I have a devoutly Christian friend on the opposite end of the political spectrum from me, and he presents a new and unique experience for me. We have compared notes on our values on all the major social and political issues of the day: guns, abortion, LGBTQ rights, and many more, and of course, he’s a Trump supporter. Not as a mindless, over-the-top MAGA, but strongly and in all respects traditionally Christian.

He’s intelligent, articulate, sensitive, and we’ve had many thoughtful and animated discussions over the last couple years. He’s the one person I know on the other side of the cultural chasm, and I value these conversations.

Plus, I get brownie points from my liberal friends and family for my relationship and discussions with him. We all agree this is a rare and needed phenomena these days.

I’m convinced he is a good man. He’s active in his church, is principaled and demonstrates high integrity in all things.

I suspect he once thought he could convert me, until I challenged him on it and all the Bible stories he shared. He’s now backed way off of that and asks my permission before telling me those stories now.

He’s always treated me with respect and dignity, and he has never directly criticized me about my values and beliefs, though he’s honest and articulate about what he sees as the failings on the Left. And in some cases, I agree with those criticisms. He’s often the one to reach out and suggest coffee or lunch, though I sometimes hesitate.

My challenge is his Christian faith and the fact that ultimately, all ideas and discussions with him come back to God and Christ. His devotion to Trump is solid, not only because Trump represents all his ‘conservative’ values, but because “God puts all rulers on the throne,” and that truth is unquestioned with him, as are many other conditions and truths about the world we live in and the culture we inhabit and participate in.

We have managed to establish a spiritual common ground, though a fairly tenuous one: we agree, in a vague sort-of way, that all existence and consciousness and all the affairs of men arise from a spiritual and divine source. I choose to say or believe little beyond that, to him and within my own personal philosophy of life, as I’m convinced the rest must be experienced, lived, and expressed, and words and all the concepts of our puny brains are incapable.

Of course, in his belief system, the Bible and the vast literature, ritual, denominational interpretations, and the entire vast dogma fill that spiritual space and clutter that divine ground, with all manner of rules, commandments, practice, principles, laws, and such.

I personally find Christianity and all organized religions abhorrent for many of the reasons as atheists and other critics have long described, including the absurdity of the myths, like Virgin birth, reanimation of the dead, and the second coming of the savior to judge us all.

I abhor what religions (and their projections on our political systems) do to entire classes of people, as demonstrated so vividly and tragically in the early days of the second Trump administration.

I’m especially appalled by the absurd belief that all things must lead to the end times and the return of Jesus Christ and anything — any libel or crime or injustice or idiot for a president with his gaggle of idiots behind him is justified if it facilitates that inevitable end times outcome.

And any good Christian is required to fall in and support any madness, to ensure they are judged well when that Christian apocalypse occurs.

If your entire political, social, and personal basis for existence is built upon the end of all, the final discontinuance of reality, and your eternal destiny, what you feel in every fiber of your being, is entirely determined by how well you commit to that Armageddon, with the alternative eternity so frightening and painful and violent as to be unimaginable — how can we have any basis for working together to solve our biggest challenges here on earth? 

This is my challenge with my friend. If I had more courage, I would lay all this out exactly as I’ve written it here and have that conversation with him.

Beyond that conversation between two men on opposite ends of the political and cultural spectrum, this could be or maybe should be the political and social question of our time.

How can ‘the Left’, or any non-Christian or anyone that doesn’t buy into the death-cults of major religions have a here-and-now dialog with the religious believers, so we can work on addressing all our towering problems in this life instead of positioning it all for the next one?

As a writer, researcher, and journalist, as a student of the human condition,  investigator of our current civilization, searcher of how we got here and where we could hope to go now, my relationship with my friend is a useful, important, and rare opportunity.

But I don’t want to ‘use’ him as a research subject only. So I’ve told him how valuable is our connection and how much I’m learning from him.

Even though that still feels inauthentic, that’s probably the price of such a friendship with a tolerant form of asking and listening, not only between my friend and me, but for the entire massive challenge of the deep chasm in our society today.

And I realize my ardent criticism here of Christianity is anything but tolerant. 

So, swallow the pill I must — WE must, and face the truth of what the person and the entire culture across the table represents, from both sides. 

My skepticism of their truths and what I call ‘myths’ about the promise of a loving savior and the chance to spend eternity in His Presence, and my visceral resistance to and mockery of that worldview generates as much abhorence in my friend and most Christians as it does for them about me and my irreligious arrogance.

Can I see the human, the man with the same deep-down human fears and desires, the same willingness to carry on this friendship and have these discussions? Yes, I can.

Can I come to accept the Christian values and political agenda, and the dead-end ideology of the second coming and end times that represent an unstoppable force in our world, in my world?

That’s the challenge.