A Kingdom Response to the Societal War

[Pilgrim]

A war is brewing!

Polarization is on the rise in this country like I've never seen before (perhaps akin to the 1960s and 1860s)...and so is anger, hate, distrust, suspicion, pride. Voices on the left and right are getting more vitriolic, irrational and increasingly prone toward violence. The echo chamber of the internet certainly isn't helping...people can easily find affirmation for whatever they believe - rational or not. This is an emotive process - more about belonging, tribalism, prejudices than about thoughtful and reasoned discourse.

This polarization is sucking in and dividing many (most) Christians as well - and I suspect it will get worse before it get's better. Unfortunately, it is pulling in some (many) of our Anabaptist brethren also - who, tho they may claim to be non-resistant - are unsuspectingly enlisting in the fight.

In the midst of this growing societal dysfunction, and as a result of our non-resistance and our strong two-kingdom theology, I believe we Anabaptists have a unique opportunity to point to a better way in Jesus - but only if we are prepared for what is ahead.

This thread is dedicated to discussing how we Anabaptist might respond proactively to what is, I suspect, just the beginning of turbulent times:

Here are a few discussion starters;

• 1) How do we insulate ourselves and our faith community from the ideological propaganda designed ON BOTH SIDES to lure us into taking sides in the cultural/political war raging all around us?
  
  2) How do we address those within our ranks who have already been sucked in, especially those who are actively recruiting other culture-warriors?
  
  3) How can we best bear witness to the way of Christ, including taking a stand for his ethical teachings, without being pulled into a fight that isn't ours? Is passivity or silence in the face of wrong an option?
  
  4) How should we minister to the casualties of the vitriol that is going on around us?
  
  5) How do we prepare for the attacks on us that inevitably will come to us for not choosing sides?

Maybe we can learn some lessons from the witness of our Anabaptist forebears who faced turbulent times in the past.

Speaking as an outsider (but not in my heart), I would like to comment on discussion starter #5.

If our society continues to go in its current direction, the attacks from the world may be coming to an Anabaptist community near you. There are many among the liberal community who will call you "haters" because you don't agree with their liberal platform. If you say ill against, or discourage the practice of, homosexuality or the LGBTQ folks, they will call you haters. If you believe your wife should take care of the home and reject the workplace, they will call you haters. If you say that foreign aliens should be shut out from coming to this country, they will say you are haters. If you believe that Jesus Christ is the only way to Heaven, they will label you for that.
I believe that God loves these "haters", and we should love them, but if we take a stand against their sins it may cost you dearly. Eventually, they will want all of put in jail or killed. The day may some when we will be persecuted for our faith. Meantime, let us love everyone. but have the courage to take a stand for what the Kingdom stand for. Amen
Ken

[Bootstrap]

Speaking as an outsider (but not in my heart), I would like to comment on discussion starter #5.

If our society continues to go in its current direction, the attacks from the world may be coming to an Anabaptist community near you. There are many among the liberal community who will call you "haters" because you don't agree with their liberal platform. If you say ill against, or discourage the practice of, homosexuality or the LGBTQ folks, they will call you haters. If you believe your wife should take care of the home and reject the workplace, they will call you haters. If you say that foreign aliens should be shut out from coming to this country, they will say you are haters. If you believe that Jesus Christ is the only way to Heaven, they will label you for that.

I believe that God loves these "haters", and we should love them, but if we take a stand against their sins it may cost you dearly. Eventually, they will want all of put in jail or killed. The day may some when we will be persecuted for our faith. Meantime, let us love everyone. but have the courage to take a stand for what the Kingdom stand for. Amen

Amen.

This is our chance to demonstrate that we are not haters. Sometimes, even we can seethe with hate, dripping in ugly emotion against people without ever giving them a chance. Jesus could party with prostitutes and sinners, and he could be loving to adulteresses, without compromising in righteousness. Sometimes we don't look much like Jesus. Spiritual purity includes right behavior and right belief, but it also includes right love. If the love is missing, you are missing the heart of the Gospel.

KKK, neo-Nazis, and white supremacists running around with Tiki torches, Swastikas, and KKK paraphernalia, carrying automatic weapons and wearing body armor ... those people ARE haters. If we want to tell people that we are not haters, we'd better be really clear that these people do not represent us, and we'd better demonstrate our love in action, not just in words. And some of the white grievance stuff clearly IS hate. I heard a testimonial from someone who had left a hate group. When he joined, he slit his wrist and mixed his blood with that of others who were joining, pledging his allegiance to Jesus Christ and the White Nation against blacks and Jews. Many of these people are blaspheming the name of Jesus Christ, practicing an idolatrous, hateful religion in his name.

And they aren't the only haters, just the most extreme haters. We are often in denial about our own hatred. And many people have normalized hatred, confusing it with morality. And for the most part, we don't dare preach against hate, because we are afraid some self-righteous person might get offended. Jesus offended a lot of people that way.

If we get everything else right, but drip in hate and get consumed with white grievance and white victimization narratives - or even Christian grievance and Christian grievance narratives - are we really following Jesus?

[Sudsy]

Some thoughts about how we can love anyone and everyone. Love to hear other's views on this.

Loving others as we love ourselves will be an on-going battle with our flesh. Our reborn spirit is made alive in Christ but we still have this flesh to deny. The 'flesh' being that something in us that remains in us and it opposes God and seeks sinful gratification. We just don't determine by our own will power to love everybody as there will always be actions of some people that are so distasteful to our fleshly nature, that we will struggle to truly love them. But there is a love that God gives us that will overcome these unloving attitudes toward others. In Romans 7 Paul puts it this way -

So I find that this law is at work: when I want to do what is good, what is evil is the only choice I have. My inner being delights in the law of God. But I see a different law at work in my body—a law that fights against the law which my mind approves of. It makes me a prisoner to the law of sin which is at work in my body. What an unhappy man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is taking me to death? Thanks be to God, who does this through our Lord Jesus Christ!

So, whether it be gays, KKK, politicians, adulterers, fornicators, thieves, murders, selfish people, Christians who don't follow Christ like we think they should, whatever it is that is a big challenge for us to love as we love ourselves, God will give us the ability to love as He loves and will give us the enabling power via His Spirit to deny what this flesh wants. First, though, I think we should realize we are in a daily battle with this sinful nature that wants to gain control. We must learn to operate in the spirit and rely on God's power to not give the flesh what it wants. We walk not by sight but by faith and when we walk in the spirit we will not give way to what the flesh demands, one of these being selective loving. Not loving everyone is falling short of the mark, which is sin.

Anyway, just what I'm thinking about at the moment as to why we have desire in our reborn spirits to love everybody but we don't always manage to do it.

[PeterG]

Thank you, Dan, for starting this thread. Many good thoughts here so far.

I would like to see the church address contemporary issues from the perspective of right and wrong—what I and the church ought to think and do—with a bare minimum of reference (ideally none at all in most cases) to politics and government. For example, there's been plenty of talk about government action relating to transgendered people's access to restrooms. I don't recall hearing any discussion of how a Christian institution should relate to transgendered visitors who need to use the bathroom. To me, this latter issue seems obviously more important, not to mention more practical.

[Dan Z]

If our society continues to go in its current direction, the attacks from the world may be coming to an Anabaptist community near you. There are many among the liberal community who will call you "haters" because you don't agree with their liberal platform.

I agree Ken, the way of Christ is an affront to the world's sensibilities...although I suspect that if we are where we should be, we will take heat from conservatives as well...the same rhetoric that mocked Jesus for hanging out with "sinners and tax collectors." I'm curious why you only mention potential conflict with the liberal platform. If we take seriously the way of Jesus, aren't we going to run afoul of causes on both sides of the political spectrum

If you say ill against, or discourage the practice of, homosexuality or the LGBTQ folks, they will call you haters. If you believe your wife should take care of the home and reject the workplace, they will call you haters. If you say that foreign aliens should be shut out from coming to this country, they will say you are haters. If you believe that Jesus Christ is the only way to Heaven, they will label you for that.

Um...one of these things doesn't seem to fit with the others.

Meantime, let us love everyone. but have the courage to take a stand for what the Kingdom stand for.

Amen

[jlapp]

A war is brewing!

Polarization is on the rise in this country like I've never seen before (perhaps akin to the 1960s and 1860s)...and so is anger, hate, distrust, suspicion, pride. Voices on the left and right are getting more vitriolic, irrational and increasingly prone toward violence. The echo chamber of the internet certainly isn't helping...people can easily find affirmation for whatever they believe - rational or not. This is an emotive process - more about belonging, tribalism, prejudices than about thoughtful and reasoned discourse.

This polarization is sucking in and dividing many (most) Christians as well - and I suspect it will get worse before it get's better. Unfortunately, it is pulling in some (many) of our Anabaptist brethren also - who, tho they may claim to be non-resistant - are unsuspectingly enlisting in the fight.

In the midst of this growing societal dysfunction, and as a result of our non-resistance and our strong two-kingdom theology, I believe we Anabaptists have a unique opportunity to point to a better way in Jesus - but only if we are prepared for what is ahead.

Dan, your analysis of the times is as prescient and clear as usual. Thank you. I too would like to see Anabaptists be prepared for this unique opportunity.

1) How do we insulate ourselves and our faith community from the ideological propaganda designed ON BOTH SIDES to lure us into taking sides in the cultural/political war raging all around us?

I appreciate the question. But I do have a few small quibbles with it. First, I don't think that fully "insulating" ourselves and our community is an option. We can and should prepare ourselves, but especially in conservative Anabaptism there is an old myth of isolation that has never really been as true as it may have seemed. (I concede that there are degrees of "insulation" that don't reach the full extent of attempted isolation.) Teaching an isolationist approach is detrimental in several regards because it uses a concept of separation from the world to create an us-versus-them dichotomy that does not allow us to really open our hearts and minds to full inspection and repentance. It is my observation that some versions of separatist and two kingdom doctrine have insulated some conservative Mennonites from needing to rethink attitudes towards society and reinforced some political views and habits that are not fully infused with the gospel of the kingdom. This phenomena can also result in a way of thinking that emphasizes that both sides of a political debate are equally in error. Generally, I find this to be more true than not, but there is an easy both-sides-are-wrong attitude that generalizes and minimalizes the import of political discussions and actually relativizes any potential prophetic witness to truth.

In answer to your question, I believe that we must have those among us who are willing to learn and engage. The cultural/political discussions speak to the minds and hearts of many people. It is where habits of the mind (philosophy) and heart play out in practical and public ways. But our communities must be steeped in the gospel and equipped to know how to witness to the present and coming kingdom in order to keep kingdom-seeking first.

2) How do we address those within our ranks who have already been sucked in, especially those who are actively recruiting other culture-warriors?.

We must be willing to speak lovingly but clearly about the dangers of tying our faith witness to any attempt to Christianize a culture or nation-state through enforcing laws and other civic rituals. In particular, we must speak clearly about how our identity in the kingdom of God must be more primary than any national or ethnic identity. We must seek common cause with our brothers and sisters in others countries and embrace human migrations (refugees and immigrants) as opportunities to fulfill the gospel call.

3) How can we best bear witness to the way of Christ, including taking a stand for his ethical teachings, without being pulled into a fight that isn't ours? Is passivity or silence in the face of wrong an option?.

What fight isn't ours? Of course the fight about which political cause or party wins the day isn't ours. But I believe the church should care about the discussions happening in the public square. We should witness truth in whatever way we have opportunity. We should be willing to even use words if necessary.

4) How should we minister to the casualties of the vitriol that is going on around us?.

First, let's make sure we are not engaging the vitriol so that we can contribute to creating safe places for those hurt by it. I'd love for our churches to be such safe places. I fear, however, that the reality is that many of our churches are too white, too ethnic, too unattractive to the poorest, loneliest, neediest in society to really be the safe places I wish they could be. So we may have to be willing to put extra effort to present in other spaces, to befriend those we may not usually encounter in our social circles. We should be known as those willing to listen, willing to be present, showing that we care.

5) How do we prepare for the attacks on us that inevitably will come to us for not choosing sides?
Maybe we can learn some lessons from the witness of our Anabaptist forebears who faced turbulent times in the past.

If our compass it set to True North and our identity is formed completely by Christ we will be prepared for those times when those we once thought of as friends or allies become impatient or upset by our witness to the truth of Christ.

[Bootstrap]

I thought jlapp's response was particularly thoughtful - well done.

One question:

First, let's make sure we are not engaging the vitriol so that we can contribute to creating safe places for those hurt by it.

Did you really mean "not engaging the vitriol" or "not engaging in the vitriol"? Are there ways we can confront the vitriol and point out that it's a bloody battle that is not ours?

[Sudsy]

I thought jlapp's response was particularly thoughtful - well done.

One question:

First, let's make sure we are not engaging the vitriol so that we can contribute to creating safe places for those hurt by it.

Did you really mean "not engaging the vitriol" or "not engaging in the vitriol"? Are there ways we can confront the vitriol and point out that it's a bloody battle that is not ours?

Perhaps by having less vitriol (cruel and bitter criticism) amongst Christians of different groups/denominations ? Lead by example ?

[jlapp]

Did you really mean "not engaging the vitriol" or "not engaging in the vitriol"? Are there ways we can confront the vitriol and point out that it's a bloody battle that is not ours?

You are correct. The "in" was missing in my post.

In answer to your question, any posture of engagement must be marked by humility. This means a commitment to listen and learn - to be peacemakers, but not compromise brokers. If we show up because we care about people and we care about truth and we demonstrate love through humility, service, and active listening it will be clear where we stand in relation to the vitriol and the "fight" itself.

[Valerie]

I thought jlapp's response was particularly thoughtful - well done.

One question:

First, let's make sure we are not engaging the vitriol so that we can contribute to creating safe places for those hurt by it.

Did you really mean "not engaging the vitriol" or "not engaging in the vitriol"? Are there ways we can confront the vitriol and point out that it's a bloody battle that is not ours?

Perhaps by having less vitriol (cruel and bitter criticism) amongst Christians of different groups/denominations ? Lead by example ?

I hate to agree with this, but I do- there are so many outside the Church that suggest we solve our own problems getting along and being united, it's one reason I feel like the Lord will not tarry much longer-