The sad thing is we’ve never needed grace and understanding more.

America is beset on all sides by inequities, but the greatest threat is a crisis of faith — faith in right versus wrong, faith in our leaders and faith in the truth on both sides. Religion charges up politics, but politics can just as easily defuse faith. 

The United Methodist Church is breaking up over same-sex marriage. Leaders of the third-largest religious denomination in the United States plan to spin off a traditionalist denomination, which is their right to do, and there’s nothing new about it. The faith I was somewhat raised in, Nazarene, is a Wesleyan cousin to the Methodists, until we branched off over holiness and polity.

It’s the pulling apart of people of faith over the modern issues of man that troubles me. Faith and love should pull people together and be better than the worst in us. 

Sin provides a wedge, however, that’s useful in politics. Conservatives think gay marriage and abortion violate their moral code. Progressive can’t turn a blind eye to poverty, injustice or assaults on God’s green earth.

The Interfaith Alliance of Colorado hopes to bridge some of the political gaps between people of faith, to remind folks they have a common humanity that’s older and stronger than any presidency or political party.

Yes, the Interfaith Alliance has a history of supporting causes that rankle Republicans, including equal rights and separation of church and state.

Next Monday and Tuesday, the alliance, Denver Community Church and Regis University is putting on a three-day series at the church and the Iliff School of Theology aptly called Together in This. The idea is to talk about politics and religion, to talk primarily about becoming better listeners to those who differ.

It’s geared toward “anyone feeling division fatigue from our country’s current political and cultural disagreements.” Details and registration are available by clicking here. 

The Rev. Brian Rossbert, the alliance’s development director, said the series might not change the world but it’s a good place to start.

“What we’re trying to do with this series and continuing on is a model of how you can have different opinions, but you don’t have to be divisive,” he told me. “Through our differences we can find a way to be one country, one people, and find different ways of being together in the world. We’re trying to do our part.”

My friend Tamra Farah, who stepped down as El Paso County GOP chair in August, is as Republican as Reagan and as conservative as tax cuts. When she spoke to her friends on Facebook, most of them Republicans, I’m betting, Friday. She said she’d heard some conservatives questioning the faith of others.

“I wanted to let you know who my role-model is,” Tamra said. “It’s Jesus. He’s the litmus test for what’s Christian and conservative. And when he walked the earth, he railed against the Pharisees, against those who condemned sinners, against those who were judgmental.” 

For President Trump it’s a matter of survival at least as much as salvation. That was a large part of the reason for the strong response from the president’s tweets and surrogates after the Dec. 19 Christianity Today editorial titled, “Trump Should Be Removed from Office.”

Mark Galli, who was soon retiring as editor in chief of Christianity Today, wrote the offending piece in the magazine founded by the late Rev. Billy Graham. The piece was denounced by Graham’s son, Franklin Graham, who accused the magazine of siding with Democrats.

The editorial wasn’t new ground for the magazine. In 2012 then-editor-in-chief David Neff wrote:

“When evangelicals are confined to a partisan kennel, it is easy to think we are exercising real power. In fact we are, to use the old Soviet phrase, serving as ‘useful idiots.’ Christianity Today founder Billy Graham discovered this had happened to him. Out of an abundance of enthusiasm and good will, he tried to aid Richard Nixon in his campaign. Later, when Watergate transcripts revealed the true Nixon, Graham realized he had been used.”

Galli did an interview with the New York Times on Jan. 2. 

“There does seem to be widespread ignorance — that is the best word I can come up with — of the gravity of Trump’s moral failings,” he said.  “Some evangelicals will acknowledge he had a problem with adultery, but now they consider that a thing of the past. They bring up King David, but the difference is King David repented! Donald Trump has not done that.

“Some evangelicals say he is prideful, abrasive and arrogant — which are all the qualities that Christians decry — but they don’t seem to grasp how serious it is for a head of state to talk like that and it does make me wonder what’s going on there.”

On Jan. 3, Trump spoke to evangelical leaders at a “prosperity church” in Miami to shore up support, then went to a rally where he promised to return prayer to public schools.

“You know how we did a few years ago — the numbers were phenomenal and the love is greater today than it has ever been,” the president said in a sanctuary that seats 7,000.