Responding with Love and Compassion

As we enter a new year, I don’t think I’m alone as I obsessively scrutinize the widening gulf between the views of the right wing in the U.S. and the teachings of Jesus. On the one hand, I’m pretty sure it will provide a lot of blog fodder for me this year and beyond. On the other, I wonder how I can continue to be in a relationship with other Christians and even my own family who would happily place a felon and sexual predator in the White House or support greed and self-interest over love of neighbor.

I’m also full of fear. How can I not be when the coming narcissist in chief has made his intentions blusterously clear. The next presidency is certain to exacerbate political polarization with increasing divisions over eroding democratic norms, attacks on basic civil rights, disastrous foreign relations, complete ignorance of science and the environment, promotion of wealth inequality, threats to healthcare and social services and too many more fears to list.

Fear grips me even though I know it is not the right Christian response. It’s a good time to read John 16 if you haven’t in a while. Here’s Jesus’ closing argument:

John 16:33

“I have said this to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”

I have an idea for a New Years resolution for you. Why not turn this into an opportunity for spiritual strength instead of anger, despair and panic? Please understand, I intend to fight this coming administration as best I can, and it is your Christian duty to do likewise. This post isn’t about the outer work that needs to be done in society. It’s more about our inner spiritual response that can lead to change. I intend to spend quite a bit of my energy up front considering how do can respond to the rise of the radical right and alt-right while still cultivating a spirit of love, compassion, and a commitment to the teachings of Christ.

Here is kind of a step-by-step approach to how I intend to respond. I don’t pretend to be good at any of these, that’s why they’re a great candidate for resolutions.

Pray More

You should really try to incorporate daily prayer into your life anyway. But prayer and seeking wisdom and guidance in dealing with division and strife is an excellent way to start. God gives you clarity and even courage when you approach God in quiet contemplation. Contemplative prayer helps us align our hearts to God which is the only reasonable first step in dealing with everyone around us regardless of their politics.

I don’t want to discourage you, but I find that God disabuses me of my own beliefs, biases and behaviors while I’m in prayer. Maybe it’s a really good idea to work on my own growth and change before I start trying to change others. It can help me from inadvertently contributing to more division. It helps cultivate more humility by reminding me that we’re all on a path, some are behind some are ahead. Prayer can guide and shape the other actions I’m proposing below.

Promote Dialogue

I’ll be honest, my first inclination after the election was to skip all holiday meals with any friends or family I knew voted bigly redly. But dialogue is one of our most powerful tools. As uncomfortable as it might be, engaging in conversations with people who hold different views should be able to transform both parties. You don’t have to agree with them ever or at all, but you can seek to understand them. Understanding them leads to more compassion. Electing a racist doesn’t mean they are also racists. They might be misinformed. They might be angry at their economic situation. They might be a one-issue voter. They might be basically illiterate – more than half of the country cannot read at a sixth-grade level. It’s been shown that people who fail basic vocabulary tests are over twice as likely to vote for Trump as those have a perfect score. You don’t have to agree with them, you also don’t have to assume the worst. By seeking to understand what drives their perspectives, from fear, to narrow focus to outright ignorance, we can also learn about their frustration and motivations. It doesn’t mean we compromise our own beliefs, but it can lead to some common ground where none seems to exist.

The overall goal is to dismantle stereotypes. Most of us on the left are not socialist elitists and having open conversations makes that obvious. Most on the right are not radicalized neo-Nazis despite what you read on the socials. Humanizing each other in dialogue, while still respectfully disagreeing, was one of Jesus’ favorite pastimes. If we follow Jesus, we can engage others with love, understanding and reconciliation. And in the rare cases where directed conflict might be necessary, we can create a space of trust and healing and compassion that can allow us to address the root causes of extremism.

Don’t start with ideas, start with the relationship.

Model Christ-like Behavior

The world kind of sucks right now – global rise of the alt-right, Ukraine, Gaza, DRC – we are steeping in division, hostility and violence. You’ve probably heard, but Jesus had it really bad in His time, too. Yet he taught us to love our neighbors and even our enemies. By following Christ, we can defuse a lot of the hostility and misconceptions. By modelling Jesus’ behavior, we might inspire others to do the same. It can open the door to reconciliation, but it must start with Jesus freaks like you and me because we’re the ones who take Him seriously.

Following Jesus is a radical, punk-rock way to defuse hate and division. We become the church that is the most powerful counternarrative to fear, greed and tribal loyalty. It starts with us approaching everyone we meet, in every encounter, with compassion. The Christ inside you is the Christ inside them, too.

Acts of kindness break down barriers and open the other person up to their own path of growth and understanding. It’s very difficult to demonize someone who shows you real love. We can become the hope they need. And despite what I’m doing here – telling you to love each other – telling people to love is usually too removed and too intellectual to be effective. It’s better to just love them so they can feel what that is like. By example, I really don’t know why right-wingers think we support immigrants and refugees for any other reason than love. But talking about love may not overcome their fear of the other. Showing them love might be the way to get them to expand their own hearts. So, if we want to prove to them that love extends to all, to the immigrant, to the pregnant teenager, to our trans brothers and sisters, then we should start by showing we can love and respect all our human family including the right-wing blowhard on your social media feed.

Focus on Forgiveness

The next step in a Christ-like approach would of course be about forgiveness. I’m not saying you shouldn’t be angry, but what is that anger doing to you? Christ didn’t say ignore wrongdoing or excuse harmful ideas. He did tell us to forgive by offering the grace God gave to us. We’re all in pain, why hang onto it? I can acknowledge my hurt and still find healing. The more I approach each relationship with forgiveness, the more I feel my anger dissipate into compassion.

I have a close friend who is a little bit bigoted on certain racial issues. He is also one of the most caring, generous and compassionate people I’ve ever met. By approaching him openly about his ideas on racial justice, he shared that when he was young, he suffered an almost unbearably violent episode, and the perpetrators were of a particular race. Unfortunately, his young mind formed prejudices that his adult mind finds difficult to dispose. He’s wrong in his racism. But he’s stuck because he cannot forgive and move past. He’s stuck because he’d rather believe that certain groups are bad than believe life can randomly choose you for disaster. He’s stuck because it’s easier to focus on something meaningless but obvious like skin rather than address other underlying issues in a never-ending cycle of violence in our world. I am in no way justifying his beliefs, but now I understand where he’s coming from, and I have a chance to model love and forgiveness rather than turning to my own anger.

Whatever you believe about the afterlife, grace, atonement theory and sin, I think we can all agree that believing in Jesus saves the world one person at a time as we forgive one person at a time. But it must start with us, as Jesus followers, to share our radical vision of love, peace and unity.

Educate Yourself

Now we can move into a more active phase. It’s important – and sometimes tiring – to stay informed about the complex social, political and economic factors that are driving fear and division. It’s completely appropriate to criticize the Fox News echo chamber. But are you at the same time stuck in your own information bubbles? You need to seek out reliable information from diverse perspectives. You need to learn the history lessons.

Education allows you to fight misinformation. It’s not fair we have to do that; I’m personally fatigued by having to learn what my right-wing friends are being fed just so I can engage with them for positive change. But that is the work in front of us. It’s tiring, but I’ve been able to win family and friends over, saving them from the fear machines.

Education also means learning what we can do that is effective and real for a society under attack. Having an idea of how to move forward can give you and your friends hope.

Advocate for Justice

Yes, we need to correct injustice when confronted. But we also need to actively promote justice. That’s how you beat injustice, you don’t allow it to take hold because justice is already flowing down like a stream. This is what you God demands of you. Social justice is one of the most direct reflections our lives can make of Jesus. Yes, fight injustice, fight hatred. But go beyond and work for equity and dignity for all.

I’m not going to tell you how to do your own advocacy. There are a lot of options out there. It’s probably a good first step to reach out to your denomination offices if you are in a mainline. I’ve marched, I’ve protested, I’ve written letters, I’ve volunteered, I’ve done public speaking and of course as you can see, I write about it somewhat frequently. But what is your thing? You must decide that in prayer. Just find a thing and do it. It can be small and make a difference.

You should do this because you’re a Jesus follower. But it has a nice extra benefit of driving some extra hope in your own life. While people in charge are trying to dismantle justice, at least you can be doing your part to rebuild it in small sections. It feels good.

Encourage Community Building

It’s a cliché that all politics is local. One of the best ways to fight against the alt-right is to create spaces that celebrate diversity and create a friendly place for people of different backgrounds to come together to share stories, experiences and perspectives. I had the opportunity to have dinner with Walter Brueggemann with friends during a time of despair. He told me that really, we’re all just here to give each other courage.

Finding your tribe reminds you that you are not alone or even in the minority. The alt-right just tend to be loud, public blowhards. But there are many people who share your love of love, too. It can make you resilient.

Just like advocacy, I don’t know what your space will look like. Mine looks like church and musician friends, family and friends on text threads, certain subreddits, other bloggers and more. Yours might include things like workshops, prayer groups, advocacy groups and charities, workout buddies and knitting circles. But a tribe helps you share hope and humanity. If you can’t find one, you need to build one.

The worst actors on the alt-right want us to go silent, they want us to disappear. Being part of an inclusive community makes us too large to ignore. Safe spaces make voices louder. Shared compassion leads to courage and courage leads to a more equitable society.

Who is the Samaritan of Your Story?

Most liberal Christians love the parable of the Good Samaritan because it illustrates the importance of compassion regardless of race, political boundary or cultural difference. Jesus tells us that loving neighbor has nothing to do with which tribe you belong to. So, who is the Samaritan in your story? Who is the man who was beaten by robbers and left for dead and who is the Samaritan who steps in to help? There are a lot of people in this world who want to rob your neighbor of their humanity, of their compassion because it lines their own pockets. Your right-wing neighbor may have been taken by these robbers and had their soul beaten with fear and misinformation. To Jesus, the real neighbor was the Samaritan who showed mercy, not the priest from the hometown who stuck to rigid dogma. Go and do likewise.