When Your Soul Won't Let You Avoid the News

My politically-reluctant soul is squirming.

In the social media wake of recent events involving the tragic assassination of an outspoken political activist who also happens to profess himself a believer in Jesus, I find myself surprisingly, painfully, and altogether refreshingly caught between who I truly want to be, and who my reactions reveal I actually am.

I won't include names, only because I hesitate to get dragged into some algorithmic media entity, the likes of which I neither understand nor want to feed.  I wasn't even going to comment on the event, except I was reminded today, from a voice unlike my own, how essential it is to guard my heart against the insidious evil that is 'us and them.'  And upon reflection, I realized how easily I have been provoked to decide my 'camp' is right, and to feel the strong desire to distance myself from my brothers and sisters in Christ who are reacting in ways and saying things I completely and utterly disagree with.  

Ironic, since one of the criticisms I have with much of what I'm reading on line is how divisive the voices can be.  Yes, the Christian ones!  How harmful it is, how confusing, how much it seems to perpetuate the factious arrogance I find so unlike Jesus.

Yet, here I am, in the midst of it, tempted to 'divide' myself away from them.  To distance myself.  

(Pause to let the crazy of that sink in.)

A firm atheist at one point in his life, C. S. Lewis talked about something he found unmistakable about Christians. 

"Even when I feared and detested Christianity, 

I was struck by its essential unity, which, in spite of its divisions, it has never lost.  

I trembled on recognized the same unmistakable aroma 

coming from the writings of Dante and Bunyan, Thomas Aquinas and William Law."

Without diving into a history lesson, let's just say that the pairings he mentions are folks who claimed a faith in Jesus, but who came at it with widely different perspectives and contexts.  C. S. Lewis said that despite their difference, they 'smelled' the same.

I wonder, if Lewis were still alive, and had social media to read along with the classics, would he think we still do?

And I doubt we have to wonder what Jesus Himself thinks all the rhetoric out there.  Or, bringing it uncomfortably closer, of my tendency to stay separated in my own 'camp.'  

By this, everyone will know that you are my disciples; 

if you love one another.  

John 13:35

The problem now, and what makes it painful and altogether refreshing to be caught here is, it's one thing to recognize it.  It's entirely another to decide to humble myself and listen.  To chose an open posture.  To respond with the grace and empathy I so wish the Church was famous for.

I'm not saying I can't or shouldn't thoughtfully hold my positions on how best the message of Jesus is communicated, or what the gospel actually looks like.  I can form my own opinions of what makes someone a hero or a martyr, or not.   I'm not saying I can't or shouldn't disagree, and respectfully engage in dialogue.  There is a place for asking questions, and sharing opposing opinions, of course there is.  And then, yes, there is a place for calling out something that is clearly unethical.  Not every thought is equally permissible to sustain human well-being.

But if I want to be a person of unity;  if I want everyone to know that I am a disciple of Jesus; if I want to stay true to my belief that love remains the main thing, always, what will that look like?

I'm trying.  Don't have a handle on it yet, because too much of it is still making me mad, and tempted to write heated retorts proving my position is correct.   

Sigh.  

Wrote this instead.