Friendly Fire is “fire not from an enemy, but coming from someone close to you causing emotional or physical injury.”
Dismantling is “to destroy the integrity or functioning of something or to take it apart.”
Unity is “the state of being united or joined together as a whole.”
Friendly fire is a term you don’t often hear spoken about situations in our community, neighborhoods, workplaces, or even within our own families. Friendly fire is a term most often discussed in military circles. But it is an important concept that we need to understand better, because its impact is far-reaching, having devastating effects in families, communities, cities and states. It is impacting how people do life with each other; and how they work together and even worship with one another.
Like the definition above states, friendly fire occurs when the person (or persons) whose words or actions causing disunity and conflict is someone you consider to be a friend, is a family member, neighbor, co-worker or an ally. The situation catches you off guard, because you are not expecting it, as you consider this person trustworthy.
One of the saddest types of friendly fire we are seeing today is family members who are no longer speaking to each another. We also have people no longer attending church because of relational schisms. People in workplace settings are bickering openly with each other. Neighbors have stopped talking to each another. And in some cases, there are open acts of physical violence occurring. All of this is causing the dismantling of unity within families, communities, workplaces, churches and is having a devastating impact.
How did we get here? Social media and places on the internet are some of the biggest tools creating unhealthy echo chambers which are becoming launching pads for destructive friendly fire. These echo chambers foster environments where people are only encountering information or opinions that they agree with and that reinforce narrow (and sometimes unhealthy) viewpoints. Unhealthy viewpoints are the breeding ground for the creation of friendly fire.
What can we do? We can start to combat friendly fire by taking responsibility for the echo chambers we place ourselves within and in understanding the buttons that push our own emotions. We also need to be willing to challenge our assumptions by carefully broadening our information intake and considering the source (and motives) of those providing us information. This can also take the form of being willing to talk with someone different from ourselves; and learn about their life experiences. In doing this, you are not to try to change the other person’s point of view. It is solely to learn and be exposed to information you normally do not receive. But do this carefully so that you don’t find yourself moving into a new unhealthy echo chamber.
“Unity is Strength, division is weakness.” ~ Swahili Proverb
Can we recover from the impact of friendly fire? Yes, we can recover from the impact of friendly fire, but it takes a willingness to admit our own part in the situation. Each of us often plays a role, either willingly or unwillingly, in friendly fire situations. To stop these situations, we need to take responsibility for our part in creating them, and be willing to move beyond our echo chambers to healthy information and conversations. You can tell that the conversations you are moving to are healthy when they conversations about building and repairing relationships; and are about creating positive unity.
“We get to decide how friendly fire situations will end. We don’t have to allow disunity and hate to win. If we choose, we can restore unity by allowing love to be the antidote to hate.”~ Linda Garrett-Johnson
If you’d like to learn more about the concept of Friendly Fire and the impact on faith leaders and the church, read the book “Seeing In the Spirit Understanding the Battle” which can be purchased here.