A Way Out of The Storm

This is a remarkable teaching that is well worth an hour of your time. Its basic thesis is that followers of Christ have to place the Gospel first, and that this entails, among other things, a refusal to participate in the toxic hyper partisanship that is especially in evidence on social media--that Christians are ambassadors for Christ and that if you indulge in hyper partisan links or memes, and people know you're a Christian, your action reflects on Jesus. In the minds of those who see it, their reaction is, "Oh, so this contempt for others is okay with Jesus."

The speaker--Ryan Lowery, a pastor at Xenos Christian Fellowship, a non-denominational church here in Columbus-- is talking to an audience of Christians, but the points he makes apply with equal validity to all of us.

Historically, republics live or die based upon the civic virtue of their citizenry--civic virtue being a willingness to look beyond one’s narrow self-interest and focus on what is best for the commonwealth. The politics of division, the omnipresence of fake news, the reflexive embrace of news outlets that reinforce our views and the dismissal of those which don't, have all created conditions in which it is almost impossible to exercise civic virtue, even if one understood its importance. What chance remains, then, must begin with a commitment to seeing other Americans as human beings, and to reject hateful stereotypes.

Lowery argues that it is okay to have a political point of view, but it cannot involve demonizing persons who hold different views. This demonization is easy if you deal in wholesale stereotyping, but more difficult if you take time to get to recognize the humanity of those with whom you disagree politically. I would argue that this, in turn, sets conditions in which a healthy political dialogue can be founded. I do not think that creating and sustaining that kind of dialogue is easy--in fact I think it will require a great deal from us--but without the recognition of a shared humanity it will be impossible.

I have only scratched the surface of Lowery's message, and I have placed it in a frame--that of civic virtue--which he does not mention. But I feel confident that the approach he outlines (which draws upon the insights of several books, secular as well as Christian) offers a way out to begin to emerge from the current mess, largely by refusing to take part in and reinforce it.