Dear Friends,
I hope this missive finds you keeping your sense of humor. These are challenging times. It seems like everybody’s been transformed into walking and talking exposed nerve endings. Very touchy. And there’s precious little public space left that isn’t politicized or made into a platform for some kind of activism.
We used to be able to gather around a sporting event and forget our differences for a time. Now that turns into a big argument about kneeling or standing for the national anthem.
We used to be able to go to church, but if we do there will be some kind of fight over whether we should be wearing masks or not.
People used to gather at restaurants or taverns to share a meal or raise a few drinks in social fellowship, but, well, most of those are closed.
There’s not just a shortage of hand sanitizer; there’s a shortage of social lubricant—grace, goodwill, and patience. It seems to me we’re grating on each other more than ever before. And I’m disheartened that at the very moment we’re experiencing social divisions, some people have made a collective decision for us that the solution to our problems is to further divide into our respective groups, whether it be race or political orientation.
Beneath all of this I perceive a persistent and increasing societal sense of urgency, bordering on outright panic. Every single social question has become of maximal importance, a zero-sum game. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but even “micro” aggressions are a pretty big deal. They’ll get you fired from your job. Our elections are now always the “most important ever.” Remember when the FCC overturning “net neutrality” was the end of the Internet as we know it? On every question, the stakes are raised to ever more hysterical proportions.
Beware The Rabble-Rousers
Here’s something we need to be more aware of: people in powerful institutions have incentives to make and keep us hysterical. They need you to click that link. They need your eyeballs and your ears tuned to their show. They need your campaign donation. They need you to be the kind of person who goes to Thanksgiving Dinner with your political talking points at the ready. This is not a left versus right phenomenon.
At the turn of the 20th century, philosopher William James wrote an influential essay entitled, “The Moral Equivalent of War.” His idea is pretty simple: war, or the “martial spirit,” has its benefits. It exerts a galvanizing effect on a society. Faced by mortal enemies, societies suddenly put their differences aside, focus their attention, and work together toward a common goal. James was a pacifist who didn’t believe in war; but he was also the father of modern psychology and so realized that the “martial” qualities (he even called it “manliness”—cancel that bigot!) couldn’t easily be eradicated from human nature. So, he wondered, how could we harness the “martial” spirit toward peaceful ends? We need, well, the “moral equivalent” of war, to poke and prod people to take domestic affairs just as seriously as real war. He put it this way:
So far, war has been the only force that can discipline a whole community, and until an equivalent discipline is organized, I believe that war must have its way.
Nevertheless, he held out hope that some replacement for war can be developed that will organize society in a similar way. He writes:
It is but a question of time, of skillful propagandism, and of opinion-making men seizing historic opportunities [….] The only thing needed henceforward is to inflame the civic temper as past history has inflamed the military temper.
“Inflame the civic temper.” Wow. He means “passions,” of course, but now everybody is on this bandwagon these days and they actually mean temper. Suddenly the historic “War on Poverty” or the “War on Drugs” or framing things like a “War on Women” make sense. War heightens the stakes, the anxiety, and the urgency. It is a powerful metaphorical tool in the toolbox of activists, politicians, and public intellectuals—or, as James admiringly called them, “skillful propagandists” and “opinion-making men.”
As I say, this is not a partisan thing: everybody wants to frame everything as a war—a totalizing culture war. There is no place of respite, not even in the community of faith. Politics as a call-to-war has invaded—forgive me—every square inch of civic life. I could pick on Donald J. Trump here—he is a master of this kind of demagoguery—but his opposition fares no better. The New York Times and Washington Post (The “Resistance”) have completely numbed us with approximately one billion editorials on how the President is a clear and present danger to everything we hold dear.
It is no wonder we are all walking and talking exposed nerve endings. Everything is at stake! All the time! How can we relax when everything is at stake? How can we hear when literally everything is dialed up to “11”?
I don’t know about you, but I’m tempted to take the cynical route and just laugh at everything. I mean, as I put it on Twitter:
It is weird. So have a chuckle. Laughter is good medicine, and we do all need to lighten up. Here’s a test of whether politics has gripped you to a dangerous degree. Can you chuckle at “Thigh-land”?
I hope so. But some people take even obvious (and immediately corrected) slips of the tongue very seriously. Here’s someone trying a little too desperately to stay on the President’s good side:
Okay, now for equal opportunity. Can you chuckle at Joe Biden’s ill-timed verbal flub when talking about his mental fitness? I mean, yikes!
I laugh, but I don’t want to laugh cynically, as if nothing really matters. We need to tone down the importance of all of our “moral equivalents of war" without downplaying real cultural challenges we face. How do we do that? First, we need to resist listening to rabble-rousers who are manipulating us into full-blown cultural panic and thereby (somehow coincidentally) increasing the size of their market share and bank accounts. Second…
Be Still and Know…
When I was in college it dawned on me that if I were not a Christian I would almost certainly be a Marxist. Yes, they really are mutually exclusive. You see, if I believed there is no God who cares, no overarching purpose to history except what we make of it, and that all poverty, oppression, and injustice can only be overcome by collective human effort because God (a hallucinogenic opium high) isn’t going to intervene, then I’d probably sign up for the revolution. What other option is there, really, except treating everything as an existential crisis? If there is no help coming, everything is an existential crisis.
But I am by God’s grace a Christian, and Psalm 46 is in my Bible. It contains the well-known phrase, “Be still and know that I am God.”
So often we think of this as some kind of mystical, contemplative thing—we confuse it with the “still, small voice” that Elijah heard (1 Kings 19:11-13). But Psalm 46 is not talking about having a “quiet time.” It’s actually an extremely loud time. The first verse sets the context:
God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.
Therefore, says the Psalmist, “we will not fear” when the earth gives way, mountains fall into the sea, waters roar and foam, and mountains quake, and nations are in uproar (v.6) and kingdoms fall. This Psalm is about epic calamity. The command to “be still,” in this context, means: do not be blown about by upheaval. Do not be goaded into anxiety or panic, for the LORD is, well, the LORD. It is he who is accomplishing his purposes: he who causes “desolations on the earth, breaks the bow, shatters the spear, and burns the shields with fire” (v. 8-9).
The God who orchestrates all of human history and even its very upheavals, is also our “refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.” Marx denied this absolutely; there is no help coming, and, hence, the call, “Workers of the world: Unite!” What I am getting at is this: giving in to existential panic about our cultural situation—dire as it, in fact, may even be!—is to act just like the godless. It is to behave as though everything is always at stake and that only our own political and cultural efforts will avail us.
I am currently writing an essay on divine Providence, and it seems to me an important but forgotten doctrine. Even our supposedly “deist” Founding Fathers thought it was an important concept. It was with “a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence” that they pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor in the Declaration of Independence. That notorious Calvinist—I mean, of course, John Calvin—wrote of the blessings of the doctrine of providence:
Gratitude of mind for the favorable outcome of things, patience in adversity, and also incredible freedom from worry about the future.
Gratitude, patience, and freedom from worry. That sounds like exactly what the doctor ordered for our troubled times. Do you want to be able to laugh again? To relax? It doesn’t require a head-in-the-sand approach to issues of the day, nor a cynical dismissal of our cultural problems. It requires this:
Be still and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth. The LORD Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress. Selah
No matter what.
Miscellany
I love this clip. Two teenagers listening to… Phil Collins? Fantastic reactions. (It is amazing how fresh that song sounds.)
Although I think a minimum mandatory of 35 years in prison is excessive, my sympathy for the plight of these two is at “World’s Smallest Violin” levels:
The explosion at the port in Beirut was truly horrific. Be praying for those affected there. This footage is incredible. (Excuse the whispered expletive by the guy filming.) You must watch all the way to the end to witness the difference between the speed of light and the speed of sound.
Looking for a consistently great and efficient way to get news and analysis, particularly from a Christian perspective? I cannot recommend highly enough the daily podcast of The World & Everything In It. There is no better production anywhere, period. Make it part of your daily routine.
Finally, in light of today’s topic. I’ll let Alison Krauss and Union Station take it from here, performing Guitarist Ron Block’s masterful song, “There Is A Reason.”