Of Fear and Futility

Start to connect the dots and the zeitgeist takes shape, like that cartoon character or zoo animal in your children's coloring book.  Globalization is creating anxiety all over the world, whether it is the Brexit or Trump's "great" wall, it would seem that enough people are gripped with anxiety, anger and angst to start doing things, dangerous (maybe) things.  For a while I have been wondering exactly what the face of the enemy looked like, and I wasn't having much luck to tell you the truth, it could have been greed, it could have been bigotry or racism, because all of those things seem to certainly be manifest in our political situation.  But as is usually the case there is a much more basic instinct underneath all of this, more primal even than greed: fear of the other.

To be realistic about this, we need to understand that family and tribal affiliations, for much of human history have been the basic social structure that provided us with safety, security and meaning.  These connections and the instinct to protect and preserve them are practically hardwired into us.  

In my line of work, skeptics sometimes ask me (if we get that far into honest conversation) to make sense of the Hebrew Scriptures, where God does (or commands his followers to do) some undeniably violent and brutal things.  My answer usually hinges on the fact that God uses the material at hand when it comes to human beings.  If Abram is the one who hears God's call to leave his home and his country and go out to a new place, God will work with that, even though Abram and Sarah are beyond child-bearing years.  If Moses is a stuttering refugee from Egypt, God will work with that.  If David is the youngest son of Jesse, or a murderous adulterer, God can work with that.  If Joshua thinks that the only way to deal with Canaanites is to kill em all in the name of God... well you get the idea.  We humans can get some pretty shady ideas all on our own, and if we win, it's pretty easy to imagine that God is on our side.

I have seen a bit of shock on the faces of our cousins across the pond as they realized that fearful rhetoric had actually had real life consequences.  The people who didn't vote because they assumed the status quo would rule, even the politicians who had been instrumental in pushing the Brexit, they all seem a little shocked that a majority of voters actually did it.  Pay attention America, you think it won't happen here, but you very well might be calling The Donald, President Trump before too long.

There is something in our nature to identify the winners as the blessed.

Which is why the Beatitudes matter.  Which is why Jesus entire ministry to the least of these is absolutely crucial in shaping Christian ethics.  If Trump were elected President with the help of conservative, evangelical Christians, many would anoint him with the very hand of God.  And they would probably be on pretty solid footing from an Old Testament angle. God's providence on a metahistorical level includes accepting as divine instruments: Tiglath Pileser (Assyria), Nebuchadnezzar (Babylon), Cyrus and Xerxes (Persia), not to mention good old Joshua who doggedly slaughtered men, women, children and livestock under the Herem (the holy ban), in the very name of God. In that company, I'm not sure the Donald even stacks up.

But he's using their tools: fear, anger, discontent, the will to power, the idea that the "others" are going to come and soak up all the good stuff that is supposed to belong to you.  The ground has been well prepared for this moment.  We have bought trickle down economics and accepted increasing economic inequality for decades. What's more we have accepted the proposition that protecting the "right" of unbridled capitalism is the same thing as protecting the right of ordinary people to make a living.  The economic interests of the middle class will always be more closely aligned with the interests of the poor than they will be with the aristocracy.  It would be far more likely for a middle class person to fall back into poverty than would be for them to climb into the upper echelons of wealth, but the myth that most of us have swallowed is just the opposite.  Lately the Emperor's clothes have seemed oddly translucent, particularly to the under 50 crowd.  Bernie Sanders' message about political corruption and income inequality has struck a raw nerve, as has Trump's bombastic xenophobia, and while they may seem like polar opposites they are resonating with the same problem: we think that problems are solved by power and money.

I am not equating Sanders and Trump, because my personal feeling is that Sanders' approach might actually improve our situation, while I believe firmly that Trump's approach will make things worse.  What I am saying is that, from a theological perspective, they're probably both wrong.  Bernie's talk of a revolution brings to mind a myriad of failed messianic movements that provided hope, but were squashed by a brutal empire seeking to maintain its power.  Trump, of course, sounds like he's trying to make that empire yet more brutal.

What the political realities of the world have shown me recently is that, until our hearts change towards each other, our political systems are always going to be broken to some extent.  But that doesn't excuse apathy or give anyone an ethical out to just throw their hands up in frustration.  Use your voice, even if you don't win.  Be a responsible citizen no matter what nation you call home, and if you need a bit of a boost, remember that God will work no matter what happens.