Boycott this blog if you don't agree with it

If Chinese new years were named after cricketers, 2017 would be the Year of the Boycott. A few weeks ago an American chat show host disinvited a potential guest because of the comments they had made about homosexuality.

Ewan McGregor then disinvited himself from a chance to promote Trainspotting 2 on Good Morning Britain, after seeing what Piers Morgan had tweeted about the US Womens March.

Now over a million people want to stop Donald Trump coming to the UK, after his dreadful (and cack-handedly executed) executive order on immigration.

Making statements is all fine and good, but I worry about the boycotting bandwagon. Despite becoming more globally connected, its very easy to use social media to surround ourselves with the voices we agree with, and then imagine that this represents the world. I don't often side with Russell Brand, but this is what you do with people you don't agree with. Jesus never shied away from his enemies and the people he disagreed with. He engaged with them, exposed them, loved them, and gave them the chance to change. Retreating into right-thinking silos may feel virtuous, but in a fragmenting world, we need more loving engagement and respectful debate, not less.

If we close our borders to Trump, then we borrow his weapons. We can do better.