Wrote this in a CRC-Voices thread on the WICO fight

Conflicts are almost always multi-dimensional:

A. There is the conflict over the matter itself: Is it right that women hold office in the church and minister from those offices

B. Then there are all of the decisions we make in terms of how we behave towards each other within the conflict of this disagreement.

The command to love your enemies is marvelously inclusive and blind towards the specific reason that person is your enemy. The direct application of “love” is not always clear and subject to evaluation by the opposing side, but there are usually a host of other things that we do that we know we don’t do out of love.

We all reflexively evaluate the “love” performance of the other side of the divide through colored lenses. We KNOW that we’ve done better towards them then they have towards us. Fortunately for us this realization is a clear part of our doctrinal understanding of sin. Unfortunately the reality of this in our lives constantly hinders our ability to recognize we’re doing it all the time and makes it terribly difficult to stop. Merely ascribing to the doctrine is insufficientpvk