blessing they can give you, almost no better privilege than that. Try to listen as best you can. Try to go in with a good attitude, even when you’re tired or bored. Maybe even ask your parents “Why aren’t we going to church this Sunday” if they aren’t going.
And parents, think about the priorities you are passing down to your children. The good news is you have the biggest influence on whether your child will go to church. The bad news is you have the biggest influence on whether your child will go to church. Your kids will pick up your walk more than your talk. They will follow the example of a lifetime more than the exhortation you give them when you drop them off at college. Are your kids growing up with the habit of regular church attendance? It’s one of the best things my parents ever did for me: they took me to church every week, Sunday morning and Sunday evening. It wasn’t a question. It wasn’t up for debate. It didn’t depend upon the weather. It didn’t depend on whether we had a full day of activities on Saturday. It didn’t depend on whether the sports league had a tournament on Sunday. We went to church, and so it never even crossed my mind that Christians don’t go to church. It didn’t cross my mind that I would go off to college and not go to church. It’s what we did. It’s who we were. It was a non-negotiable rhythm of life.

Finding the Fullness
If you want to be much less of a follower of Jesus Christ five years from now, make church marginal in your life.
Let me conclude with this prediction, which I think is not only supported by personal experience but by the word of God: if you want to be much less of a follower of Jesus Christ five years from now, make church marginal in your life. If you make church an afterthought, you won’t be thinking about centering your life on Jesus five years from now. Don’t give up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing (Heb. 10:25).
Ephesians 1 says, “[God] put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all” (22-23). Don’t cut the head off of a Jesus. Decide today that you will get up on that Sunday morning and find a good gospel-preaching, Bible-believing church. To be sure, we can meet with God anywhere. But only in the church do we have the fullness of him who fills all in all.

Kevin DeYoung (PhD, University of Leicester) is senior pastor of Christ Covenant Church in Matthews, North Carolina, Council member of The Gospel Coalition, and associate professor of systematic theology at Reformed Theological Seminary (Charlotte). He has written numerous books, including Just Do Something. Kevin and his wife, Trisha, have nine children: Ian, Jacob, Elizabeth, Paul, Mary, Benjamin, Tabitha, Andrew, and Susannah.

Romans 12:15 is a divine command and a vital aspect of Christian maturity. As God’s holy people (Rom. 12:1), Christians are to rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. In recent years, the second half of the verse in particular has been emphasized as a key component in caring for victims, in listening to the stories of the oppressed, and in showing compassion to the hurting.
These emphases are right and proper. Oftentimes the first thing we must do with sufferers is simply come alongside them, acknowledge their pain, express our condolences, and assure them of our love and prayers. Many of us can testify firsthand that when we look back at seasons of intense grief, we don’t remember the exact words people shared, but we do remember the people who showed up and sat with us in our tears. I love what Romans 12:15 teaches about Christian compassion and pastoral care. The verse is a needed reminder for any of us who may be tempted to treat suffering with indifference or to approach hurting saints as broken people in need of a quick fix.
“Weep with those who weep” is an important, biblical command. But it should not be taken as a one-size-fits-all formula that demands a rigid application in every situation where people are sad or distraught. Surely, the second half of Romans 12:15 does not mean that the only response to grieving people is to grieve with them. Diving into facts, pursuing objectivity, listening to all sides—these are not invalidated by Romans 12:15. “Weep with those who weep” does not dictate that the reasons for our weeping can never be mistaken. In short, the verse must mean something like “weep with those who have good, biblical reason to be weeping.”
If that sounds like an unnecessary neutering of a beloved verse, consider three observations.
One, almost everyone interprets the first half of Romans 12:15 along the lines just stated above. That is, no one thinks God wants us to rejoice with those who rejoice over the Taliban coming to power. No matter how genuine the rejoicing may be, Christians should not join with those who celebrate abortion or parade their sexual immorality or delight in racial prejudice. Instinctively, we know that the first half of Romans 12:15 means something like, “rejoice with those who have good, biblical reason to be rejoicing.”
Two, a rigid application of Romans 12:15 is untenable in real life. The point of the verse is not to train our emotions to match every emotion we encounter, but rather to be a thoughtful, considerate person who doesn’t sing a dirge at a wedding or bring a kazoo to a funeral. I remember after the 2016 presidential election hearing some disappointed Christians say that other Christians were obliged to weep with them as they grieved the outcome of the election. Romans 12:15, it was said, commanded others to share in their sorrow. But of course, on that application, Christians were also obligated to celebrate with those who cheered the results of the election. The verse cuts in both directions. A reasonable application of Romans 12:15 does not insist on being as sad as the saddest person in our lives, but in being considerate to others who feel differently about disputable matters or are going through different experiences than we are.
Three, strictly speaking, Jesus did not always weep with those who wept. He certainly didn’t feel obligated under every circumstance to match the mood of those around him. When the crowds were rejoicing on Palm Sunday, Jesus wept (Luke 20:41), and when the women were mourning for Jesus on his way to the cross, he told them not to weep for him (23:28). Jesus was always kind, but almost never sentimental. To those brokenhearted over their sin or looking to him for deliverance from their suffering, his tenderness knew no end. But to those grieving the puncturing of their pretensions or indignant because of the truth he proclaimed, Jesus could be unsparing in speaking what they did not want to hear.
What, then, does it mean to weep with those who weep?
For starters, we should remember that others may not feel the same way at any given moment, or in response to the same events, as we do. If one mother’s son just got accepted to his dream school, while another mother’s son has been turned down every place he’s applied, the Apostle Paul would have the sad mother be happy for her friend and vice versa. Love is not rude, which means obnoxiously mismatching the mood of those around you is inconsiderate at best, and a sin at worst.
But more than that, Romans 12:15 is fundamentally about maintaining the warmth and unity of Christian fellowship. That’s why verse 15 is followed by commands like “live at harmony with one another” (v. 16), “do not be haughty” (v. 16), “do what is honorable,” (v. 17), and “so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all” (v. 18). Raining on parades and dancing at gravesides does not help keep the peace.
Be thoughtful. Be compassionate. Be quick to lend a helping hand or a shoulder to cry on. Christians look to comfort the sad.
But our sympathy is not untethered to all other considerations. Weeping in itself is not sacrosanct. The one who laughs the loudest is not always laughing for good reason. Likewise, the one who shares most conspicuously his pain is not always lamenting for good cause. Our suffering is not sovereign.
Romans 12:15 is a precious verse meant to provide pastoral wisdom in the church and inject personal sensitivity into our relationships. We honor the verse by obeying what it means to command, not by insisting on what is impractically one-sided, out of step with the context, and inconsistent with the example of Jesus.

Kevin DeYoung (PhD, University of Leicester) is senior pastor of Christ Covenant Church in Matthews, North Carolina, Council member of The Gospel Coalition, and associate professor of systematic theology at Reformed Theological Seminary (Charlotte). He has written numerous books, including Just Do Something. Kevin and his wife, Trisha, have nine children: Ian, Jacob, Elizabeth, Paul, Mary, Benjamin, Tabitha, Andrew, and Susannah.