It wasn’t always like that, especially when we were teens and our sense of competition with each other was at its highest. He was becoming larger and stronger than I, and I felt a compelling need to try regularly to subdue him in a wrestling, punching, or verbal match.

Our fights were almost always about insignificant things, like which radio station would we listen to in the car, or who would drive. The need to win by conquering him gave me a sense of power that fed some of my personal insecurities.

We had reasonable conversations, at times, and actually talked about things that mattered to us. During some of those times we avoided the conflict methods, and actually tried to win each other toward our own perspectives.

What have I learned about the difference between winning over someone, and winning someone over?

In these days where almost every interaction between opposing viewpoints becomes a battle, I think about my own experiences a lot. I have learned how productive and enjoyable a personal interaction can be when it is not first about winning a battle.

Is there any point in practicing the skill of winning others over? Are people with opposing views too stupid or too evil to bother trying to win them over? Is the most effective strategy just to conquer through ridicule, humiliation, or intimidation?

Imagine other options. What if destroying others’ intelligence or credibility were not the first attempts in our efforts to promote our positions? How is it that we have come to accept that as necessary and normal?

So what can be changed?

I’ve got some ideas about that. I’ve decided I have no time for listening to rants and ridicule from one side of a debate toward another. Any church leader, journalist, talk-show host, or politician that relies primarily on the noise of verbal warfare is probably not contributing to any progress at all.

Those of us who claim to do things as followers of Jesus Christ often join into the common strategy of declaring a battle when faced with another set of values. One writer suggests the church community has become an “enemy-making machine.” We feel compelled to define an enemy so that we can engage them as such.

(I’m speaking here of ideologies in which we have the time and context in which to work at lasting changes. I’m not addressing crisis issues where intervention must happen at once.)

So, whether in the context of the larger Church and the various doctrines that Christians adopt, or in the context of divisive social issues and debates, the way of Jesus is that of winning people over. His way is not that of conquering over other people and their viewpoints.

The generally-accepted strategy of conquering other ideologies simply raises levels of hostility and requires increasingly-lethal tools for verbal warfare.

Addressing important issues of faith, justice, and ethics will certainly require a non-compromising stance on matters; and that will often stir up opposition, hostility and hatred. But heroes of change like Jesus Christ, the Apostle Paul, William Wilburforce, Martin Luther King Jr, and Nelson Mandela did not build their movements on toxic verbal discourse. Their missions did not succeed through the skills of ridicule and hostility toward others.

Naming the realities of injustice, or of failed policies, or of religious confusion does not require a conquering strategy as much as it requires a wise, compelling, intelligent invitation to a better way.

We can help change the accepted culture of “attack and conquer.” We can practice new skills in our personal attempts to help someone close to us reconsider their viewpoints. We can stop affirming and admiring public figures when they depend on demeaning and toxic verbal attacks as a means of conquering others.

We can practice living in community with credibility and integrity; choosing to see others as neighbours, rather than enemies; attracting others to reconsider the ideals, the viewpoints, and the faith we, ourselves, value so dearly.