Fragmented

I came of age in the Vietnam War/Civil Rights era. My assessment is that the US was at least as divided then as today. If you doubt that, just talk with some folk who were personally affected by either or both. I believe those wounds that never actually healed are intentionally being ripped open and inflamed today. I am also convinced that the propensity to blame those of a different political persuasion is a clear symptom that present fragmentation and polarization is an extension of not addressing the past.

I believe changing this trajectory will be radically counter-cultural. It will require relinquishing assigning blame to others and one’s self. Instead it will require a cultural consensus of community accountability. It will require relinquishing strategies that can be reduced to a series of steps or formulas, especially for someone else to take or apply. Instead it will require an unprecedented transformation of interior attitudes and relationship transactions. It will require relinquishing every evasion and avoidance of distress. Instead it will require gazing into the wounds with an unflinching gaze.

In his 1973 book The Velvet Covered Brick (Harper and Row) Howard Butt presents this eloquently. “Find the spot where life hurts you and let your weight down on it. Don’t lean away from hour pain, lean into it.” (p. 62) Every time we retreat from significant pain without dealing with it, it will cycle back with a vengeance. That is what I think US society is experiencing right now. I am sure these evaded wounds go back even farther, but we are now experiencing the consequences of not leaning into the pains of the fragmentation of the Vietnam War/Civil Rights era.

What is required is far deeper than “can’t we all just get along” or “we agree to disagree.” We must come to the place where we understand why something that seems reprehensible to us seems reasonable to someone else, and conversely why someone else regards what I see as reasonable as reprehensible. That does not mean we agree to injustice or abuse, only that we get in touch with what brings people to such sharply contrary opinions without writing them off as stupid or evil. This is hard enough between our fellow citizens who hold different political, social, and religious ideas. This power is unleashed when extended to those who consider themselves to be our sworn enemies.

The subtitle of Howard Butt’s book is “Christian Leadership in an Age of Rebellion.” I have not reread it for a very long time and am sure I would find plenty to reconsider today. However, just as Howard Butt wrote from his perspective as a Christian, I also come at this as one who trusts and aspires to seriously follow Jesus. I have no illusions of nor ambitions for the US to become a “Christian nation.” But I do come to the crisis of fragmentation and polarization in the society in which I live with my worldview as a disciple of Jesus.

As a society we are highly individualistic and are loathe to acknowledge communal and generational responsibility. Yet, that permeates the values of the Hebrew Scriptures, such as expressed in Psalm 106:6 “Both we and our ancestors have sinned.” It is the core of Daniel’s prayer in Daniel 9:3-19 I which he confessed and repented of sins in which he never personally participated, though he sees himself included with all the people of Judah. I believe that if biblical people, both Jews and Christians, began to live into this principle, we could be a healing voice for our society and lead the way past the present fragmentation.

As an intentional disciple of Jesus, I recognize his journey to the cross as the quintessential leaning into the pain by which he leads us on the path of reconciliation. We, too, have been given what the Apostle Paul called “the ministry of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:18) that breaks down the dividing wall of hostility, not just between humans and God, but between people. (Ephesians 2:14) I yearn for Christian congregations to become living laboratories and models of the kind of reconciliation that our society so desperately needs. Such reconciliation must of necessity include race, ethnicity, class, economics, education, political and even theological differences. I would go so far as to say that we who say we follow Jesus can and should be leading the way in healthy ways to relate to people who not only don’t follow Jesus but may even oppose him.

I am not interested in a generic, cultural “Christianity” that blurs all distinctions. Rather, I am talking about a discipleship vigorous enough for authentic dialog about differences and disagreements and for leaning into the pain of addressing our present paralyzing fragmentation. I have no expectation of a sweeping cultural revival. Rather, I envision the powerful influence of a small amount of yeast leavening the entire loaf. (Matthew 13:33; Luke 13:21; 1 Corinthians 5:8; Galatians 5:9)