“People are more broken relationally. So I do think it’s poisoned the communication climate more so today. So are we Christians known by our love? That’s my question.”
“I think we’ve always needed a gentle, kind voice and we’ve always needed a prophetic voice. It’s not one or the other; it’s both.”
“If we actually want to persuade people, we have to know what people believe and why they believe it. And I think on both sides, we have caricatures and simplistic views of the other side.”
“No one likes to be misrepresented. Well, we shouldn’t do that to other people as much as we don’t want other people to do that to us. So if I want to persuade somebody, I’m in the best position if I know them and I build bridges and they trust me rather than just dropping the gospel and bailing.”
“When it’s all said and done, staying in relationship with somebody is not the most important objective good. At some point, we do have to speak truth and we do have to speak the gospel and live consistently with our convictions. Even if it costs us a relationship, we just need wisdom to navigate when that is the case and not the case.”
“We all need to live in the tension of grace and truth. If you’re not living in that tension, either you’re speaking too much truth without love or you’re compromising the truth.”
Key Quotes From Tim Muehlhoff
“Is this a special moment? I would say no. I think we’ve always struggled…maybe contempt has filtered into our disagreements where we’re cutting off relationships, whereas before maybe we hung in there with each other longer.”
“I think if I had to assess it, we’re doing less good, for lack of a better way to frame this, at just loving and showing civility than the opposite.”
“I don’t think we can opt out of gentleness. I would even say if we use the prophetic voice, what will set us apart will be a gentleness that is even in the prophetic voice. I think we have to ask the question today, what makes us distinctly different as Christian communicators in today’s argument culture?”
“We tend to think when we’re in a disagreement, the best thing I can do is bring out the facts, my experts, the studies that support my perspective…but I think we need to lead with the ritual. And that is to fight through the rancor and say, where are our points of commonality?”
“I need to know that the way that I view them, they view me. And yet I’m called to speak the truth in love. I’m called to pursue people like Christ pursued us.”
“The book isn’t about starting a YouTube channel (Sean’s amazing). It’s not about fighting this on Capitol Hill. This book really is about you and a family member. It’s about you and a church member.”
“My humanizing that person sitting in front of me opened the door [so] that he reached out to me months later. And now we’re actually having a conversation where we’re getting to my objections, but now we’ve created the relational work that he can receive my objections.”