Stand Up!

Everybody wants to fix the world, but everybody has the wrong starting point.  Political violence is on the rise – even the NYTimes gets it now.  Smart people have known about it for a while.  Usually when someone engages in political violence, or threats of political violence, they think they are doing so in the cause of good – that the politics they seek to visit this violence upon is so wrong that violence is a legitimate response.  For that to be the case, they have an unwavering faith in their own rectitude.  And now we get to the root of the problem.

There are indeed cases where violence is an appropriate response.  Our self-defense laws are based on that principle – “just war” doctrine likewise.  But even self-defense killings have to be adjudicated and decisions to make war involve significant deliberations and discussions.  The kind of political violence that is on the rise is quite different.  In these cases an individual, or small group of individuals, decide they are righteous and justified in attacking their opponents.  That requires two things.  As previously mentioned, an unwavering certitude about one’s own rectitude.  But secondly it requires the determination that the issue at hand is important enough to warrant violence.

This second condition requires morality and as we spent a lot of time discussing last week, our moral compass is pretty broken.  It is the first condition where I want to spend some thought this morning.  Yesterday in church I was lead in confessional prayer where we prayed about all the bad stuff “out there” – “racism, homophobia, gun violence….”  But we did not pray to have such removed from our own hearts.  An alien observer would have thought we were clean and pure and justified in that church – and once you begin to think that, well, violence becomes thinkable.

The internet has exacerbated the problem because with it, no matter how crazy you are, you can find some people just as crazy as you are and subsequently feel justified in your crazy.  That is, in fact, the appeal of the internet to many – it does not challenge or question; it does not ask for growth or change – it comforts and reinforces, even when you are dead wrong.

I oft quoted Jesus in these spaces in this regard:

Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?  Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ and look, the log is in your own eye?  You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye!

This quote comes right on the heals of the too-often quoted “Judge not lest you be judged.”  Jesus offers this extended metaphor to clarify His “judge not…” declaration that is too-often quoted as justification for never judging, but such is not Jesus’ point.  His point is, in essence, “judge yourself first.”  We seem to be failing in that self-judgement quite extensively.  Extensively enough that we have come this point of political violence.

Regular readers will note I have been quoting the Bible a lot in recent days.  Yes I have.  People’s religious beliefs and personal faith may be their business, but the Bible is a document worthy or reading and studying precisely because it is wise and addresses so much of what ails us these days – even if you do not accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.  And yet we have discarded even that wisdom in our efforts to avoid judging ourselves first.

We have done so at our peril.