There are many websites that allow comments. However, there are just as many websites that disable comments across the board. The same applies to YouTube channels. Today I stumbled across a news website that has disabled comments for a particular post. In addition, it was explained why texts on certain topics are generally published without a comment function.

Problematic topics

There are topics that are known for polarizing viewpoints. Politics is part of it, as is religion. However, there are not only polarizing topics, as if it were only about certain categories. Something becomes polarizing when people think polemically about these issues, interpret any opinion other than their own as a personal attack and then aggressively rail against it.

Something becomes polarizing when people think polemically about certain issues.

If comments are allowed on such topics, polemic-minded people soon degenerate into a battlefield of self-righteous portrayals and condemnations of others. This happens in forums, on websites, on social media platforms. Evangelicals seem to be affected more often than average. The internalized world view, image of God and image of man must not be questioned and one’s own view must be compulsively represented to the outside world and constantly defended.

Problematic topics are often those that question one’s own world view, image of God and image of man. This triggers emotions and leads to strong defenses.

View from a distance

Can one look at this representation from a little distance? I am not at all concerned with specific people and I come from the same mindset. On this website, I report on my experiences and conversations of decades. I am writing here because, through critical self-analysis and many conversations, I discovered the mechanisms behind certain behaviors. From a distance, I would like to reflect here on the mechanisms that I have recognized over time.

A radical faith does not have to be extreme for Christians, but can even be desirable. It can be the firm conviction that you want to live your life before God and build on the good news of God’s grace in Christ Jesus. It’s like saying: “That’s exactly what I want!”. There is nothing wrong with that.

However, this positive view can be derailed. When people mutate into typical “fundamentalists”, it is never about this positive decision. Beliefs are solidified into rigid views that must then be enforced as guidelines for the whole world. In this way, personal faith is replaced by Christian ideologies. The process is often gradual.

The good guys and the bad guys

Something becomes extreme when it is lived to the extreme in life, for example when you can no longer tolerate other opinions, when you have to convince other people of your own thoughts, when your life plan consists of “right or wrong”, “good or bad” and things like that. But also think of ideas such as “right teaching” versus “wrong teaching”.

Often characterized by black-and-white thinking, people consider themselves to be the “good guys”, but those who think differently are the “bad guys”. This is widespread in evangelical circles, for example when people divide between “believers” and “unbelievers”. This is reinforced when certain teachings must be believed at all costs, otherwise one is considered “unbelieving, lost and damned”. In some communities you have to be “hellishly careful” not to say the wrong word.

If I describe this in other words, then it is about supposedly orthodox believers withdrawing into their own world and making fun of others. This results in heresies, outbursts of anger, slander (disguised as a “warning”) and the like. This is not a religious aberration. This is not limited to religion. It is a general problem. Earlier, I mentioned newspapers that regularly have to turn off the commentary function, even on news programs, because they experience similar derailments. It is a purely human phenomenon, a psychological need. This clouds many areas of society and human interaction, including religious issues.

The good guys and the bad guys do this through interpretation. They are interpreted in this way because of internalized ideas. Both “good guys” and “bad guys” can be trapped in extreme representations. This can be recognized by the fact that these two groups go at each other as soon as they get the opportunity, for example in comment columns.

Trench warfare

This article is not about who is right, who is one of the good guys or who is one of the bad guys. It’s all about the mechanisms. I notice that the two sometimes go at each other. It can look like this:

Something is said that someone else doesn’t like. This other person feels affected and feels the need to correct or contradict the statement. The two then come to blows and everyone becomes entrenched in their own ideas. It is a retreat into trench warfare, in which fronts are occupied and arguments fly back and forth in battle.

This is a general description. I’ll try to describe the same thing with a concrete example:

On this website I regularly explain that the doctrine of hell is not in the Bible. This attracts many hell-lovers, some of whom are happy to engage in trench warfare with me, while others prefer to focus on a comfortable retreat by denouncing and slandering me. This may not be noble, but it can be considered a strategy for dealing with a different understanding and as a method to regulate your emotions.

How do I react to this? That is now the crucial question. If I go at the other side with counter-arguments, for example, then I am admitting that I am still trapped in this black-and-white thinking. I would have just changed sides, but I behave the same way. What is the alternative? I can also refrain from commenting and not encourage trench warfare. Then I get out and don’t allow any unspiritual negativity.

Join the trench warfare or get out? In forums and on countless other websites, as well as in my own publications at the beginning, I tried to start a conversation. I joined the conversation to promote a sensible exchange with arguments and counter-questions. As a rule, this fails because the slanderers and heretics on both sides already have a position and reject everything else. There are no questions that could lead to an authentic encounter. As a result, trench warfare usually fails.

From a teaching culture to a learning culture

The understanding of “correct teaching” versus “false teaching” is widespread. Right and wrong are opposites here and form the basis for black-and-white thinking, which is very pronounced in many evangelical communities. Here, ideas have solidified into Christian ideologies.

What happens when you discover that the supposedly correct teaching is actually wrong and the supposedly incorrect teaching is correct? Then you can change the bearing. That’s what I did myself at first. I carefully crawled out of my previous trench and moved under the hail of bullets towards the opposite front line until I fell into the trench there.

It was a real liberation to finally get clarity on certain issues and I dared to take the step from one doctrine to the other. Anyone who knows evangelical communities from the inside knows how much courage such a step requires. I am happy about everyone who dares to ask new questions and then finds new answers. But I still hadn’t arrived, because I was still involved in trench warfare.

At first I only changed the bearing. Black and white thinking was still present. I had only exchanged the signs for “Wrong” and “Right” because I was standing in a different place. I felt a great sense of liberation. The assumed truth, I thought, must still be defended with fire and the sword. Although I had changed camps, I was still extremely influenced. The liberation was real, but I still wasn’t really free.

It took me another few years to realize that I had changed my apprenticeship but not my attitude. I am grateful to everyone who pointed out this problematic attitude to me. Gradually, the question arose as to whether one could not live one’s faith more openly, more freely and more healthily? It took a while before trench warfare was no longer my thing. I realized that arguments don’t always help.

It took a while before trench warfare was no longer my thing.

Although I always felt a bit uncomfortable during such arguments, no one showed me how an argument could be worth living and lived differently. I was looking for a healthier alternative. I think many people feel that way.

Evangelical thinking immediately senses “liberal thinking” in every other opinion, in every differentiation and in every questioning, which is highly dangerous and could even swallow you up in the abyss of unbelief. It took me a while to realize that they were cultivating an exaggerated self-righteousness that was to be rewarded with cadaverous obedience.

How to leave black and white thinking behind is probably not the same for everyone. I am aware that it is a process, because it took me years to make changes. Of course, I’m no better today than I was back then. However, I have shed some extreme views and attitudes. But I have learned how to differentiate better. My emphasis on a teaching culture changed to an emphasis on a learning culture.

Out of the trench warfare

I do not allow comments on this website. I also usually deliberately switch them off on the YouTube channel. I have tried many times and failed every time. There were people who immediately started scolding, others who tried to hijack the comment columns for themselves. The comments degenerated in a flash into a battlefield. Therefore no comments. This was set up deliberately. I am expressly not interested in ignoring other opinions. I’m sometimes accused of this, as if I’m just trying to silence others. That is ridiculous. I would do exactly the same thing if that was my attitude. It’s not like that!

The reason is simple: polarization is not helpful. You get out of trench warfare and don’t take part in it at all. Whether you mean well is irrelevant. Not offering a comment option prevents abuse and protects all well-meaning people.

Instead of trench warfare and dogmatism, and as an alternative to self-righteousness, we could concentrate on more important things. Think of things that serve to build us up, of faith that becomes effective through love and of grace with which we encounter one another? This is not sentimentalism, but good works that God prepares for us to walk in (Eph 2:8-10; 2 Tim 3:16-17). Because nobody here has to be right. That’s not the point and it doesn’t help. The rhetorical question here: Wouldn’t it be much more beneficial to do away with trench warfare and instead practice the mindset of Christ?

Wouldn’t it be much more useful to stop trench warfare and instead practice the mindset of Christ?

There are other texts that deal with this problematic area, such as this one: