Who Else Will Put the Stones Down?

On Sunday morning, a few of us were going through some last-minute details in preparation for the service. Among these, was the addition of a slide to be projected during the sermon. The person who had requested the slide had it ready to go on a USB drive and was going to deliver it to the people responsible for making sure such things happen. I couldn’t help but notice that the USB drive had the logo of a certain political party on it. I made some offhand comment about it. This led to a bit of harmless political banter. “Better not use that drive when so-and-so is running the tech,” one person said with a wink. “Yeah, but other-so-and-so would love it” said someone else.  And so and so forth. It was a light moment of brevity before worship, perhaps even an unwitting acknowledgement that even though we don’t all see things the same way politically, we can still come together in worship.

One of the things that I do with some regularity as a pastor is field questions like, “So, what kind of church are you?” or “What is your church’s position on x?” Many people want to plot our church on the progressive to conservative spectrum that dominates so much of our social life and discourse. I get this impulse. I also suspect that I rarely satisfy my interlocutors. I usually say something like, “Well, we are a community that has a broad range of perspectives on pretty much every issue, whether it’s sexuality and gender or race or politics more generally or worship style or… well, you name it.” We seem to have decided to prioritize people over politics and positions. We don’t do this perfectly of course. But somehow, it seems to work.

A few weeks ago, I came across an article by Leah Libresco Sargeant called “Mutual Endangerment Society.” The subtitle grabbed my attention: “How is it that both sides in our public debates feel so threatened?” An interesting question, that one. And a question with the ring of truth to it, for me. My circles include very liberal and very conservative people and I often notice that both seem to feel under near-constant existential threat from “the other side.” Those with different politics or theology or positions on contested issues aren’t just people with whom we happen to disagree, or people we might speak with and attempt to persuade, but enemies to be defeated.

The stakes increasingly seem very high. According to the author of the article, people on both sides of the cultural divide are increasingly talking about the potential of violence:

Part of the reason that violence is so attractive is because both sides are sure they’re losing. In the same poll, majorities of Democrats (59 percent) and Republicans (90 percent) both said the country was going in the wrong direction. It’s pretty normal for the party out of power to feel that way, so it’s the despair of the Democrats that’s particularly notable…

But I think the two expectations of victory and defeat have something in common—they both look forward to a future where persuasion will be unnecessary. Either your enemies will be so marginalized that there’s no reason you have to cater to their foolishness (any more than we worry about rapprochement with Flat Earthers), or they’ll be so dominant that reasoned discourse will be unequal to a situation that demands active, violent self-defence. In both cases, there’s the small relief that you no longer have to talk to those people.

This is why we humans tend to huddle together with those who look, think, act, and speak as we do. It’s safer among similarity. Difference is threatening, destabilizing, disorienting. Especially when it comes to differences on matters that are really important to us! It’s extremely difficult to move through life constantly feeling the need to justify or defend one’s own beliefs or, conversely, to make sure we have our arrows properly trained upon all the errors of our enemies. It’s psychologically, spiritually, relationally, even physically exhausting. Who has the energy?

And yet, there is something about following the One who laid down his life for both his friends and his enemies that ought to make us different. Isn’t there? Sargeant puts it like this:

A Christian point of view requires us to give up the desire to finally, finally be free of our obligations to our neighbour. The majority of us (at least so far) might be reluctant to pick up the rock ourselves as Cain did, but many of us would still react with relief when our neighbour is reduced rather than redeemed, and we can say we do not know where they are, nor do we care.

Whew. That is a squirm-worthy quote, if ever there was one. How many of us, I wonder, would secretly (or not-so-secretly) love to finally be rid of our obligations to our neighbour? Especially all the idiots who believe such obviously stupid and destructive things? How many of us are—again, secretly or not—far more interested in our neighbour’s reduction than their redemption?

There are times when I long for more uniformity in our church. It would make many things a lot easier. But who else, if not the church, will insist that our neighbours are, well, neighbours and not enemies? Who else will bear witness to the crucial truth that no one sees the truth in its entirety, that to be human is to instinctively see and think self-interestedly? Who else will embody mercy and forgiveness for the many ways in which we err and hurt one another? Who else will insist upon the possibility of redemption rather than reduction? Who else will stubbornly point to the wounds of the Christ who died for all kinds of idiots with stupid and destructive ideas?  Who else, if not the church, will put the stones down?