I just listened to this podcast and at the very tail end, when discussing why young protesters are more effective today than 20 years ago, one of the qualities of young protesters were described as was, “More radical.”
It stopped me in my tracks. The whole episode is worth a listen* but that one little bit about current protesters being lauded for being “more radical” just stopped me.
A few days later I read this blog post** and again, I found myself stopped. Instead of staying stopped, though, I got indignant. I found myself wanting to scream at the culture of “radical or wishy washy” and being told the only way to be a force for good in the world, or a Christian, or even just a loving person is to be radical in a direction.
I’m not radical, and I will never be radical. I am very strongly moderate – not moderate because I won’t make a decision but moderate because I believe the middle ground contains more truth than the fringes – and very passionate about extremism being the cause of so much of our world’s problems. I’m that person who gets accused of being a bleeding-heart, communist liberal (stretching there) or heartless, gun-toting conservative (not much of a stretch) depending on who I’m talking to.
As a moderate, I have always valued discussion from all sides of an issue. Opinions may be misguided, anecdotes and experiences may shade observations, and your personal feelings and desires will always bias your thoughts, but the truth comes from analyzing everything. Politics should stop removing the “science” from “political science” and start treating the discussion like a scientist, observing everything, collecting as much information as possible, and then moving forward.
I try to live in the gray. I fail sometimes, sometimes I get indigent over people not living in the gray, and sometimes I just don’t have the energy to fight for the middle, but I firmly believe the gray contains the most truth.
This nation has become black and white about everything. Race. Gender. Sexual orientation. Religious and Non-Religious. Political Ideology. Pro-Pot and Anti-Pot. The idea of having conversations to find a common ground on any of these things used to be an uncomfortable necessity; now it doesn’t feel uncomfortable because impossible things aren’t uncomfortable
It is impossible to have a conversation because everything in our lives – politics, church, even our marriages and families – have become adversarially two-sided. Nothing is a discussion; everything is a battle that must have a clear winner.
Does it bother anyone else that we treat our politics like a damn football game? Does it bother anyone that we worship the letter that we put behind our name more than we worship Christ? Does it bother anyone else that if they have the wrong letter behind their name – or, God forbid, they don’t have a letter behind their name – that we demonize them and make them out to be monsters who want nothing more than to kill your children/kill all the people who look different? Or for those of us who aren’t on a side, we are “lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, [and God] will spit [us] out of [His] mouth?” (Revelation 3:16)
We do this at church, too. Any time a controversial topic is decided, the losing team – because it is teams fighting each other in a game at this point – prays for the winning team to find God again and stop denying the teachings of scripture/the love that Christ taught us. Why do we Presbyterians have a new denomination? Oh, because the PC(USA) no longer follows scripture. We all know that isn’t true, but that doesn’t stop us from saying it.
If you can’t tell, I’m pissed off. I’m tired of being told I don’t love enough, I don’t care about safety enough, that I’m not allowed to mourn violence, that I’m not allowed safety because I’m not violently preventing violence (take a second to unpack that one), that I’m being to literalist or I’m ignoring the teachings of scripture.
I’m tired of being condemned because I’m not radical.
And I’m tired of us worshiping those who are.
I posted a comment on the Facebook wall of the seminary classmate who posted the article and his comment went to the motivation or pushing Presbyterians to action and “loving radically” and though I agree with him, I think, especially as pastors, we need to be intentional about what we said, and the article compared middle-of-the-road to being lukewarm. It did, absolutely, and the comments basically echoed the ideal that we can’t be moderate and do any good.
Again, everything about this being more radical has nothing to do with loving more – or following Christ more – but moving closer to a side of our adversarial division. No one has said that we need to give ourselves completely to loving our neighbor – all of our neighbors – but they certainly tell us how we are loving them wrong.
Personal politics have no bearing on loving neighbors as self. You want radical talk? You don’t love as much as Christ commanded you to. I don’t love as much as Christ commanded me to. It doesn’t matter what American political ideology you subscribe to, you are not loving as much as you could nor as much as you are commanded to.
You want to love radically? Forget your own needs and desires and love at a personal loss to yourself. Love even when it hurts or is uncomfortable or you cannot help but hate the person you love. Show love to Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton and Kim Jong Un and ISIS and the drug addict down the street and the husband cheating on his wife and the hacker who stole your identity and the guy on Facebook who’s political posts make you sick. Show love to people who have killed, to people who have harmed children, to people who have left God completely, to people who rape and murder, to people who enslave and torture. Show love to people you hate – all of them – and people who mean to harm you.
That’s radical love. Spouting off about how much someone you disagree with isn’t loving enough or isn’t Christian enough isn’t love; it’s battle and it’s war. Christianity is neither of those things. Christianity is submission and sacrifice and love despite our own desires. Christianity has no political affiliation because both completely ignore the call to act outside of your own desires and your own needs and to love all your neighbors, evil and good alike.
That is not lukewarm, but that is moderate. That is the middle of the road in our two-sided, adversarial culture. That is loving both sides more than you love yourself, and showing love to both sides despite their hatred of you and calling you “lukewarm.”
My prayer – my ultimate prayer – is that we can put aside our narratives, our political ideologies, and our need to win, and we can instead take that truly higher ground of loving everyone – literally everyone – and showing that love even to those who desire us jailed, tortured, and dead.
I am passionately moderate, I am passionately in the middle of our two artificial sides, and I am not lukewarm. Stop interpreting scripture in the midst of American politics and interpret it as love, not war.
Now my head hurts, I killed two hours I didn’t really have, and my blood pressure is up. Need to breathe a few breaths and do some work.
Out of Love and In Peace
– Robby
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* I will make one remark about the second half of the episode talking about the race protests around the country. It is wholly uncritical of the protests, making out that their methods and ideologies are absolutely correct. I don’t want to make this a forum to discuss race relations in the country, but I do want to be fair and make that observation.
** </pastor hat>As a side note, Donald Trump isn’t anything other than what he can convince you of to increase his own power. He is super-pandering, working to combine people’s irrational fears of people who are different, rational but overblown fears of terrorism, and legitimate desire to be not-crazy. I will, without fail, vote for an other candidate, even the ones I fear most, to prevent him from becoming President.<pastor hat>
Red Shoe Pastor 