Christians can and should debate politics. There’s room for diversity of opinion, and therefore for healthy debate, on the best application of biblical principles to public policy. You do not have to be a Republican or a conservative to be a faithful Christian. Everybody hear that? Good.

All our speech is to be “gracious, seasoned with salt”– that is, every word we speak in public and private should be flavored with the Gospel, as salt flavors food. This applies whether we’re speaking face to face or screen to screen; whether we know who we’re talking to or not.

So, progressive Christians, when you say or repeat or link approvingly to those who casually assume that Republicans don’t care about the poor, that we hate homosexuals, that we’re only concerned with babies before they’re born, or that women’s health doesn’t matter to us, you’re not just engaging in bad logic (ad hominem, imputing motives, poisoning the well, begging the question, etc)– you’re encouraging hateful slander against many brothers and sisters for whom Christ died. Please, stop doing this.

There are people in both parties who are concerned only with power, who could care less about anyone’s good but their own. And there are people in both parties, third parties, and no party who have honest differences on a thousand different questions of how to make the country better. When we assume the worst about those on the other side, we’re contributing to the poisonous state of our discourse that we all complain about.