I had a conversation with a young woman I have known her entire life. Her view of what is happening in America is very different from mine. I did not enter the conversation trying to make a statement or provoke a reaction. I was simply talking, believing that two people could disagree and still treat each other with dignity. I shared my views honestly and calmly. When the conversation ended, something unexpected happened. Because she did not like what I said, she withdrew what she called “respect.” That moment stopped me, not because we disagreed, but because of what her response revealed about how respect is being redefined in our culture.
That exchange brought clarity. If respect disappears the moment someone challenges your beliefs, then it was never respect at all. It was approval, given only as long as there was agreement. True respect does not require agreement. It requires restraint. It means allowing another person to speak without punishment. As Voltaire is often credited with saying, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” That understanding once stood at the center of honest conversation in a free society.
Respect cannot be earned through conformity, because if it could, every person we meet would become a standard we must meet. One set of expectations would cancel out another, forcing us to change who we are just to be treated with basic dignity. That is not respect. That is control. Respect, properly understood, is given because a person is human, not because their opinions are acceptable. When respect becomes conditional, honesty becomes dangerous and truth becomes something to hide.
Scripture draws this line clearly. In Acts chapter fifteen, Paul and Barnabas had such a sharp disagreement over John Mark that they separated and went different ways. The Bible uses the word paroxysmos to describe their conflict, meaning a strong or intense disagreement. Yet Scripture does not suggest they sinned by disagreeing or lost respect for one another. That same word, paroxysmos, appears again in Hebrews chapter ten, where believers are instructed to stir one another toward love and good works. The same word used for conflict is also used for sharpening. Disagreement, when guided by truth and restraint, is not destructive. It is refining.
Trust, however, is different. Trust must be earned through consistency and character over time. Someone may decide they do not trust me because they disagree with my views, and that is their right. But withdrawing respect because of disagreement is not moral clarity. It is an attempt to silence. When people say, “I no longer respect you,” what they often mean is, “You no longer affirm me.” At that point, conversation ends and division takes its place.
A society that confuses respect with agreement will eventually demand silence instead of dialogue and conformity instead of character. Scripture and history both remind us that truth is often sharpened through tension, not erased by it. Respect is given. Trust is earned. Disagreement, when handled rightly, is not a threat to truth, but one of the ways God uses it to refine us.