Shocked, not surprised

Photo by T. Chick McClure on Unsplash

This has been a tough week. It's been a tough couple of years actually.

People have been glued to screens being updated by their favorite news media outlets broadcasting the shocking news of bombs being mailed to prominent political figures, a politically vocal actor, and eleven Jewish worshipers being murdered in their Synagogue, which I have personally driven by countless times when I lived in Pittsburgh. Personally, I've been shocked by this news and extremely disheartened by what is happening to my country. Our hearts go out to all of the victims and their families. We send prayers their way and are outraged by the senseless violence that is starting to define our country. While those thoughts and prayers are needed, we need to start doing more.

Just because you disagree with someone's political preference, their religious belief system, their cultural ideology, or their ethnic background does not give you the right to try and silence, kill or terrorize that person or group of people, in addition to subjecting the rest of us to your version of America that is filled with hate and fear. Just because you think a certain way, which does not align with someone else's views or background, does not mean that they are your enemy or a villain to your way of life.

The motivation that caused one man to mail at least 13 bombs to political figures and another man to murder 11 Jewish worshipers is the same, fear.

I grew up in a very politically interested home. My Dad is virtually a political jokey, who loves history, watches the news on full blast because he refused to wear his hearing aides, and loves to talk politics whenever I stop by or get him on the phone. This was basically my childhood, which consequently rippled out into my friend groups and schooling. Throughout high school and college, I was always in very heated political arguments. I was often labeled by others at the small conservative Christian college I attended, not by my name or personality, but by my political affiliation. And what is true for the current cultural climate we exist in today was true of my experience growing up, people are fearful of those who do not look like them, worship like them, vote like them, etc.

Seeing the breaking news from last week was saddening, sickening, infuriating, and shocking, but none of it was surprising. This is who we are when we allow fear to dictate our lives. This is the type of culture that is created when you are controlled by fear. This is the type of country that you get when fear is weaponized by politicians, their campaign ads, and news media outlets incensing viewers to boost ratings. When fear is your guiding principle, then mass shootings sky-rocket (293 and counting this year alone) and thousands are murdered (1,118 and counting). When fear rules your thought processes, then any group that is different than you in any fashion becomes your enemy. All of this is starting to change us into the land of the free and the home of the afraid.

While what happened last week and over the weekend was shocking, it is not surprising. But, there is good news, even in the midst of great pain. We can change this. We can do better. We can shift our culture away from fear, which is running and ruin our country, and toward an entirely new one. Our current culture is simply a reflection of our combined values. So, if you are tired of the hate, the rhetoric, the noise, and the constant fighting, then it is time to remove fear from our country by purposefully creating a counter-cultural climate by living out just one value: LOVE.

Creating a Counter-cultural Climate

Anywhere you go, whether it is physically or virtually, you are creating culture in that space or on that online platform because you are sharing, intentionally or unintentionally, your personal values. You basically have a megaphone tied around your neck that constantly communicates the type of culture and country that you want to exist in.

I think we can all agree that we are tired of the culture we are existing in. Therefore, we need to start creating a counter-cultural climate wherever we go and to whatever extent our sphere of influence may be. If you want to kick fear out of your life and out of our culture, then you have to start living in such a way that creates the type of culture you want. But how? How do we all create this counter-cultural climate?

Simple. The answer is love. Yes, love really is all we need in order to start creating a counter-cultural climate, which could completely change the world we are currently existing in by replacing it with one that we could be fully alive in. While the answer is a simple one, living a counter-cultural life of love is the most difficult thing that we can do, but it is the only option we have if we want to get rid of the fear in our country and in our lives that is manifesting itself in hate speech, mass murder, and an ever-deepening divide in our country fueled by our echo chambers.

The Bible, which I personally believe and try to fashion my life after, says this:

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother. - 1 John 4:18-21

That's a pretty bold statement and one that I think we all want to see happen in our culture and in our lives; fear being cast out and love being made perfect by our actions toward each other. This is hard though. It is not easy to love each other because we are all human and we fail all the time. The above statement is extremely difficult because it first, and foremost, requires us to sacrifice.

Sacrificial Love Creates Counter-Cultural Climates

The type of love that John is talking about is not some natural emotional expression of affection toward someone that is easy to "love." Rather, the type of love that John is saying that all believers in Jesus should live out is an others-focused, self-sacrificial type of love that models the very heart of God. Basically what John is saying is this, "as the Father loves (John 3:16), and as the Son loves (John 15:13), so also we will love (John 13:34)."1

While it is going to hard to create a counter-cultural climate in our country through sacrificial acts of love, it can be done. Just look at the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, if your not into the whole Jesus thing. He said the following:

I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear. - MLK

If anyone had the right to hate someone, it would have been King. If anyone had the right to hate someone, it would have been the families of the murdered members of Emanuel A.M.E. Church in downtown Charleston, South Carolina. If anyone had the right to hate someone, it would have been a Jewish-carpenter named Jesus, who was falsely accused and unjustly tried and brutally murdered by the very people He came to seek out and save (Luke 19:10).

Yes, we can do better than this. We can be better than this. But we have to start living differently in order to change our culture and our lives. We are going to have to start looking for opportunities to serve others and sacrifice ourselves for their betterment. We are going to have to start intentionally turning off or logging out of our echo-chambers, so that we can start seeing others as fellow human-beings and not as an enemy we need to beat in our next election or exterminate from existence.

Eleven Jewish worshipers are dead today, yet $50,000+ have been raised by Muslim worshipers in less than 24 hours. That is counter-cultural living. That is sacrificial love on display. That is what we need to start doing in order to stop the violence and divisiveness. That is what Dr. King was talking about. That is what the Apostle John was writing about. That is the type of life Jesus lived out and is now inviting all of us today to join him in.

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Quoted:

1. The Expositor's Bible Commentary, Volume 12: Hebrews - Revelation (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1981), 346.