What is a conservative? Is it MAGA? Is it Trump? Is it Capitalism? Is it traditional family values? 

Conservatism, to me, is the conviction that what is worth loving is worth preserving: our homes, our families, our faith, our community, our tradition, our liberty, our institutions. 

Russell Kirk, a foundational thinker of modern American conservatism, said it this way: “The conservative person is simply one who finds the permanent things more pleasing than Chaos and Old Night.” 

We must preserve that which is worth preserving. But, there is a real danger in preserving the wrong things. While we hold fast to that which is beautiful and meaningful and virtuous, there are things we have inherited that are neither.

We preserve truth because it is true. We preserve beauty because it lifts the soul. We preserve virtue because it forms good people. We preserve family, faith, community, liberty, and the rule of law because they create the conditions in which human beings can flourish.

But when something is unjust, corrupt, destructive, or contrary to human dignity, we should not defend it simply because it is old. We cannot just ask what is worth preserving, but how we choose to preserve it. 

I have been asking myself a deeply personal question of late: In my pursuit of defending what is good, have I, at times, forgotten to be like Jesus while doing it? 

I know I have. 

There are times when I have been so keenly determined to win an argument or persuade someone of truth that I forgot the person standing in front of me is made in the image of God. 

There are times I have spoken with real conviction, but without compassion. There are times when I have been more eager to expose someone’s error than to love the person who was wrong. There are times when I have treated a political opponent like an enemy and not a human being.  

For those moments, I can only pray for God's mercy in spite of my own brokenness. 

This is not a call to abandon conviction and moral clarity, but it is a call to remember Christ. 

We can hold strong convictions about immigration policy while treating those in the immigration system with dignity. We can defend the unborn child while showing compassion toward women facing difficult decisions. We can defend religious liberty without becoming people who despise those who believe differently. We can oppose an ideology without hating the person who embraces it.

We can speak hard truths without becoming hard people.

Jesus commanded us to love our enemies. He told us to bless those who persecute us. He warned us about the danger of becoming so focused on the speck in someone else's eye that we failed to notice the log in our own.

Perhaps most sobering of all, when Jesus described the people who would hear, "Well done, good and faithful servant," He did not describe people who won political battles. He described people who fed the hungry, who welcomed the stranger, who visited the sick and cared for the prisoner. 

I worry that sometimes we have become very good at fighting for Christian values while becoming less recognizable as Christians. That should trouble us.

Our opponents do not need us to become less courageous. They need to see whether our courage is actually Christian.

The answer cannot be that we become quieter about what we believe. The answer must be that we become more like Jesus while we say it.

So I am making a personal commitment:

• I want my convictions to become deeper, but my compassion to become greater.
• I want to defend what is right without forgetting the dignity of the person I am arguing with.
• I want to be courageous enough and humble enough to examine myself.
• I want to care about laws and policies while remembering that behind every political issue are actual human beings created by God.

And I want to remember that before I am a conservative, an activist, or anything else, I am a follower of Jesus Christ.

That means the question is not merely, "Am I right?" The question is also, "Am I becoming like Jesus?"

Because we can be completely correct about the issue and completely wrong in the way we treat the person. Lord, forgive me for the times I have done that.

We do not need less conviction. We need more Christ.