Hot Button Issues: The Danger of Ignoring the People in the Midst of Them
Hot button issues have been a political tool for decades to drive people to the polls to vote. Last week, I wrote that politicians attempt to use fear to get us out to vote for them or their party. How they do that is usually through emphasizing hot button issues. Merriam-Webster defines hot button issues this way: “an emotional and usually controversial issue or concern that triggers immediate intense reaction.” This intense reaction is what political operatives hope will lead us to support their causes and vote for them to gain or stay in power.
Hot button issues are not always static. New ones take on more prominence while others can diminish in importance respective to how the country as a whole has treated them. Issues such abortion, gay rights, and gun control have been around for decades. Others have immerged more recently, such as transgender rights, immigration, democracy, election security, and health care. This is not an exhaustive list. Most of you likely can think of others I haven’t mentioned.
As I described the downsides of allowing politicians to scare us into voting for them or their party last week, I also see some downsides of casting our vote solely on certain hot button issues. Let me explain.
The fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) contains the trait of self-control. By definition, a hot-button issue arouses our emotions to the point we have an intense reaction. That reaction often instinctively casts aside the fruit of the Spirit. We can become impatient, harsh and mean towards those who do not agree with our view of the issue. And that can grow into bitterness and unforgiveness. I once had a former student tell me she couldn’t fellowship with anyone in her church supporting Donald Trump. He was her hot-button issue.
Besides the intensity of emotion that certain issues can generate within us, there is also the narrowness of perspective they create. All of us have limited emotional bandwidth to focus on more than just a few issues if they each create intense passion within us. So, out of necessity, we limit our focus or just support the party which has the same viewpoint on these issues that we do.
Yet, as followers of Jesus, our lives are to be oriented toward Him, to walk in life as He did. And that cannot be merely summed up by advocating for a few issues. In fact, Jesus didn’t prioritize issues; He prioritized people. In the world of hot-button issues, people can easily be overlooked. And this is another problem with conflating Christianity with politics. We can lose what was most important to Jesus, that all people are to be treated with love, even our enemies, political or otherwise.
Hot-button issues tend to separate us into camps and to create hostile divisions. That may be common in the world, but it is not the way of Jesus. We all need to pray to have the eyes of Jesus, to see the world as He sees it, not as politicians and political parties desire us to see it for their gain. He sees the world as full of His creatures, for whom He had so much love that He died for each of them. They have never been mere issues to Him.
Every hot-button issue has people, God’s creatures, in the midst of it. Not one can be reduced to merely a cause for which to fight. With abortion, the unborn baby is not the only human involved; so, too, is the woman and the man—all creatures of God and loved by Him. Immigration is the same. Whether individuals live in this country legally or illegally is not the only issue. Why did a person come here, and if they are here illegally, did they have criminal intent or is their current status caused by something else? These are questions to consider because there are human beings behind the issue. And if we see them as creatures of God, how does that impact our reactions to them?
When we consider our hot-button issues, let us always remember the people involved in them and act accordingly. This was the way of Jesus. Let us follow in His footsteps as we are tempted by the political winds to prioritize our issues over the people that exist in their midst.
Until next time . . .
© Jim Musser 2026
