How Do I Unite With Others When The World Tries to Pull Us Apart?

It's easy to take one look at the news or social media and grow discouraged through the constant division and negativity.

One political party says this, a popular influencer says that, and pretty soon your mind is swirling with concerns that are far outside your control. There's a reason the 2025 Oxford word of the year was "rage bait" (although I still protest that this is two words)

Personally, I have a theory that many of the controversial talking heads who are on "opposite sides of the debate" actually have much more in common than they'd have us believe. I say this because over the past five years, I've watched media figure after media figure step aside from powerful positions and seemingly change their views and allegiances overnight, often interacting with individuals they'd previously said they despised.

It turns out there is a lot of money to be made in stirring division.

This is one of many reasons why I refuse to lose a friend over hot-button cultural divides. Chances are that neither one of us sees the full picture, and I have no interest in being divided by voices who are incentivized to do so.

The Great Divide

Division has always been a challenge, and it was certainly an issue when Paul wrote his letter to the church in Galatia. As a recap, Paul is addressing believers in Galatia who were being told they needed to follow Jewish law to truly belong to God’s people.

But Paul argues that God’s promise has always been received by faith, not by heritage or rule-keeping, pointing back to Abraham as the example. Paul then writes these words in Galatians 3:28-29,

"There is no Jew or Greek, slave or free, male and female; since you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, heirs according to the promise." - Galatians 3:28-29

Notice the purpose of these words. This passage dismantles the idea that human distinctions determine spiritual worth. As Robert Raka writes,

These distinctions were important in the former economy as object lessons for the people of God as they worked out what it meant to understand God and his purposes and strove to comprehend how to comport themselves in a world system opposed to God. But now being “in Christ,” one’s ethnicity, life station, or gender is no longer relevant to one’s redemptive identity.^[1]

Paul is saying that none of those distinctions gives anyone an advantage or disadvantage when it comes to standing before God. In Christ, everyone approaches God on the same footing.

This doesn't mean we don't have differences. People still have different roles, cultures, and experiences, but those differences no longer determine who belongs more or less. As Scot McKnight writes, "Paul now shows that faith in Christ obliterates such distinctions.^[2]

The Impracticality of Oneness

Most Christians know they shouldn't be divided and love Jesus’ words in John 17:20-23 when he expresses his longing for his followers to be one.

²⁰ ”I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, ²¹ that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. ²² The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, ²³ I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.”

Spiritual oneness is a powerful concept, and I’ve seen multiple sermon series and church initiatives built around this idea.

Here is the problem.

While the emphasis of this passage is to be made one under Christ, the “be made one” theme often takes on a very human-centric approach. A pastor’s call for their church to be one looks suspiciously like their vision for the church, and a denomination’s call for oneness represents the ideals they have, and so forth.

Unity Is Only Found in Christ

The goal of oneness in Christ is appealing when it’s an invitation for everyone else to become like us. It becomes much less interesting if it means we need to humble ourselves and sit at the feet of others.

However, unity with others always starts with a posture of humility, and not that of egotistical self-assurance. My friend Bekah Bowman writes, “Community must have depth, because without depth, relationships slither away as soon as life gets difficult.”[3]

The moment we pray for God to do something great in our communities is the same moment we should look internally and prepare for God to work in our lives.

So today, if you're one of those who is fed up with all the division in this world, why not be a proactive part of the solution? How do you do this? Here are a few ideas:

• The next time one of your friends touches a hot-button topic that sets you on edge, take a moment to pause and ask, "What do you mean by that?"
• Instead of cutting off a family member who has different views, recalibrate the relationship, letting go of previous hopes and setting a new healthy norm that still allows you to spend time with them.
• Rather than connect with others over what you hate, make it a practice to connect over what you love.

Above all, keep focused on Jesus. Only through Christ is true unity a possibility. As Pastor Charles Price likes to say, the Christian life is about “Christ for you, Christ in you, and Christ through you.”

Only in him can we experience spiritual oneness. It’s not through programs, ideas, causes, or personalities. It’s only Christ.

^[1]Robert K. Rapa, “Galatians,” in Romans–Galatians, vol. 11 of The Expositor’s Bible Commentary Revised Edition. eds. Tremper Longman III and David E. Garland; Accordance electronic ed. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2008), 602-603.

^[2]Scot McKnight, Galatians, eds. Terry C. Muck, The NIV Application Commentary. Accordance electronic ed. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995), 199.

[3] Bekah Bowman, Can’t Steal My Joy: The Journey to a Different Kind of Brave, 2019. Kindle edition. 43.