I don’t really do partisan politics on this blog. I find the world to be divisive enough as it is, and I don’t feel called to add to the mix. At times, I’ll write about political issues — those affecting what constitutes the greater good of our society — rather than addressing partisanship, which is prejudice or bias in favor of a particular political party, because I see our school and its parent church primarily as messengers of the gospel of Jesus. Once you enter into areas of partisanship, particularly in our divisive culture, you begin to alienate a large percentage of those you’re trying to reach for Jesus. There are plenty of places to find political punditry, so this won’t be one of them.
But the death of Charlie Kirk yesterday actually has great cultural ramifications, because it represents a larger statement about where we are as a nation. Yesterday, after his tragic assassination, I quickly researched the last “successful” political assassination in America. Unless I’m mistaken, I came up with Robert Kennedy in June 1968. Sixty years ago, in a very significant era in American history. A very, very divisive era.
Political violence signifies something about the political scene, and about the culture. Once people resort to violence, it means they have personally lost the debate, but it also typically means that they feel that the standard means of resolving disparity and injustice in our society–the orderly political process of discussion and compromise–has broken down to the point that there is no other option (and there is ALWAYS another, better option).
We are not living in the most divisive, violent era in American history. The American Civil War is the obvious winner of that terrible distinction, yet the Gilded Age of 1870-1900 and the Vietnam War era are runners-up. But this era is certainly divisive, and is awful in its own right, and yesterday’s terrible tragedy (hopefully we noticed that there was ANOTHER school shooting yesterday, as well) was a marker of remarkable disunity and disruption in our culture.
This is all very horrible, so horrible that God had to send his Son to die for it to rescue us, to redeem us from it. We should never forget the weight of our sin and the sin of the world, so we never forget the power of the grace that Jesus brings, and how free we are from this, even when it saddens and sometimes really frightens us. We serve a God who can bear the weight of our questions and our sadness, our crying out to him, and crying out is what we should do. Yet, this faith that we have is a firm stake in the ground that we plant and hold onto no matter what happens around us, the hope that keeps us flying off into the darkness.
And we should be people of unity in a culture of disorder and division. I was reading my devotional in the Lectio 365 app today, which was super timely (as always, God speaking to my heart through His Word). God is a Triune God, unified as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit for all time, and He created us to be unified. The division and contentiousness we often suffer, on racial, social, gender, economic, party, and other lines, is broken and distorted, caused by our own sin and the sin of the world around us. Jesus died so that we could be united, and God calls us to unity. As Paul says to the Ephesians from prison:
As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bonds of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. Eph. 4:1-6.
Our world calls us to respond to tragedies like yesterday by doubling down on division: by declaring “war” on our enemies, whoever they are; by meeting anger with anger; by hating, instead of loving; and by ramping up the very toxic version of partisanship that, when it reaches the minds of very disturbed, broken, and evil people, leads to things like yesterday. These impulses are natural, but that’s precisely what they are: natural–according to the sinful, human nature that is the result of our first parents’ sin, and that Jesus had to come and die for to begin with.
We are a new creation in Christ, and new creations are called to live differently. Ephesians tells us how: Humble. Gentle. Patient. Loving one another. Working for unity in diversity, whatever that diversity may look like. God made us different, and gave us different minds, which means we’re going to think differently about issues. Every study that’s been done out there demonstrates that this is a strength when we see it and handle it as such, by listening, and talking, and caring about one another and our mission more than we do about being right, especially on things that aren’t scriptural (and we need to really be sure we’re calling things scriptural that are; we can’t be flippant about or careless with God’s Word).
God has made us to be light in the world, and we are light by being the very things He’s called us to be. When we become the things of the world, we just contribute to the darkness and play right into Satan’s hands. Our enemies aren’t people; people are pawns, subjects of compassion and, for us, love, mission, prayer, and hopefully, salvation. It’s the Holy Spirit’s job to change minds and hearts, not ours. Ours is humility, gentleness, patience, working for unity, and love.
If we want things to change, we can’t be a part of the problem. Consider taking a news media fast, so you’re not fueling the fire of your heart with the “wisdom” of the world. Instead, be still and silent with God’s Word on your heart, pray for His mind and heart, and use the power and the tools He gave us actually to do something about it. We can change our community and the world around us. That’s our part of the wall. This is the way God intended it, and it’s the only thing that’s ever really made a difference for over 2,000 years.
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