Hello my friends,

Among the questions I receive the most are "how did we get here?" and "What do we do?" The answer to the first is multifaceted and highly influences how we answer the second. So, in today's newsletter, I'm going to address one of the facets that brought us to where we are today: extreme binary thinking. Then, we will look at a few practical steps together as we process what to do about it all. Thanks for being here and reading along.

Recommended Resources:

​-Love is not an executive order: what Christian Nationalism gets wrong. This is a short, but insightful read.
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​-Hidden brain How much do we really know? In this episode of Hidden Brain, Shankar interviews cognitive scientist Phil Fernbach and he explains the "illusion of knowledge" — the fact that we think we understand the world in much greater detail than we actually do. He also explores why this happens and how to close the gap between what we know and what we think we know. It's fascinating and relevant to our topic today.

​-Six Ways to Make Your Life Easier and More Peaceful – By Using Stoic Principles. In my work, I am constantly staying up to date on the news of the day, which can be soul draining, energy sapping, and cause me to spiral into hopelessness and even fear in the face of all that is happening. So, I am constantly on the lookout for practices to help maintain my boundaries around worry and prevent my mind from leaping to worst case scenarios every few minuets. This article expresses a lot of methods that I found helpful. I often associate worrying with caring about the state of the world, which isn't healthy. If that's you too, you might benefit from reading this too.

​-5 Calls I just want to again make mention of this valuable resource and encourage you to use it to contact your representatives. It makes it so simple and easy to make your voice heard. I have used it almost daily to oppose the current injustices against immigrants and to ask my senators to vote against the so called "Big Beautiful Bill." If you haven't used it before, I highly recommend it.

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​Do Not Repay Extreme Binary Thinking With Extreme Binary Thinking.

As many of you know, the Christian culture I grew up in here in Idaho was steeped in fundamentalism and nationalism. This impacted me in so many ways and shaped how I saw the world around me. One of the ways this culture shaped me was training me to think about the world in extreme, either/or binaries.

This culture taught me that the universe was made up of only two things, good and evil. For every good thing there was from God, there was an equally evil thing from the devil. From there, the world and the people within it could be easily divided into different simple categories. Saved vs lost, Christian vs secular, Biblical vs. unbiblical, and us vs them.

In this worldview, there is little room for gray areas, nuance, or complexity. Truth is seen as absolute and fully knowable, and often defined by a literal interpretation of Scripture. Doubt, questioning, or alternative perspectives are viewed with suspicion or as spiritual threats. This framework was marked by a rigid moral judgment, a combative stance toward culture and even towards other kinds of Christians, and a strong emphasis on purity, certainty, and control.

This culture fostered within me a sense of fear and urgency. I believed I was meant to be constantly vigilant in “defending the truth” at all costs while resisting any perceived moral or theological compromise. Sacrificing humility and compassion was acceptable if it meant maintaining certainty and power in the face of such “evil” in our world.

After moving onto college, I distinctly remember getting to a point where I was utterly exhausted by this mentality. I was so tired of seeing everyone different from me as an “enemy.” I was just so frustrated by the constant pressure from this mindset to always be on the defensive towards the world, which we ironically claimed to believe was “so loved by God” (John 3:16). I was just so burnt out from the constant need to be “right” all the time. I got to the point where I began to suspect that I and my beliefs were more at the center of my faith than even Jesus was. That was a big turning point for me. Jesus would ultimately be the one who led me away from my fundamentalism.

Yet, I still find myself drifting into that hardwired habit of extreme binary thinking from time to time. It is one of those things that can really sneak up on me if I’m not careful. As I have been navigating this within myself, I have also noticed it becoming mainstream in our culture today, especially over the last decade or so.

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​You're Either With Us or Against Us

To use a current example, the horrid events in the Middle East are framed in very “either/or” binaries, even in Christian public discourse. You are either “for God and Israel” or not and that’s the end of the conversation for many. To be against Israel’s actions in Gaza is to somehow be against God and possibly even antisemitic.

There is no “gray” area, no room for nuance of embracing complexity, even when innocent people, including women and children, are losing their lives every single moment. This is as lacking in logic as much as it is lacking in compassion for the most vulnerable.

Being deeply opposed to the way Netanyahu is demonizing and brutalizing innocent Palestinians, including women and children, is not the same thing as being antisemitic. No more than being deeply opposed to Christian Nationalism is in anyway being antiChristian or being against Americans.

For instance, Palestinians are a Semitic people group. The term "Semite" refers to a language and cultural group that includes ancient and modern peoples, and Semitic languages like Arabic, Hebrew, and Aramaic are spoken in the region. So, Palestinians, who are primarily Arab, are part of this larger Semitic family. Disregarding them because of their language, ethnicity, or religion is also a form of antisemitism. We must be against all forms of antisemitism.

We must also be careful not to confuse biblical Israel with the modern nation-state of Israel, which—like every nation—is made up of people and governments capable of both justice and injustice, righteousness and wrongdoing.

When Scripture speaks of God’s covenant with Israel, it points toward a larger story fulfilled in Christ. In the New Testament, Paul makes it clear that God’s people are now defined not by ethnicity or national identity but by faith in Jesus (Galatians 3:28–29, Romans 2:28–29). The church—Jew and Gentile alike—has been grafted into the promises of God (Romans 11). Jesus is the fulfillment of all that God called ancient Israel to be and the result is the church, which is to welcome and include people of all nations, ethnicities, languages, ages, genders, and economic classes (Acts 2).

So to assert that we must stand “behind Israel no matter what” becomes a dangerous distortion of theology, morality, and our call to be wise in our thinking. No government is above accountability—not Israel’s, not America’s, not anyone’s. The prophets of the Old Testament show us this by frequently rebuking Israel and its kings when it acted unjustly. To love a people is not to excuse their every action, but to call them—as we call ourselves—to righteousness, justice, and peace. All while advocating for the most vulnerable.

The moment we are unable to think in nuanced ways about issues is the moment we are going to be untruthful about them. We should always be against authoritarianism, nationalism, bigotry, and genocide. No matter who perpetrates it. When opposing cruelty is our goal, rather than just trying to cut issues up into having to choose one side or the other, things become very clear.

You begin to understand that you can oppose Hamas, call what happened to Israel on October 7th “wrong" and stand up for Palestinians at the same time.

You begin to understand that you can oppose Netanyahu's decisions, oppose all forms of antisemitism, and be opposed to political violence, like that which tragically took the lives of two people at the Israeli Embassy in D.C. all at the same time.

You begin to understand that when your goal is to oppose cruelty and injustice, you will oppose it no mater who perpetrates it, which requires wisdom, humility, and an embrace of the complexity.

This is the freedom and complexity that comes when we move away from “either/or” thinking.

The Harm of Binary Thinking

Extreme binary, either/or thinking—also known as black-and-white thinking or false dichotomy—is a cognitive distortion that frames complex realities in simplistic terms: something is either completely right or completely wrong, good or evil, success or failure, us or them. While binaries can and do offer clarity in certain contexts, when over-applied or absolutized, they distort reality, damage relationships, hinder growth, and even perpetuate injustice.

Here are a few ways that extreme binary thinking is harmful:

-It Distorts Reality and Oversimplifies Complexity.

The world is rarely binary. Most human experiences, relationships, ideas, and ethical decisions exist in a spectrum of nuance. Binary thinking flattens these complexities into false choices, which misrepresents truth and leads to poor decisions. So, in relationships, viewing someone as either wholly good or wholly bad prevents genuine understanding or reconciliation. In the area of theology, it pits grace against law, or faith against works, and can distort the biblical witness that often holds tension in paradox. In politics, it divides people strictly into “left” or “right” ignores the wide range of beliefs and motivations that inform someone’s views. By demanding certainty or purity, binary thinking often ignores the ambiguity and layered reality in which we actually live.

-It Fosters Division.

Binary thinking creates an “us vs. them” mentality, where people are categorized as allies or enemies based on rigid ideological boundaries. It breeds suspicion, resentment, and fear. This fear then discourages dialogue and mutual understanding. It increases polarization by vilifying the “other” and it rewards conformity and punishes nuance or bridge-building. This mindset is particularly dangerous in times of social, political, or religious upheaval, when people seek clarity but are offered absolutism. Especially by authoritarians who seek to capitalize on this mentality for their own gain.

-It Suppresses Growth, Change, and Learning.

Binary thinking assumes that if you’re not right, you’re wrong. If you’re not perfect, you’re a failure. This kind of thinking is especially damaging in areas of personal or spiritual growth. I noticed this especially in my mental health, where it contributed to shame and self-condemnation: “If I’m struggling, I must be weak or broken.” It also shuts down curiosity: “If I ask a question, it means I don’t know—and that’s bad,” which diminishes leaning. It can also impact our moral development and growth, like: “If I made a mistake, I must be a bad person.”

True learning involves trial and error, humility, and the ability to hold tensions. Binary thinking discourages this by making people fear being wrong.

-It Leads to Moral Rigidity and Legalism

When applied to ethics and morality, binary thinking often results in legalism—a strict adherence to rules over love, mercy, or context. This is particularly damaging in religious communities. It turns faith into rule-keeping rather than relationship, it makes moral discernment mechanical and unforgiving, and it fosters hypocrisy, as people hide struggles to maintain appearances of “rightness.”

Jesus frequently challenged this kind of binary moralism—especially among religious leaders who valued being “clean” or “correct” over being compassionate and just (see Matthew 23:23).

-It Can Justify Injustice

Binary thinking is often used to dehumanize others and justify oppression. When people are labeled as purely evil, immoral, or irredeemable, it becomes easier to ignore their dignity or silence their voices. In history, binary thinking has undergirded colonization, slavery, racism, and war. It allows for scapegoating: “They are the problem, not us.” It undermines systems of accountability and grace by reducing people to categories. As I type this, I cannot help but think of our immigrant communities here in the United States who are experiencing this very kind of treatment right now.

To resist injustice, we need the moral imagination to see complexity, to humanize our opponents, and to hold space for both truth and mercy. Binary thinking makes this almost impossible.

-It Undermines Emotional and Spiritual Health

From a psychological and spiritual standpoint, binary thinking fragments the self. It pushes people to disown parts of their own story, desires, or questions because those parts don’t fit into the “acceptable” category. It can lead to internal conflict, anxiety, and even self-hatred. It stifles authenticity and vulnerability and it encourages spiritual bypassing—using religious certainty to avoid emotional or existential struggle. But healing and transformation require the courage to face the whole self, including our unresolved and contradictory parts. Binary thinking often keeps people from doing this work.

Embracing the “Both/And” Reality

While some decisions in life are rightly binary (e.g., choosing integrity over dishonesty), many of the most important questions—about love, ethics, morality, identity, truth, justice, and God—require wisdom, discernment, and humility, not rigid dichotomies.

A healthier alternative is dialectical or integrative thinking, which acknowledges paradox, holds tension, and seeks deeper understanding rather than easy answers. In theology, this mirrors the mystery of the incarnation: Jesus is fully God and fully human—not either/or, but both/and.

Resisting binary thinking doesn’t mean embracing relativism or moral apathy. It means embracing reality with the maturity to say, “This is complicated—and I am willing to sit in that complexity with faith, love, and hope.”

Moving away from binary thinking and embracing integrative thinking is not just a shift in mindset—it’s a profound spiritual transformation that draws us deeper into the heart of Jesus. For followers of Christ, this movement opens us up to a richer experience of grace, deeper humility, fuller love for others, and a more faithful witness in the world.

Here’s why this matters and where we can find hope in it:

Jesus constantly defied binary categories. He was both fully God and fully human. He was gentle with sinners but fierce with the self-righteous. He held truth and love together, justice and mercy, conviction and compassion.

Jesus refused to reduce people to labels—he touched the unclean, dined with outcasts, and forgave enemies. He didn’t ask whether someone was “in” or “out” before extending grace. When we move beyond either/or thinking, we begin to see others the way he did: as complex, beloved, image-bearers of God.

Hope: We don’t have to choose between love and truth, grace and holiness. In Christ, we can hold them together, just as he does in love.

Binary thinking often comes from a desire for control, certainty, and safety. But the way of Jesus is not about having all the answers—it’s about trust. Integrative thinking embraces mystery, tension, and growth. Therefore, it requires a deeper practice of trust.

The Apostle Paul wrote, “Now we see through a glass, dimly…” (1 Corinthians 13:12). Spiritual maturity means learning to live in that dim light with humility and hope—not needing to divide the world into neat categories in order to feel safe or superior.

Hope: As we release the need for rigid categories, we make space for the Spirit to do the slow, deep work of transformation—within us and in others.

Binary thinking makes us suspicious of difference and quick to judge. Integrative thinking, by contrast, opens our hearts. It allows us to hold space for people whose experiences and convictions are different from ours—not because truth doesn’t matter, but because people matter.

This doesn’t mean moral relativism. It means love refuses to write people off. It means believing others are more than the worst thing they’ve said or done. It means recognizing that healing and transformation often happen in the context of relationship, not argument.

Hope: When we move beyond binaries, we can become safe places for others to wrestle, question, and grow. That’s what real community looks like.

Binary thinking says: You’re either good or bad. Righteous or sinful. A success or a failure. This leads to either self-righteousness or crushing shame. But integrative thinking reflects the gospel: that we can be deeply flawed but we aredeeply loved.

Romans 5:8 reminds us, “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” We don’t have to pretend to be perfect, nor despair over our imperfection. We are being renewed day by day. Integrative thinking allows us to hold both our brokenness and our belovedness together—just like God does.

Hope: We don’t have to earn God’s favor by being “right enough.” We can rest in grace, knowing that God is working in us—even in our questions, doubts, and mess.

One of the biggest things I’ve experienced with binary thinking is that it can often paralyzes us: “If I can’t fix everything, should I do anything?" Or it radicalizes us: “Only my side is good; the other must be destroyed.” Integrative thinking invites us to enter the brokenness of the world not as saviors or cynics, but as hopeful, faithful participants in God’s work of restoration, mercy, and justice.

Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers” (Matthew 5:9)—and peacemakers are people who live in tension, build bridges, and hold competing truths together without letting go of love.

Hope: God’s kingdom doesn’t advance through control or purity tests—it grows like a seed, quietly, steadily, often through small acts of mercy, courage, and faith.

I firmly believe that the Christian life is not meant to be an escape from tension, but an invitation to live faithfully within it. When we move from binary thinking to integrative thinking, we’re not abandoning truth—we’re allowing the fullness of truth to shape us: truth that is rooted in love, expressed through grace, and embodied in Jesus.

We are no longer bound by fear, performance, or factionalism. We become people of hope—people who can live in the mess and mystery of life without losing our way, because we walk with the One who holds all things together.

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​Practical ways integrative thinkers can respond in our world of extremes:

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​1. Model Thoughtful, Nuanced Conversations in Public and Private

Speak and write in ways that hold complexity with grace. Don’t flatten ideas to fit a “side.” Show that it’s possible to be thoughtful without being indecisive, and principled without being polarizing.

Say things like: “I hear your concerns” or “That’s a complex issue—can we slow down and unpack it together?” or “I’m still learning. Here’s where I stand today.”

In practice: On social media, in classrooms, or around dinner tables, choose not to mirror the outrage cycle. Ask good questions. Listen before responding.

Impact: This disrupts the pattern of echo chambers and shows that mature, reflective dialogue is possible—even in a divisive world.

2. Build Relationships Across Difference

Choose to befriend or stay in relationship with people who think differently from you—politically, religiously, racially, culturally. Not for the sake of “winning them over,” but to embody what it means to value the person above the position.

Practice curiosity over certainty: “Help me understand why this matters to you.”

Resist caricature: Refuse to let ideological labels reduce someone’s humanity.

Don’t walk away too quickly: Remember, boundaries matter, but also, staying in hard conversations can be a quiet form of resistance to division. Wisdom is knowing when to stay and when to walk away.

Impact: This undermines the authoritarian logic of “us vs. them” by proving that human connection is more powerful than ideological conformity.

3. Resist “Purity Culture” in All Its Forms

Binary thinking often leads to moral or ideological purity tests: If you don’t agree with everything I stand for, you must be against me. Resist this impulse—in yourself and in your communities.

Don’t cancel people for growing, questioning, or failing.

Push back gently when others demand ideological allegiance without room for conscience or context.

Affirm moral complexity: It’s okay to name tension, to both affirm and critique aspects of a movement or belief system.

Impact: This protects your community from authoritarian groupthink and makes space for grace, repentance, and change.

4. Engage in Local Civic and Community Life

Authoritarianism thrives when people disengage and leave power unchallenged. You don’t have to be a politician to have influence. Integrative thinkers can serve as bridge-builders and conscience-holders in everyday spaces. So here’s a few ideas:

Attend school board meetings, city councils, or community forums—not just to speak, but to listen and connect.

Support local journalism and storytelling that resists sensationalism.

Use your vote, your voice, your presence—especially when marginalized groups are under threat.

Impact: Staying involved at a local level counters the top-down nature of authoritarian control with grassroots wisdom and accountability.

5. Create and Protect Spaces for Slow, Honest Reflection

Binary systems depend on speed, certainty, and emotional manipulation. Counter this by nurturing spaces—spiritual, artistic, relational—where people can reflect, grieve, ask questions, and imagine alternatives.

Host a book group, community dialogue, or contemplative retreat.

Use art, music, or writing to express complexity and lament.

Prioritize Sabbath and silence—rest is resistance to the urgency of fear-driven systems.

Impact: These spaces cultivate the inner life needed to sustain outer resistance. They become havens for moral imagination, hope, and courage.

6. Tell Better Stories

Authoritarianism and binary thinking rely on shallow, fear-based narratives. Integrative thinkers can challenge this by telling stories that reflect truth, complexity, and hope.

Share testimonies of transformation—especially ones that defy simple categories.

Lift up voices that are usually left out—those on the margins, in the gray areas.

Reclaim the language of faith, justice, and love from those who weaponize it.

Impact: Stories shape how people see the world. Better stories create the possibility for better futures.

Resistance Rooted in Christ

For followers of Jesus, integrative thinking is not weakness or compromise—it’s faithfulness to a Savior who embodied truth and love, justice and mercy, clarity, and compassion. When we practice this kind of thinking and living, we bear witness to a kingdom not of domination, but of healing.

The work is slow. It will be misunderstood, but it is holy work and it is how light quietly overcomes darkness.