...and they'll know we are Christians by our... tweets?

I hate conflict. It makes me sick to my stomach. Whenever an argument erupts, I feel like I’m a preschooler again, cowering at the dinner table while two older brothers loudly debate dogma with my preacher dad.

So, on February 26 when I see on my Twitter feed, a dismissive tweet from pastor and author, John Piper, “Farewell, Rob Bell,” I’m the heart-broken adolescent sitting in the back pew of my home church silently crying while the senior pastor callously pounds a gavel to close a meeting that splits the congregation down the middle.

I watch the firestorm that ensues from those that support either Bell or Piper, the flurry of followers self-righteously blogging, name-calling and stone-throwing and I am once again the anxiety-filled high-schooler watching my parents weep over a letter from my favorite brother, telling us never to contact him again, “because life is too short to spend with people who don’t give a #$%! about doctrine.”

When doctrine and the knowledge of it becomes more important than exhibiting the fruit of the Spirit, we have strayed far from our mission. What we know may be the truth, but if we do not speak the truth in love, we are clashing cymbals.