The hate is terrifying
The anger is terrifying
The lies are terrifying
Pour out of a person who would lead us
Into the abyss of hate, anger, and lies
More terrifying still
Is the adoration, the allegiance to the contagious hate
More frightening is the way
We are all affected
How some follow and some resist
But own in all of us
‘the worst ‘ emerged
How such horrible things are drawn out of us
And into the world
Hate begets hate
Violence, violence
And lies trap us in a circle of deception
From which we cannot escape
This is not new
It has happened over and over again
This slow slide into cruelty and violence
Into control and punishment
Into domination
In those attempts to oppress, suppress
Even eradicate
‘the other’
Jesus came into such a world
And he taught a different way
He gave us the antidote
Love
Love and the fruits of love
love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity,
faithfulness, gentleness, self-control
But when I look at many of those who claim to follow
Jesus
When I look at many of those who say they are Christian
I wonder if Jesus would want to be one
Tony Campolo once said,
“If we were to set out to establish a religion in polar
opposition to the Beatitude Jesus taught, it would look strikingly similar to
the pop Christianity in North America”
When we look at much of Christendom today
We don’t see much love
We see people who hate gays
Who hate “liberals”
Who side with abusive power
Violence
Greed
Lies
Manipulation
Coercion
Shane Claibourne suggests
That what we see is “Christian extremists who have
declared war
In the name of the lamb”
And in this war, they have aligned themselves
With an ideological movement
And a person
That is antithetical to Jesus
We need extremists
But we need extremists for love and grace
Not wealth and power
Our problem is that the way of Jesus
The way of
Love your enemy
Bless those who curse you
Turn the other cheek
Walk the second mile
Give up your life
Seems so defeating
As if we are being asked to masochistically let others
Walk all over us
I don’t think we are asked to give in to the terrorists
Walter Wink suggests that the option is not
Violence or abject passivity
That it is neither assault nor submission
But a third way
The way of standing up
Being present
Looking the other person in the eye
This is not cowering or running
It is confronting in a way that forces
The other to see (at some level)
Your humanity (which they try so hard to deny)
We ask them to “see” us
And we attempt to “see” them
Their poverty, in the midst of their wealth
Their fear and weakness, amid their attempts to hold
power
We have two goals
To resist! And we
must resist
And to resist in a way that does not mirror, does not
emulate
That which we resist
Our goal is to neutralize the oppressors
Not destroy them
Our goal is to interrupt the violence and oppression in
A way that seeks redemption and restoration
I cannot seek the destruction of Trump
Or I will lose even if I win
I must somehow seek his restoration and redemption
Much of me rebels, even as I say that
For there is a side of me (there is always that side)
That wants retribution
But I cannot become him
I cannot devolve into name-calling
Ridicule
Threats
Lies
Hate
Or I lose
And the Kindom of God loses
And in a way
All that is hate and violence wins
And I cannot go down that path
With those who in their fear and pain and emptiness
Follow the way of fear and pain and emptiness
Which looks like domination and exclusion
We are in terrifying times
We could lose our country
We could lose our planet to greed
We could see the end of
Justice
Equity
Truth
So we have to stand
As the prophets of old stood
And with prophetic imagination challenged the people of
Israel
(who rarely listened)
As Martin Luther King Jr
And Gandhi
And Nelson Mandela
And Desmond Tutu
And Dag Hammarskjold
stood
And look hate in the eye
And say
This stops here
We need to become extremists for love
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