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The Privilege To Break-Off Relationships

The Privilege To Break-Off Relationships

Last updated on: January 21, 2025 at 10:40 pm by Elisa S. Johnston

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The Privilege To Break-Off Relationships 2025-01-21T22:40:31-08:00 Elisa S. Johnston

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We tend to think of privilege as relating to race or socioeconomic status. But there are other privileges we need to be aware of, specifically about our access to opportunities for friendship. Have you considered that it is even a privilege to break-off relationships?

The Privilege To Break-Off Relationships

After the 2024 election, I wrote the article Should Christians Let Politics Define Their Friendships? This is still just as relevant of a question the week of the inauguration as it was in November, especially for the Christians who didn’t vote for or felt torn about voting for Trump. In this article about friendships, I went over the arguments for why Christians claim unity isn’t possible in the middle of politics. We talked about grief and when we don’t feel safe when our fellow believers are on the other side of the political spectrum. Then to wrap it up, I covered what loving means in scripture, the nuance of using politics to divide us, and ultimately using a different measuring tape to trust others: who shows up in real life.

But this article misses an important point. The whole topic of who we are friends with is actually a question of whether we have the privilege to search for other relationships. This is a perspective built on the right to having access to people who we can make connections with. We can’t be alone.

Image of a moon and a person standing in a field beneath it

Access to community is a privilege, not something we can all just “find” if we give a little bit of effort. IMAGE: AI Generated

A Story of Loneliness

Like many, I have never lived life outside of a Christian community of faith until COVID divided us. However, even then, after the initial lockdown, most of the Christians around me either still met or had opened alternative methods of connecting online outside of church meetings.

That season was hard for me, but being ill was even more challenging. During COVID, there was a common solidarity around a globally shared experience. But when I was disabled and ill everyone continued with their life. I alone lost access to friends and family. Then being in the hospital a score of times, where no visitors were allowed, I was even more alone. Despite how much I wanted to view nurses or doctors as friends, they couldn’t replace community, let alone a faith community. Most of the time I wasn’t well or lucid enough to stay connected with people virtually. Even those who visited in my home barely got any of my attention, my mind and body were too consumed by the lupus flare.

During the brief times I could be present, I wished for relationships with other believers. But it could only happen if someone visited me. I had no capacity to foster community for myself, something I was used to encourage others to do if they expressed their own loneliness. Unsurprisingly, I didn’t love this season of life. But one of the things that it taught me was that access to community and relationships are privileges, not something we can all just “find” if we give a little bit of effort.

Are Relationships a Human Right or a Spiritual Calling?

It might not be considered a human right–belonging to a group. Even so, we all know belonging is a vital part of the human experience to thrive and flourish. Finding love, intimacy, and belonging are part of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. But as followers of Jesus, we are part of one body, a shared priesthood, a family, a holy nation. A continual theme of the New Testament is learning how to live in a new way, together, using our gifts to encourage, challenge, and grow each other. It is part of our calling to be part of the community of faith. We cannot walk out our faith and fully mature without seeing our place in the group of believers:

“Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ. This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ.” (Ephesians 4:11-13, NLT)

Image Credit via VeryWell

What Happens After Christians Separate?

At a church service on Sunday the teacher said, “Tomorrow we get a new president!” To my surprise, most of the people started clapping and cheering. I felt sick to my stomach. Then he paused and went on, “For some of us this new president is a let down, though.” I wondered if I was the only person in there nodding my head, but I was glad to have my position stated. He went on to talk about trusting God when we are let down by other people, something which I’ve felt regarding the new administration–let down by my fellow Christians. I wondered how I was able to worship with this group who cheered, but I was grateful that I still could at least worship with other believers.

I read something a friend wrote for the Inauguration where she stated she was so disappointed, she didn’t think she’d ever be able to get over it. This makes me sad, but it also makes sense. It is usually how Christians feel after they separate. Maybe reconciliation is rejected, pride triumphs over humility, or there is no possibility to be safe within a specific Christian community. So what do we do? Historically, denominations divide, people have left churches, and relationships are cut-off. I’ve been there and it isn’t fun.

But can separation be the end of the story? I don’t think it can be, at least not in the way the gospel presents itself. Part of the good news of the gospel is to have community, and meet that need to love and belonging. Our path to maturity requires other believers, and sometime the ones available are less than ideal.

When Christians separate from others, they form new communities. They connect with friends who were also hurt or with whom they can deconstruct their faith with to find a new sense of wholeness. They build a new denomination. They find a healthier environment.

The Privilege of People

This next step of moving on to new people can’t happen, though, when there are no other people. This narrative assumes that there is the privilege of a wide community to pick and choose from.

What happens if you live in a small village and the only people of faith seem to also be Christian Nationalists? Or have weird traditions? Do you shun these people and become a hermit? What if you are in a region of the world where there are no other Christians in your proximity but a handful? Would you try harder to reconcile with the ones who are there?

It is a privilege to live among a wide variety of believers, to have a safe place to connect, and a body physically able to meet with them. It is also a privilege to be able to travel to or move to a city where you can find friends who you will share most of your doctrines. It is a privilege to have technology, internet access, and membership groups to find like-minded people.

I wasn’t picky about who my community was when I was barely surviving. When I was sick, handicapped, and not wealthy enough to hire help, I didn’t have the privilege to separate myself from anyone willing to be my community. We needed any help that was offered to us, regardless of who it came from. It was humbling, but ultimately it resulted in reconciliation.

These people–without access to community–aren’t a myth. It isn’t just my story. I know or have known people in each of these categories. I also am friends with people who’ve moved on from unhealthy Christian communities or Christian communities who had differing political beliefs who are still lonely because they can’t find others who share enough of the same theology.

I am not defending unjust systems Christians have built or stand behind. Nor am I stating we should go back to spiritually abusive communities. I am just hoping we realize accessing community is a privilege.

The Purpose of Acknowledging Privilege

Why do I bring this up? As always, becoming aware of our privilege helps us be gentler with ourselves and others. “Checking your privilege” doesn’t require you to feel shame or go on the defense. It simply is an invitation to have a broader perspective and more understanding to why some of us don’t choose to break off relationships with people who we disagree with. Maybe there is more to the story. Or maybe, before you make extreme boundaries with the Christians in your life, you should consider if you actually have access to an alternative community or the bandwidth to form one.

We need grace with those in the community of faith. Especially in these days around the change in the government administration, being gracious to others is always in our best interest. And it is also in the best interest of the Body of Christ, God’s Church.

Progressive Christian

About Elisa Johnston

Elisa Johnston is the author of Justice-Minded Kids and The Life Mapping Workbook. She writes, coaches, consults, and speaks through Average Advocate, empowering everyday people to be changemakers with confidence and sustainably. She also writes about paradigms, faith, and experiences through her perspective as an activist, coach & leader on Substack at Authentically Elisa. She loves exploring between the mountains in the sea in her home of San Diego with her four kids, husband, and introverted friends. You can read more about the author here.

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