We live in an age of ideological quarantine. To associate with the wrong person is to risk moral infection.
When Tucker Carlson interviewed Nick Fuentes, an open antisemite, Ben Shapiro, a devout Jew, condemned him harshly. His outrage was understandable. Yet it exposed a deeper fracture: can a man even speak with someone like Fuentes without being accused of sharing his disease?
Likewise, Bill Maher is castigated by his own tribe for inviting conservatives on his show and taking their ideas seriously. He hasn’t abandoned liberalism; he’s simply refused to live inside the ideological ghetto his peers built.
Purity tests like these are ritual, not reason. Once someone is branded “unclean,” proximity itself becomes sin. The moral worth of an idea is judged not by its truth, but by who voices it or who sits beside them.
Purity tests are idiotic. They turn conviction into superstition and truth into contagion. They make dialogue impossible and coalition-building unthinkable. This kind of ritualized denunciation — the compulsive need to signal moral distance from the impure — is precisely what fueled Trump Derangement Syndrome. It wasn’t debate; it was liturgy. Every news cycle demanded a fresh denunciation to prove one’s virtue.
But the world isn’t changed through isolation. Movements that refuse to speak beyond their walls end up preaching only to the mirror. True righteousness isn’t about keeping one’s hands clean. It’s about doing good in a dirty world.
The Scriptural Foundation
Jesus knew this and built His ministry on it. The purists of His day believed that touching sinners defiled the soul. Jesus touched lepers, ate with tax collectors, defended adulterers, and spoke to women respectable men ignored.
When the Pharisees demanded to know why, He said: “Those who are well have no need of a physician… I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.” (Matthew 9:10-13)
Holiness, He showed, is not fragile. It isn’t a flame snuffed out by sin; it’s a fire that purifies what it touches.
Paul lived by the same logic: “I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some.” (1 Corinthians 9:19-23) He moved freely between Jews and Gentiles, adapting without deceit. Fidelity to truth mattered more than conformity to tribe.
When others preached Christ from selfish motives, Paul still rejoiced: “Whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed — and in that I rejoice.” (Philippians 1:18) Even flawed messengers could carry a true message.
Christ’s parable of the wheat and the tares warns against uprooting every weed, for zeal can destroy the harvest (Matthew 13:24-30). And Paul’s counsel in Romans 14:4, “Who are you to judge another’s servant?” affirms that disagreement need not destroy fellowship.
The Bible’s lesson is clear: righteousness is measured by faithfulness, not by who you refuse to touch - or to work with.
The Wisdom of Imperfect Cooperation
Jesus was not the only one who taught this. The greatest minds of faith and reason agreed that purity without prudence leads to sterility, not righteousness.
Thomas Aquinas called prudence the “charioteer of the virtues.” Justice without prudence, he said, becomes cruelty disguised as zeal.
John Wesley urged cooperation across differences: “If your heart is as my heart, give me your hand.”
Cicero taught that public life requires taking men as they are, not as we wish them to be. Waiting for perfect allies ensures nothing good is ever done.
C.S. Lewis warned against “the Inner Ring” — the lust to belong to the morally pure. “Of all the passions,” he wrote, “the desire to be inside the right circle is most skillful in making a man wicked.”
Edmund Burke, watching the French Revolution devour itself, saw the same disease: “A state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation.” Purity enforced by terror destroys what it claims to protect.
Across centuries, wise men have agreed:
- Moral isolation is pride disguised as virtue.
- Engagement with imperfection is the condition of doing good in a fallen world.
- Prudence, charity, and humility are higher than ideological purity.
If purity were the highest virtue, no good would ever be done. Every reformer, prophet, and statesman has worked with people they disagreed with.
God used Cyrus, a pagan king, to free His people from Babylon. Divine providence doesn’t need perfect vessels.
In a fallen world, working with imperfect allies isn’t compromise; it’s humility in action. Cowardice surrenders truth; fanaticism worships purity. The wise seek the narrow road that honors both conscience and effectiveness.
Shared objectives justify limited partnerships. To stand beside someone on one issue isn’t to bless them on all. Coalitions multiply good; purists multiply failure.
When and How to Work with Others
Every successful reformer has known this. The abolitionists, the Founders, the civil-rights leaders, all built coalitions among people of wildly different faiths, temperaments, and politics. They weren’t pure. But they were effective.
- Define non-negotiables. Truth, life, justice, and human dignity are not bargaining chips. But knowing your boundaries frees you to act boldly elsewhere.
- Identify common ground. State clearly what you share and why you’re working together. Clarity preserves trust.
- Keep your witness intact. Engagement isn’t endorsement. Speak your convictions plainly and kindly.
- Accept incremental progress. You may gain an inch beside someone you can’t follow a mile. That inch still matters.
- Trust Providence, Not Perfection. Cyrus rebuilt the Temple. Mary Magdalene, once possessed and despised, became the first witness of the Resurrection. God’s work has always moved through flawed instruments. Our task isn’t to curate perfection but to act faithfully in the field He’s given us.
Association Is Not Sin
It’s easy to fear contamination by association. But history and Scripture both deny that lie.
The Founding Fathers were a coalition of rivals — deists and churchmen, idealists and pragmatists — who disagreed on nearly everything but liberty. “We must all hang together,” said Franklin, “or most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.” Their unity, though imperfect, birthed a nation.
The same truth runs through the Bible. Jesus ate with sinners; Paul partnered with unbelievers; God used pagan kings for His purposes. Holiness was never isolation; it was influence.
“My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one.” — John 17:15
To act in a fallen world is to risk imperfection. The answer isn’t retreat, but faithfulness: to stand firm in truth while working among the flawed. You are not sinning when you labor beside those who disagree with you. You are doing what every prophet, apostle, and founder has done: standing where conscience commands, using the allies Providence provides.
If the cause is just, the conscience clear, and the truth intact, then partnership with the imperfect is not compromise. It is courage.
The Courage to Stand Beside
Purity tests masquerade as virtue but serve only pride. A society obsessed with being untainted forgets that good must be done in a tainted world, or not at all.
The light was never meant to hide from darkness. It was meant to enter it.
This is the way of Christ, who ate with sinners and turned their hearts; the way of the Founders, who argued bitterly yet signed together; the way of every reformer who chose courage over perfection.
You are not defiled by standing beside the imperfect. You are defined by whether you stand at all.
“Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.” — Matthew 5:16
The test of righteousness was never purity. It was fruit.
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