The Art of Radical Acceptance

If we believe in a God whose love is truly all-encompassing, a love that eventually gathers every stray thread of the universe into a grand, cohesive tapestry, we face a beautiful yet frustrating paradox. Universal reconciliation isn’t just a future theological reality; it is a present-day practice. If God’s love circles everyone, then there is no outer circle.

But what happens when the people inside that circle with us don’t see it the same way? What do we do when our own journey toward inclusivity is met with the rigid walls of someone else’s requirements, whether religious, political, social, or otherwise?

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Complexity of Non-Reciprocity

I have felt genuine frustration at times, especially toward certain people. I have moved toward accepting people’s faith journeys as they are, honoring their growth, pace, and unique perspectives. Yet I have found that this grace isn’t always a two-way street. I have people in my life whose specific religious rules or worldviews essentially forbid them from accepting me as I am.

It feels like a relational imbalance: I offer acceptance, but I receive judgment in return. I want them to see the world through my lens of radical love, yet their inability to do so makes me feel as if we are not on equal ground.

I shared this frustration with a mentor from my church. I expected him to offer a strategy for raising the issue in a sensitive, loving way. Instead, he gave me a reality check that changed my perspective, summarized as follows:

You cannot force others to accept you, because that is what you are frustrated with in the first place. Others’ worldviews or religious rules require them to think from the perspective they hold. Forcing them to change is not love, as it requires them to adopt the same belief or value of acceptance, which is not much different from their requiring you to believe a certain thing before you are accepted by or equal to them.

The Science of Letting Live

This isn’t just nice advice; it’s grounded in how our brains work. When we try to force someone to change their fundamental worldview, we often trigger their amygdala, the brain’s threat center. To them, our inclusiveness can feel like an attack on their safety and identity.

In her work on Radical Acceptance, Tara Brach discusses the “trance of unworthiness” and the power of saying “yes” to the moment.[1] Radical acceptance doesn’t mean agreeing with someone’s narrow perspective; it means accepting that this is where they are right now.

From a physiological standpoint, practicing this kind of acceptance helps us. Our genes respond to our social environments. When we stop trying to control others, we reduce the background echoes of stress in our relationships, which literally changes our biological signaling.

Loving Without Controlling

The hardest part of a radically loving theology is recognizing that forcing someone to be inclusive is an oxymoron. If I demand that you accept me, I am imposing a requirement on you, which is exactly what I’m trying to avoid.

Patrick J. Howell shares how “The Jesuit theologian Peter van Breemen wonderfully develops this theme of acceptance, this theology of God’s radical love. One of the deepest needs of the human heart, he says, is to be accepted and valued. Every human being wants to be loved, but there is an even deeper love, a love of acceptance. Every human being craves to be accepted, accepted for who one is, not for what one has done or achieved or merited.”^[2]

However, loving someone as they are does not mean participating in our own erasure. As my mentor pointed out, we do not need to accept spiritual abuse or remain in spaces where we are unwelcome. We can:

• Set Clear Boundaries: Boundaries are the distance at which I can love you and me simultaneously.
• Practice Selective Sharing: If someone’s religious baggage makes certain parts of your journey too heavy or theologically complex for them to carry, it is an act of mercy (and self-preservation) to keep those things private.
• Release the Reins: We can offer people the dignity of their own process, even if that process is slow, rigid, or exclusionary.

A radically loving God doesn’t wait for us to “get it right” before offering relationship. If we want to mirror that love, we must be willing to be the more “adult” person in the room.

We accept them not because they have earned it or will reciprocate, but because of their inherent worth. We let go of the need to control their thoughts, and in doing so, we find the freedom to live by the principles we value.

Patrick J. Howell shares that, “Acceptance means that my friends and family give me a feeling of self-esteem, a feeling of being worthwhile. They are happy that I am simply as I am. Acceptance means that I can grow at my own pace. I am encouraged and supported, but not forced.”^[3]

Acceptance functions less as a prerequisite to love and more as its essential expression, the very substance of how divine love operates. Jesus’ loving service provides the transformative foundation enabling disciples to act similarly toward others through freely chosen action genuinely concerned with others’ welfare.^[4]

How do you maintain your peace when your circle includes people who are still busy drawing lines?

The Spectrum and the Source

To understand how we can coexist with those who see from a different perspective, it helps to envision the Divine not as a linear string but as a brilliant diamond.

Imagine God as pure white light entering a diamond. As the light passes through the facets of human experience, history, and culture, it refracts. From where you stand, gazing toward the light, you might see a vibrant blue hue, a path that feels foundational, resonant, and life-giving. Meanwhile, someone else, gazing toward the light but standing elsewhere (shaped by their life experiences), sees a different facet, revealing a rich emerald hue.

Because their eyes are fixed on the green, they might insist that your blue is a “false” light. They might even fear for you because you aren’t standing where the light appears emerald.

But here is the radical truth: The color isn’t the Light; it’s merely a refraction. As long as we move toward the Source of that light, we can grow in truth. The closer we get to the heart of the diamond, the more the individual colors blend back into the “More Than.” Eventually, we arrive at a truth that affirms both the validity of the path in our hearts and the vastness of a God who is far larger than any single hue. Accepting someone else’s “emerald” doesn’t make your “blue” any less true; it simply acknowledges the richness of the Divine.

Although there may be an infinite number of paths to the light, not all paths lead to it. While many paths contain aspects of truth, not all even head in the right direction. It’s not that truth itself is subjective, but rather that our understanding of it is inherently constrained.

Essentials of Faith

Allow me to begin by stating that these essentials are not prerequisites for being part of God’s image; we all inherently possess that attribute. However, what essentials could believers aim for to be more inclusive of other believers? When non-essential differences become the source of friction or judgment among people of faith, I find wisdom from the Moravian perspective[5]. They stripped away the complex requirements that often lead to exclusion and narrowed their focus to what truly matters.

They suggest that the “Essential Things” are remarkably simple:

• God creates.
• God redeems.
• God sustains.

Our part in this cosmic reality is equally focused. We respond in:

• Faith
• Love
• Hope

In everything else, the doctrines, the specific religious rules, the cultural baggage, the invitation is for respect and acceptance.

This framework offers the loving inclusivity we need to navigate difficult relationships. By categorizing most theological arguments as non-essentials, we reduce our cognitive load. We no longer feel compelled to defend our position or convert the other person to our path toward the light.

We can look at those who cannot accept us and say, I see you are responding to God’s blessing in your own way. I respect your journey, even if your rules don’t allow you to respect mine.

By holding on to the essentials of faith, love, and hope, we stay connected to the Source. We set boundaries, protect our peace, and keep walking toward the Light, knowing that the “More Than” is big enough to hold us all.

Job: A Perspective in Humility

In our search for a radically loving God, we must eventually wrestle with the Book of Job. It’s an interesting case study of what happens when religious beliefs meet human suffering. In his book Is God to Blame?,[6] Greg Boyd points out a fascinating irony: both Job and his friends operated from the same flawed theological perspective. They just ended up on different sides of it.

Two Sides of the Same Error

Job’s friends, the less-than-humble religious experts, held to a rigid blueprint of retributive justice. Their math was simple: Suffering = Sin. Since Job was suffering, he must have done something to deserve it. They were so committed to their “emerald” version of truth that they were willing to crush their friend to protect their system of belief.

Job, on the other hand, knew he hadn’t sinned. But because he shared his friends’ worldview, that God is behind every event with a specific intent, he reached a darker conclusion: God is arbitrary. If he were innocent yet still suffering, God must be a capricious deity who “gives and takes away” without reason.

Rethinking Our Perspective

We often hear people quote Job 1:21b at funerals or after tragic events: “the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” (NRSVue) While it sounds pious, Boyd reminds us that this isn’t necessarily “God-breathed” theology, it’s “Job-breathed” theology.[7] Later in the story, God shows up and essentially tells Job he doesn’t have the authorization to speak about the cosmic intricacies at work throughout the universe.

God rebukes Job, “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?” (Job 38:2). In other words, Job’s famous statement was an assumption made in the dark. He attributed a “taking away” to God that God later suggests involved forces and complexities that Job couldn’t even begin to fathom.

Our Take-Away

What can we learn from the failure of Job and his friends? How can we protect relationships by resisting the impulse to insist our view of truth is essential?

1. Prioritize Presence: Job’s friends did great for the first seven days. They sat with him in the ashes in silence. It was only when they opened their mouths to weaponize their theology that things went downhill. In the face of suffering or a friend’s changing worldview, our silence and presence are often the most radically loving things we can offer.
2. Practice Intellectual Humility: If Job, the most upright man on earth, got his theology wrong in the heat of the moment, we probably have some “words without knowledge” of our own. Humility means accepting that our specific hue isn’t the whole spectrum.
3. Stop Protecting God by Hurting People: The friends were so busy defending God’s reputation that they forgot to love God’s image-bearer. A radically loving God doesn’t need us to explain away someone’s pain with hurtful clichés. He needs us to be the hands and feet that sit alongside in the ashes.
4. Abandon Simplistic Theology: Science tells us the universe is a complex, interconnected web of cause and effect, and theology tells us there is a “More Than” that we cannot see. When we assume we know exactly why something is happening to someone else, we are committing the sin of Job’s friends. We are trying to force their experience into our narrow hue of God’s infinite universe.

Acceptance Leading to Change

Being a good friend doesn’t mean having (or sharing/forcing) the right answers; it means having the right posture. It’s about realizing that we are all looking at the same Light from different angles, and sometimes, the most God-like thing we can do is keep our thoughts to ourselves and simply hold the space.

When we stop trying to control what people think or alter their journey, we finally have enough energy to actually love them. And in the end, love is the key that orients us toward the Light.

Acceptance Leads to Transformation

Consider the act of quitting a habit, like smoking. If we judge someone during their struggle, every slip-up they experience is suffocated in shame. From a neurological perspective, shame is a stressor that shuts down the part of the brain required for willpower and change.[8] [9]

However, if we offer radical acceptance, not necessarily approving of the behavior but accepting the person exactly as they are, we create a safe space. In this safe space, the individual is empowered to be authentic. They can make changes, not because they are avoiding judgment, but because they feel valued enough to want the best for themselves.

As Romans 5:8 reminds us, it was “while we still were sinners Christ died for us” (NRSVue). God didn’t wait for us to clean up or adopt a perfect theology before offering total inclusion. True change is the fruit of being loved, not the condition for it.

Standing Against Team-Based Toxicity

This radical posture is perhaps most tested in today’s political landscape. America, and much of our world, is currently fueled by team-based toxicity, where dehumanizing the “other side” has become a cultural prerequisite.

But if we believe in a God of universal reconciliation, we are called to a different way:

• See the Image-Bearer, not the Ballot: Whether someone stands on the left or the right of the aisle, their inherent worth is non-negotiable.
• Protect the Person, even if we Protest the View: Loving inclusivity means standing against rhetoric that strips anyone of their humanity.
• Relinquish the Judge’s Seat: When Jesus said, “Do not judge, so that you may not be judged” (Matt 7:1 | NRSVue), he was offering us a way out of the exhausting cycle of condemnation. He modeled a love that says, ” Neither do I condemn you” (John 8:11 | NRSVue).

Final Reflection

By letting go of the need to control what others think, we may just become humble enough to see them as God does. We don’t need to participate in their religious baggage or accept their mistreatment, but we can honor the “More Than” that exists within them.

When we accept and love others before they are “ready” or before they “agree with us,” we aren’t just being nice; we are mirroring the very heart of God. We are trusting that the Light is strong enough to bring us all home, regardless of which hue we’re journeying toward today.

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[1] Tara Brach, Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life with the Heart of a Buddha (New York: Bantam Books, 2003).

^[2] Patrick J. Howell, “Theological Perspective on Romans 15:4‒13,” in Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary: Year A, ed. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, vol. 1 (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 38.

^[3] Patrick J. Howell, “Theological Perspective on Romans 15:4‒13,” in Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary: Year A, ed. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, vol. 1 (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 40.

^[4] Andrew T. Lincoln, The Gospel according to Saint John, Black’s New Testament Commentary (London: Continuum, 2005), 376.

[5] Arthur J. Freeman, “Moravian Church,” in The Encyclopedia of Christianity (Grand Rapids, MI; Leiden, Netherlands: Wm. B. Eerdmans; Brill, 1999–2003), 3:648.

[6] Gregory A. Boyd, “The World Is at War,” in Is God to Blame?: Beyond Pat Answers to the Problem of Suffering (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2003).

[7] Gregory A. Boyd, “The World Is at War,” in Is God to Blame?: Beyond Pat Answers to the Problem of Suffering (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2003).

[8] Neal Samudre and Carly Samudre LPC-MHSP, Start from Joy: Trade Shame, Guilt, and Fear for Lasting Change, a Lighter Spirit, and a More Fulfilling Life (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale Refresh, 2023), 36–37.

[9] Kobe Campbell, Why Am I Like This? How to Break Cycles, Heal from Trauma, and Restore Your Faith (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2023), 66.