We care for people. We confront systems.
In my work I often talk about being safe for all people but not all ideas. It means we hold space for every person while also holding the line against systems and ideologies that cause harm.
If we’re serious about bridge-building, then we have to reckon with the fact that you can’t build a bridge if you’re not willing to anchor it on the other side. You can’t foster real connection across differences if individuals feel like you desire to exclude them.
And this is the tension.
Because some ideas should be rejected. Some ideas are rooted in harm, supremacy, exclusion, or deception. Some ideas dehumanize. Some ideas fracture community. So what do we do with that?
The answer isn’t easy, but it is essential:
We care for people. We confront systems.
Bridging Isn’t the Same as Agreeing
The work of bridging; the true, gritty, gospel-shaped work of it, isn’t about softening your convictions to make everyone comfortable. It’s not a bland middle or a compromised truth. Bridging is about showing up fully as you are and allowing others to do the same, even when you disagree profoundly. That’s why it matters that we create spaces that are safe for people, even if we do not affirm every idea or worldview brought into that space. Being safe means that we will not belittle or question a person’s worth. Being unsafe to ideas means that we will challenge, disrupt, and dismantle the ones that do harm.
This is where many people get stuck, especially those who are passionate about justice. There is often a fear that welcoming a person with a harmful perspective will look like tolerating that harm. But here’s the reality: If a person believes your disdain for their ideas is also a disdain for them as a person, you’ve already lost the chance to help them grow beyond it. That doesn’t mean you don’t draw boundaries. That doesn’t mean you let abuse go unchecked. But it does mean we hold a posture that keeps doors open for transformation. It means we don’t collapse someone’s entire identity into a single belief or behavior.
It means we reject what they said or did, not who they are.
Personality Is Not Personhood
One of the quiet violences of our time is the way we reduce people to traits, politics, or other personal identifiers. We let ourselves become the judge of another’s entire personhood based on the version of them we’ve most recently encountered.
But personality traits aren’t personhood.
I believe that every person has value, not just when they agree with us, not just when they become more palatable, not just when they shed their past. We cannot be interested in building a coalition of sameness. We should be interested in a community of mutual transformation. That means we believe people can change. And more than that, we want them to. But people don’t change when they feel like projects, they change when they believe that change cares for them.
Systems Deserve Scrutiny. People Deserve Dignity.
This is where that phrase comes back into focus: “We care for people. We confront systems.”
It’s not a slogan, it’s a daily practice.
When someone shows up in our life with a belief that’s racist, or sexist, or anti-immigrant, or demeaning to others; we don’t pretend it’s fine. We confront the system of thought that produced that idea. We show the harm. We try teach a better way. But we do it with them, not against them.
Because the minute they feel discarded, they become unreachable.
In that moment, the bridge collapses. And we’re left with two sides shouting into the void, wondering why no one is listening.
But there is another side to this, too — and it matters just as much: If someone consistently chooses to only express and embody unsafe ideas; ideas that degrade others, that deny dignity, that sow division, then for the sake of others, we may need to disinvite them.
Being safe for people doesn’t mean tolerating harm without consequence. We cannot risk the integrity and safety of the bridge we’re building. If someone shows that they have no desire to become an anchor point, then their presence can begin to erode the very thing we are cultivating.
That doesn’t mean they’re beyond hope or healing. It just means that, for now, they won’t be participating. Participation requires responsibility and safety, for everyone, that’s why bridges have guardrails.
Hospitality Doesn’t Equal Endorsement
Let’s be honest: sometimes people will weaponize your hospitality. They’ll say, “You had a conversation with that person? You didn’t call them out? You must be just like them.”
Ignore that.
Welcoming someone into your space doesn’t mean you affirm every belief they carry. It means you affirm their humanity. It means you know that influence requires access, and access requires trust, and trust requires relationship. Hospitality is how we model a better way, even before it’s fully understood. If we’re going to be serious about community transformation, then we have to be serious about nuance. We need to recognize that people are more than their worst idea or their most ignorant moment.
We need to recognize that we are too.
We’ve all grown in our thinking over time. We’ve all needed someone to be patient with us. To help us see more clearly. Those are the bridges we’re called to build, not ones that pass over injustice, but ones that leads people out of it.
We are not safe for harmful ideas.
We are safe for the people who hold them.
We don’t walk away from people.
We walk with them, toward something better.