The Radical Center

Living and leading from a Deep and Generous Center in a Divided and Fragmented Age

Several years ago, after preaching a sermon during a particularly tense cultural moment, I opened my email inbox the next morning to find two messages waiting for me. The first accused me of being a coward— too afraid to speak prophetically, too eager to avoid controversy, unwilling to take a clear stand. The second, which had arrived just minutes later, accused me of being reckless— too political, too progressive, and out of step with biblical faith.

I remember staring at my screen for a long time, unsure whether to laugh or cry. At the time, I took the emails as a kind of failure. I had tried so hard to carefully navigate through the extremes, and somehow, I had managed to disappoint everyone.

But over time, I’ve come to see that moment differently. It now feels like a window into the peculiar challenge of our moment, a challenge not just for Christians leaders but for every person of faith. The challenge is attempting to live and lead from what I have come to call the radical center.

A Moment That Pushes Us to the Edges

We are living in a time that resists the possibility of a center. The pressures around us, cultural, political, even ecclesial, consistently push us toward the edges. We are encouraged, subtly and overtly, to locate ourselves within clearly defined camps, to adopt the language and instincts of a tribe, and to view those outside our circle with suspicion or even contempt.

This is not only true in the wider culture. It is increasingly true within the church. Over the past two decades of pastoral ministry, I have watched communities fracture under the weight of these pressures. I have seen how quickly complex questions become simplified into slogans, how easily disagreement turns into division, and how often our shared identity in Christ becomes secondary to our alignment with one side or another.

And yet, in the midst of all of this, I have come to believe that the most faithful response to this moment is not to retreat from the tensions, nor to resolve them by choosing a side, but to learn how to inhabit them differently. In an age of extremes, what if the truly radical act is not to move further toward the edge, but to remain deeply centered?

What I Mean by “The Radical Center”

When I speak of the Radical Center, I am not describing a safe or comfortable middle ground. This is not the “mushy middle,” where convictions are softened in the name of civility, or where truth is negotiated into something more palatable. It is not a strategy of moderation, nor an attempt to split the difference between competing viewpoints.

If anything, the center I am describing is more demanding than either edge.

The center requires a clarity about what is most essential, and a willingness to resist what is not. The center is a way of being rooted in the historic faith of the church— grounded in the creeds, shaped by the Scriptures, and oriented around the person and ethic of Jesus—while also cultivating a posture of generosity, humility, and openness toward others. The center, in this sense, is not defined by compromise but by conviction. But it is a particular kind of conviction: one that is anchored in what is most central to the gospel, and therefore able to hold secondary matters with a certain spaciousness.

At the same time, to inhabit this center also requires a clear-eyed resistance to the idolatries of our age. On the one hand, it means resisting the temptation to fuse Christian faith with national identity or political power— to baptize our preferred ideologies and call them the gospel. On the other hand, it means resisting the equally powerful temptation to imagine human flourishing apart from God— to construct visions of justice, identity, or meaning that are untethered from the Creator in whose image we are made.

To remain centered, then, is not to avoid conflict. It is to be drawn into a deeper one: the ongoing work of discerning where the gospel calls us to stand firm, and where it calls us to make space.

Rooted and Wide

My friend Tom Greggs often uses the metaphor of a tree to describe this posture. A healthy tree has deep roots and wide branches. If the roots are shallow, the tree cannot sustain breadth—it becomes fragile, shaken, and easily toppled. But when the roots go deep, the branches can stretch wide, creating space, shelter, and life.

When our theological grounding is shallow, we tend to become anxious and reactive. We feel the need to secure our identity by tightening boundaries, by controlling outcomes, by maximalizing our theological orthodoxies, or by distancing ourselves from those who think differently.

But when our identity is anchored more deeply— when we know who we are in Christ, and what lies at the heart of the gospel— we are less threatened by difference. We are able to listen more carefully, to speak more patiently, and to remain present in conversations that do not resolve quickly.

Theological depth makes relational breadth possible. The deeper we are rooted in the central truths of the Christian faith, the more freedom we have to be generous in areas that are more complex, ambiguous, or contested.

This kind of rootedness does not eliminate disagreement. It does, however, create the possibility of a different kind of community— one that can hold tension without fracturing, and engage complexity without losing its center. In a culture of outrage, that kind of community is not weak, it is profoundly countercultural.

The Cost of the Center

It’s important to say that this way of being is not without cost. To resist the pull of the tribes is, in many cases, to be misunderstood by them. If you do not fully align yourself with one side, you may find that both sides question your integrity. Your motives may be misread. Your convictions may be flattened or caricatured. At times, you may feel the quiet loneliness of not quite belonging anywhere.

I have experienced this in small ways and in more significant ones, and I suspect that many who are trying to navigate this space have as well. And yet, I have come to believe that this experience, difficult as it is, is not incidental to the life of faith. It is, in many ways, deeply aligned with it.

To remain in the center, in the way I am describing it, is to take up a posture that is, at its heart, cruciform. It is to remain present in places of tension, to absorb misunderstanding without immediately returning it, and to hold together truth and love in ways that are often costly. This is not a technique. It is a form of discipleship.

Leadership in a Reactive Age

If this is true, then it has particular implications for those of us who are called to lead. In a highly reactive environment, it is easy to assume that what people need most from leaders is greater clarity, stronger statements, or more decisive action. And there are certainly moments that call for those things. In fact, this particular moment often demands it.

But increasingly, I am convinced that what people need most is something both simpler and harder to cultivate: a grounded, steady presence that is able to hold immense tension. A presence that is not easily swept up into the anxiety of the moment. A presence that can remain connected to others without being defined by their reactivity. A presence that is rooted deeply enough in God to engage the world without fear.

This kind of leadership does not emerge from strategy alone. It grows out of a life that is being formed, through prayer, silence, reflection, community, and the daily practice of returning to our deep groundedness in our union with God in Christ.

Why I’m Writing

This Substack is, in many ways, an attempt to think and write from that place. I want to create a space where we can reflect on the cultural moment we are inhabiting, not with quick takes or easy answers, but with a deeper kind of attentiveness.

At times, that will mean engaging specific issues in our world. At other times, it will mean exploring practices that help cultivate a more rooted and less reactive inner life. Often, it will involve wrestling with questions that do not admit of simple resolution.

But underneath it all is a shared concern: What does it look like to live and lead from a deep and generous center in a divided and fragmented age?

I do not write as someone who has mastered this. In many ways, this project grows out of my own awareness of how easily I am pulled away from the center, and how quickly I can become reactive, defensive, or anxious.

But I am convinced that there is another way, and I want to live and lead in that way. We are not destined to mirror the fragmentation of the world around us. There is a form of life, rooted in Christ, that is marked by clarity without rigidity, conviction without hostility, and above all, love.

That there is, in fact, a center that can hold. And that, in this moment, learning how to inhabit that center may be one of the most faithful and most needed tasks.