This week, I shared an article on Facebook authored by the renown Christian writer Phillip Yancey "In the age of Trump, what will evangelicalism become?". We are about to enter into a new phase of American politics, ridiculously different from the last 8 years under President Obama. The 2016 cycle ushered in a rush of politicians promising to undo the liberal policies both socially and economically. It remains to be seen whether these men and women will successfully achieve the promises from the angry electorate.

However, I want to address fellow young Christians about the prospect of opportunity to bridge the divide. Yancey said it well, "the modern United States pits the coasts against the middle, urban areas against all the rest". For the last 8 years, the mainstream evangelical Christian has complained about the doomed nation that is in no way doomed. It is easy to lament the Supreme Court gay marriage decision when you do not know a gay person. It is easy to lament the Roe v. Wade decision when you've never been in the position of a woman.

Does it make gay marriage and abortion right? Do you have to support the causes? No.

Christians have become the complainers of our culture, the negative ones who have lost the positive message of the Gospel. Yancey: "the good news tone gets lost in political acrimony". The good news that Jesus gave has been washed out by the media's portrayal of a dominant Republican, white, and inflexible group of people.

It is also easy for me to tell middle America how to live their lives as I sit out on the California coast around people that claim to be tolerant. Tolerance is attempting to think like someone with an opposite view, a quality little practiced by coasters and middle America alike. I was born and raised in middle America (Texas, Ohio, and Michigan) and only came to the West Coast for high school and college. The Christian raised in Ohio and the Christian I'm around now in California are almost completely opposite people.

Yes, they were raised differently...but should they be so so different? I would contend no. As Christians, we may believe differently about the type of worship music, the role of baptism, or the role of the church in the government, but some key principles should be the same.

So why do we bicker and fight within people we should (mostly) be agreeing with?

To heal the divide of this country, it will take reaching out to other races and understanding the discrimination they have faced in this flawed country. Ask questions, make a new friend or two. I'm not asking you to have 100% non-white hipster, free loving-pot-smoking friends, but I'm asking you to look around. Do you have a "token African-American friend" or do you have genuine friends from a ton of different backgrounds that force you to examine yourself?

Challenging yourself is the only way you can grow. Being comfortable in the white upper middle class, suburban background for the rest of your life will never help you grow your faith. So let's stop complaining and wishing for the days that were. White mainstream Christians got the candidate they wanted in the White House. So instead of telling others to fill their bucket of "liberal tears", fill your buckets with love.

My last quote from Phillip Yancey's article actually quotes the evangelical writer Francis Schaeffer, a man who advocated for activism against abortion and other social issues, but said this once he realized what his activism had actually created in the church:

"Love—and the unity it attests to—is the mark Christ gave Christians to wear before the world. Only with this mark may the world know that Christians are indeed Christians and that Jesus was sent by the Father.…It is possible to be a Christian without showing the mark, but if we expect non-Christians to know that we are Christians, we must show the mark."

So lay down your threatening words on Facebook, make a new friend, and show love to someone who hasn't seen it from your kind.