We need not be afraid of those who hold different beliefs from ours.

Afew years back, I made a new friend named Hadad. We were strangers who met amid the noise and foot traffic of the shopping mall. Within moments, however, we were conversing at a deep level, exchanging glimpses into the mysteries of our Christian and Muslim souls. If you had told me during my youthful evangelical days that I would be talking with a Muslim without trying to convert him, I likely would have questioned the quality and relevance of my spiritual condition. What’s the point, if not to convert, right?

Life was much easier during the years when I knew my fellow “believers” and I were right about God. After all, we had the Four Spiritual Laws and other gospel tracts to assure us in our mission to convert the rest of the world. (By the way, I still embrace the simple gospel message as truth, so don’t be worried that I’ll be left behind.) Yet something has changed in my thinking. My understanding of other faiths and even other Christian doctrines has expanded to a degree that scares me some. I am on a journey that reaches beyond convictions.

Growing up, one fence that was securely in place was our attitude of rightness over the Catholics. I learned that Catholics were not really Christians, and their priests liked to drink wine. There were also the lawn fetes, statue idols and bingo to assure us non-Catholics that we were on the holy road to heaven. It felt good to know we were right. I was in my 20s, having lunch with a Catholic I admired for his social service, when something he said sent a glimpse of light through my closed door of religious reality. Could he really be finding Jesus like I found Jesus, just in a different way, in the Eucharist? As I look back, it might have been me who was converted that day.

Conviction has its place, but the downside of overcertainty is the elimination of tones and shades of truth that offer a creative understanding of a life that is expansive and wonder-filled. God did not create only one flower, yet many of us keep clutching the same wilting bouquets. Even the Anabaptist conviction of nonresistance should not be off-limits for exploration and discussion. So far, I have not been convinced in ways other than peacemaking, but listening to a global church that does not largely share our views has great value.

Of all the compelling and surprising statements Jesus made, one that likely provided more questions than answers is found in Luke 9. Jesus instructed his disciples to go out in pairs. One day they saw someone outside their inner circle practicing ministry independent of how they had been instructed. Think of it as a clash of denominations or religions. Jesus, however, was not the least bit threatened by what so upset the disciples, and he said, “for whoever is not against us is for us.”

My Muslim friend Hadad is not against me. The Catholic friend I dined with is not against me. Is it possible the best approach toward those we differ with is to first give up our fears about them and what they believe? Years ago my faith felt stronger in keeping a safe distance from them. These days, my faith has found a resting place, as the old hymn says, “not in device or creed.”

If we could allow the dust of our singular convictions to settle, we would find an image of common faith reflected in our faces. Some of the pain I have felt in ministry comes from my failure to listen to opponents without fear and suspicion, and when others have rejected me for asking hard questions. When it’s all said and done, can’t we recognize we are on the same path, serving the same Lord and too busy with kingdom work to get tripped up in the fine arguments?

Once I saw on a Christian TV program a vibrant hand-raising worship service in a church that years ago shunned outward emotional expression. The church still held to its core convictions, but in this area of worship, it moved in a new direction and seemed happy about it. Someone, perhaps the pastor, arrived at a crossroads in which he concluded, “We have nothing to fear in giving up the old and embracing the new.” Sam Keen, in his book In the Absence of God, writes, “Nothing shapes our lives so much as the questions we ask, refuse to ask or never dream of asking.”

Responding to differences, we can insist on our own brand of theology, our own preferences. Or we can follow Jesus in a restful, unthreatened approach that does not insist on uniformity but responds, “Whoever is not against us is for us.”

Tim Schultz is pastor at Aurora (Ohio) Mennonite Church.