Reality vs. a better path

I’ve noticed that I have been changing how I interact online lately. I’m not sure what triggered this change. I don’t think it’s anything external. I no longer feel obligated to debate with strangers. My blog has never really been about trying to convince any one of anything. It’s always been the place where I can play with ideas and have somewhere to put ideas. I don’t claim to be right. And honestly, being right just isn’t that important if it is not matched by right action in the sense of there being congruency between belief and action. What good is having the right information or knowledge if your actions contradict what you are claiming?

Too many online interactions end up being debates with the object being to win, rather than to see the humanity of one another, to consider a wider range of possibilities, and approach life with a sense of humbleness in acknowledging that we just don’t know as much as we like to tell ourselves that we do. Too often online debates aren’t even about the issue at hand. They are arguments about abstractions with simplified taglines as if the world were nice and neat and crisp and clean. It is not.

And I know that I have contributed to this plenty. But none of us have to continue contributing to it. Our society faces serious challenges – real changes that affect real people and their lives. And I think we make a bad assumption when we assume that society has knows how to deal with these problems, let alone acknowledge that they even exist. I’m not even convinced that society has the capacity to do so. A society can only “advance” as far as the people in it. And I wonder if a society is limited to how it will deal with the challenges it faces based on the extent that the individuals in that society have done the work on themselves.

In a strange way, I’m past being angry about what is happening in the world. I’m not happy about what is happening, but I’m not angry about it either. I would prefer that the world operated differently, in a manner that was actually healthy. We could do that I believe. But we have chosen a different path. And until we decide differently, and back that decision up with action and commitment, we should not expect society to be different. For some reason we seem content to be invested in an unhealthy way of being a society that just doesn’t benefit the vast majority of people. For some reason we collectively believe that there aren’t other options for how society will operate. I’m not sure why.

What some people are waking up to now is that the people they have known and cared about for a long time, or possibly their entire lives, are the very people who seem willing to throw those relationships and people under the bus and make excuses for their demise and harm. Does that make sense? And those waking up to this reality are discovering how horrifying that is. One of the biggest challenges we face as a society is mistrust. We mistrust one another to the point of not showing who we really are. But that starts deeper – mistrust of ourselves. We aren’t being honest with ourselves.  

One of the underlying operating beliefs in our society is the ends justify the means. The biggest problem with that belief is that everyone and everything is disposable. We see this being played out in our governmental system, our economic system, and so many other ways. And the people who use this operating belief have fooled themselves into believing the lie that they are exempt from the consequence, rather than just another pawn that is being used. It is a fatal mistake. Their dispensableness is just as applicable as everyone else.

This operating system is why we see people make arguments for one thing and then turn around and contradict themselves almost immediately. It why we hear people excusing actions of cruelty and violence. It’s why we hear arguments labeling and blaming victims of horrific actions. It’s why there are people who will deny what they see with their own eyes. It’s why there is always an excuse. Take this far enough and it’s why we should not be surprised when there are people who will excuse and even support murder and genocide.

Remember these people when they make these excuses. Remember their names. And when all of this comes crashing down – and it will – do not be surprised when these same people proclaim that they never supported what happened. When the ends justify the means, then everything and everyone is disposable after all. And beware of people who live by the ends justify the means. They will stab you in back and blame you for being stabbed. They are not to be trusted. Which gets right to the heart of what I wrote about before – mistrust.

But keep in mind, this is not a zero sum game. It’s not a matter of either trusting everyone or mistrusting everyone. It’s a matter of discernment. And a matter of self-reflection. There is always a messy gray range of trust. Because some people are just going to either refuse or have the capacity to be trustworthy. Why? I don’t know. And figuring out why someone is or not is not the goal here.

I think what we’re dealing with here in this country is an identity problem. Maybe problem isn’t the right word. Maybe it’s an identity crisis. We saw this crisis after the shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Videos came out pretty quickly showing the shootings. And declarative statements from government officials came out quickly as well, without any investigation to know what actually happened. And what you knew would happen did – people saw what they wanted to see. They saw what matched their identity. The actual footage didn’t ultimately matter in terms of changing anyone’s mind or belief. We all watched the same video, the same angles. And we saw what we wanted to see.

Evil exists. But not in the way that seems most obvious. I’m not talking about some guy with red skin and horns who lives in an overheated sauna under the earth’s surface. Evil is far more complex than that. Evil isn’t the ICE agent killing an unarmed 37 mother of a 6 year old trying to get away from ICE agents. Don’t get me wrong, that’s a pretty horrible and terrible situation. Evil is the system that causes there to be an ICE agent who is so inclined to solve a situation with deadly force as the quick response. Evil is the apparent need for there to be weapons. Evil is the first strike mentality we have. Evil is the cheering of the death and destruction of our enemies because we have convinced ourselves that they are so very different from ourselves in every possible way to the point that their humanity isn’t even a possibility. Evil uses distrust as a justification for its actions. Evil uses language and action that embody the ends justify the means, that might makes right, and that the strong survive. Evil is most concerned with control of people – regardless of whether we are talking about here or in distant places. This isn’t just an American challenge after all. It’s a human challenge that has been going on since humanity started walking around.

One of the features of evil that we don’t like to acknowledge is that evil has an element of good in it, which is why it is so tempting. Evil isn’t ugly on the surface. It hides behind beauty and truth. It twists beauty and truth and mangles them so that the rot of evil under that facade can be hidden. Scripture has numerous references to this.

• Proverbs 16:27: “The highway of the upright turns aside from evil; whoever guards his way preserves his life”.
• Isaiah 1:16: “Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil”.
• Matthew 6:13: “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil”
• Romans 12:9: “Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good”.
• Romans 12:17: “Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all”.
• 1 John 1:9: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness”.
• Ephesians 5:11: “Take no part in the worthless deeds of evil and darkness; instead, expose them”.
• Psalm 34:14: “Turn away from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it”.
• Psalm 97:10: “O you who love the Lord, hate evil!”. 

On the larger scale, we are dealing with the most recent iteration of evil – Christian Nationalism. Christian Nationalism isn’t Christian in the sense of any attempt to follow Jesus. It does what evil always does – colonizes, exploits, abuses, and uses what doesn’t belong to it for its own power and advancement. And like all evils, it is not sustainable and will fall.

The church has an opportunity to so something about this. Something radical really. To be honest. To name the reality of evil in the world, the unwellness in society and in ourselves, and to present a path forward. To present an ideal and an aspiration to move towards that is not an alternative to the collective choice we have embarked on with terrible results, but rather to show that the current path is the alternative to what we should be doing. To present it not as some fantasy that requires perfection because that is not realistic. Rather, the church has an obligation and opportunity to name reality for what it is, to name how it is impacting people and how we are all connected to those impacts, and to present a path forward that will focus on wholeness and wellness for humanity and creation.

I’m not crazy enough to believe that everyone is going to just jump on board. There will be many who will absolutely oppose this. They are stuck in the dichotomy of either/or, of tribalism, of us/them dynamics. They may believe they benefit from these things. That’s fine. And the church shouldn’t wait for everyone to get on board either, because it will wait for forever. Not everyone is going to get on board. Some will actively work in opposition. We should expect that.

The opportunity is not in debate or fighting. It’s not in convincing people they are wrong. It’s not in labeling or dehumanizing. It’s not in adopting the ways that have brought us to where we are today. It’s in embodying and living congruent with what we what claim to believe. It’s all right there. We don’t need to come up with anything new. It’s the words and ways of Jesus. We’ve have that for a long time. Now is the opportunity to live it. Not perfectly. But attempting to do it with authenticity. And with invitation. And when someone pushes back or attempts to derail this, keep going anyway. You can’t control what others will do. You can only do what you are going to do.