Advocating that we be "polite" is nice, but we have varying definitions of what that means. I think "out east" we are a bit more comfortable with forceful words, loud words, even sort-of angry words than some folks in the midwest. Just yesterday, I was having a face-to-face contretemps with a medical supply company, disorganized and slow to deliver, and the woman said, "You don't have to shout."
I responded, "I'm from New Jersey, that's how we talk, and it's nowhere near shouting."
In this modest forum, I have tried not to declare someone "un-Lutheran" or "un-Christian" or "un-Biblical," though my language may at times have indicated I find other aspects of their belief and personality to be gravely flawed.
In covering New Jersey state and local politics, and having covered some DC politicos, I found that - until now - they could rant, rail, and rave about another member of the body during the debate, then go out to dinner together. It wasn't personal. (That may have changed in today's settings.)
But in church disputes, it is often "personal" or "eternal" or so earth-and-heaven shaking that rancor and nastiness abides.
I mentioned years ago how - when I worked for the Lutheran Council in the USA - Jack Preus came to a 1971 annual meeting and tried to get me and my boss, the great Erik Modean, fired because we had covered the growing troubles in the LCMS. Jack had been on a "world tour" and because the LWF ran our stories, everyone he met asked him about the controversy, which was a story for us because it was causing the LCMS to break fellowship with the ALC.
His efforts to get us canned failed.
That night, Erik and I were in a booth near the bar of the Grammercy Park Hotel, when Jack and Milt Carpenter and another LCMS rep came in. They sat at the bar, and in a few minutes Jack left the bar and came to our table. Instantly - while I was preparing to run for cover - Jack and Erik began reminiscing and laughing about some of the "old days" (Erik had been around since the late 1950s) and some of the folks they both knew, including ALPB notable Ade Meyer.) That went on for about an hour and when the last round of drinks came, Jack had our tab put on his bill.
Having grown up in a political family, he knew that opponents in policy need not be deadly enemies. A lot of church folks don't know that.