How do Christians live faithfully and as good neighbors in a world we don’t control?
In 2020, Tim Keller and I coedited a book titled Uncommon Ground. Our project convened a group of evangelical and evangelical-adjacent friends to reflect—as the subtitle said—on how Christians can live faithfully in a world of difference. Since then, however, I’ve rephrased the question for my own work. We should be faithful, yes, but also neighborly. And our world is not just host to real difference of belief; it’s also a world we don’t control.
I owe this subtle but important reframing to my friendship and work with Eboo Patel, the founder and president of Interfaith America. The most important interfaith organization in the country, Interfaith America does not advance a soupy multiculturalism that pretends that all roads lead to heaven or that our differences don’t matter. It takes religious particularity seriously, identifies conflicts and tensions created by that particularity, and works to find common ground across religious differences.
I met Eboo nearly a decade ago. On that first meeting, we talked about the challenges of having young kids, busy travel schedules, and public writing commitments, as well as the importance of interfaith cooperation. Since then, we’ve spoken, taught, written, and built together.
As a Muslim, Eboo does not believe in the saving work of Jesus Christ—and that difference between us is no small thing. We have other differences too: Eboo tells more stories than I do. I drink alcohol, and he doesn’t. His language is usually more colorful than mine. We are friends in spite of our differences.
What does this kind of friendship have to do with Christian engagement in the world? Almost everything.
My question of how Christians can live faithfully and as good neighbors in a world we don’t control is the interfaith question. It asks how we can be fellow citizens, coworkers, and friends with people who do not share our belief in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This question has become increasingly important in a cultural context where Christians are too often seen as self-interested and unconcerned for our neighbors of other faiths and no faith, in our politics and in our personal lives.
There’s nothing relativistic or wishy-washy about the interfaith question posed this way—nothing to suggest we should water down our beliefs or pretend they don’t matter. Theologian Stanley Hauerwas often says that few statements are more incoherent than “I believe that Jesus is Lord, but that is just my personal opinion.” The gospel is either true for the entire created order or a lie that has captured the hearts and minds of fools (1 Cor. 15:12-19).
The universal truth of the gospel compels me to want all to come to know it, Eboo included. But I’m also convinced that the gospel is best advanced through persuasion, not coercion or control. Eboo knows I want him to become a Christian. He also knows I believe his conversion doesn’t depend on me—and that our friendship doesn’t depend on his conversion.
Jesus is the author and perfecter of our faith, and the Spirt is the one who convicts the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment. As a Christian, my calling is not to force people into our faith but to live faithfully as their good neighbor. It is to bear witness to God’s story unfolding in creation.
That can include partnering graciously with those who do not see things as we do. In my work as a law and religion scholar, I have often advocated for greater liberty for others to live according to their own faith commitments, even though this increases their opportunities to advance beliefs and practices I find false and misguided.
For his part, Eboo wants to help Christians be better Christians. He doesn’t believe Jesus is Lord, but he does—just as Jesus promised—recognize Christians when we are behaving like Jesus’ disciples (John 13:34–35). He believes that when American Christians love God, love our neighbors, and demonstrate the fruit of the Spirit, all Americans benefit.
I have my own interests in this partnership. I want to destigmatize interfaith among evangelicals leery of the word by demonstrating that Christians can hold our convictions firmly and partner generously with non-Christians across many domains: friendship, advocacy, religious freedom, charitable services, education, and more. And I want to help show the interfaith community that evangelicals—especially younger ones—are eager for these partnerships.
One of my initiatives with Eboo, which this essay serves to announce, is called Evangelicals in a Diverse Democracy. For the past two years, we’ve cultivated friendship and trust among a group of people whose voices collectively offer a counternarrative to the assumptions of the Christian and post-Christian right and an increasingly dechurched and unchurched left. We believe Christians can be friends, neighbors, and fellow citizens with those who don’t share our faith—and that we can do so within the fullness of our Christian identity.
This is the first of a series of essays at CT which will explore what that means between now and Election Day. Each essayist believes that the reality of an interfaith America provides anopportunity for Christians to engage our neighbors with confidence and compassion. It is an opportunity to “walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love” (Eph. 4:1–2, NASB).
As I wrote in Uncommon Ground, “Many of our differences matter a great deal, and to suggest otherwise is ultimately a form of relativism.” The Evangelicals in a Diverse Democracy essay series will not minimize our differences. “But we can still choose to be gracious across those differences. When we demonize the other side, we miss important insights that can only be learned through charitably understanding a different perspective. We lose the possibility of finding common ground,” which in turn means losing chances to advance common interests and bridge relational distances.
My friendship with Eboo is one example of how we can find common ground with others despite real differences in our understanding of the common good. My hope is that in the years to come, this kind of friendship will become commonplace among my fellow Christians. And my prayer is that the essays that follow in this series will encourage and equip evangelicals in our diverse democracy as they ask what it means to be a good and faithful neighbor.
John Inazu is a law professor at Washington University. His most recent book is Learning to Disagree: The Surprising Path to Navigating Differences with Empathy and Respect (Zondervan, 2024). He serves on the board of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship and is a senior fellow with the Trinity Forum and Interfaith America.
