I have, in the last few years, begun avoiding controversy. I’ve lost the formerly-urgent desire to have my say about the latest hot topic. I’ve lost interest in blogs that thrive on controversy. I seldom engage in internet forum debates anymore. I no longer rush to buy the latest books on the popular heresies of the day. I would rather think on things that are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, and of good report (Philippians 4:8).

To be honest, however, there is still a part of me that is spoiling for a fight. There are two reasons for this: first, as a fallen sinner, there is a desire to shut the mouths of idiots and demonstrate my own brilliance; second, there is a legitimate desire to stand up for the truth, to be “Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;” (2Corinthians 10:5). But I have difficulty engaging in controversy without allowing the former motivation, which is none other than pride, to come to the forefront, exalt my own cleverness, and steal God’s glory.

In short, I have difficulty speaking the truth in love. John Piper shows how Francis Schaeffer, a man who did not shrink from controversy, addressed this problem:

Francis Schaeffer: Sweet-Singing Twentieth-Century Swan

One of the swans who sang most sweetly in the twentieth century was Francis Schaeffer (1912-1984), the founder of L’Abri Fellowship. He was a wise and humble apologist for the Christian faith, and the model for many of us. In 1970 he wrote an essay called The Mark of the Christian. The mark, of course, is love. He based the essay on John 13:34-35 were Jesus said, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
   Schaeffer spent most of this essay exhorting the church to disagree, when it must, lovingly. Schaeffer’s view of biblical truth, like the swans in this book, was so high that he would not let the value of truth be minimized in the name of a unity that was not truth-based. Therefore, he dealt realistically with two biblical demands: the demand for purity and holiness on the one hand and the demand for visible love and unity on the other hand.

The Christian really has a double task. He has to practice both God’s holiness and God’s love. The Christian is to exhibit that God exists as the infinite-personal God; and then he is to exhibit simultaneously God’s character of holiness and love. Not his holiness without his love: this is only harshness. Not his love without his holiness: that is only compromise. Anything that an individual Christian or Christian group does that fails to show the simultaneous balance of the godliness of God and the love of God presents to watching world not a demonstration of the God who exists but a caricature of God who Exists.

Schaeffer knew that, in general, the necessary controversies and differences among Christians would not be understood by the watching world. You cannot expect the world to understand doctrinal differences, especially in our day when the existence of truth and absolutes are considered unthinkable even as concepts.

You cannot expect the world to understand doctrinal differences, especially in our day when the existence of truth and absolutes are considered unthinkable even as concepts.
   We cannot expect the world to understand that on the basis of the holiness of God we are having a different kind of difference, because with are dealing with God’s absolutes.

This is why observable love becomes so crucial.

Before a watching world, an observable love in the midst of difference will show a difference between Christians’ differences and other people’s differences. The world may not understand what the Christians are disagreeing about, but they will very quickly understand the difference of our difference form the world’s differences if they see us having our differences in an open and observable love on a practical level.

Therefore, Schaeffer called controversy among Christians “our golden opportunity” before a watching world. In other words, the aim of love, in view of God’s truth and holiness, is not to avoid controversy, but to carry it thorough with observable practical love between the disagreeing groups. This is our golden opportunity.

As a matter of fact, we have a greater possibility of showing what Jesus is speaking about here, in the midst of our differences, than we do if we are not differing. Obviously we ought not to go out looking for differences among Christians; there are enough without looking for more. But even so, it is in the midst of a difference that we have our golden opportunity. When everything is going well and we are all standing around in a nice little circle, there is not much to be seen by the world. But when we come to the place where there is a real difference, and we exhibit uncompromised principles but at the same time observable love, then there is something that the world can see, something they can use to judge that these real are Christians and that Jesus has indeed been sent by the Father.

—John Piper, Contending for Our All, 163-166