Enough is Enough: Why Christians must condemn fear-mongering.

 

Blessed are the peacemakers.

 

 

I am not supporting Obama because I am sure Jesus would.  I want to be a follower of Christ, but we followers must admit that this politics stuff is messy.  To glorify one side of the aisle and demonize another is to engage in the worse sort of selective honesty.  I’m wading into this voting decision knowing that Jesus, if he were to have been a 21st century American, would not endorse Obama or McCain or even vote necessarily.  Any Christian who thinks that engaging in politics with discernment and integrity is easy or cut and dry just isn’t thinking hard enough or letting the scriptures challenge the little opinions we cling to so dearly.  (I’m not voting for Obama because he is the only “Christian choice.” I’ll write more about why I’m voting for him later.)  

But there is one thing that we should be able to agree on, even if it be in a nuanced way, and that is that the whisper campaign and shady, fear-mongering rhetoric that the McCain and Palin have recently engaged in unethical and dangerous.  

The reason that it matters that we understand who Bill Ayers is and is not is because this hubub is just the most recent example in a passive aggressive campaign narrative that insinuates that Obama is a muslim, anti-American, terrorist who hangs out with other terrorists and delights in baby-killing, who has all of America duped except for the few “insiders” who know the “real Obama”.  

I have received the mass-emails that you have. I have read theologically weak (to say the least) claims that Obama is the anti-Christ.  They are comparing this man to the incarnation of evil.  

It is time to say enough is enough.  There are real policy differences between these two candidates, and reasonable people, in general, and reasonable believers, specifically, can debate about the merit of each argument.  But all of us who care about truth and the common good and certainly all of us who seek to live under the Lordship of Christ must loudly and unequivocally condemn this underhanded campaign strategy.

This article and this article relate how crowds in Republican rallies are actually shouting about killing Obama.  McCain and Palin need to take responsibility for the words they say and forcefully address this behavior at their rallies.   They must take responsibility for the reality that there are gun-toting crazys in the world and when you say publicly that Obama is friends with terrorists or anti-american, when you allow people at your rallies to wax poetic on the unknown dangers of Obama’s middle name or allow rumors and misinformation to continue to fester in digital whispery shadows, or when you insinuate that we don’t know “the real Obama”, then you share in the responsibility for one of those crazys deciding they will be doing the world a favor by committing an unspeakable act of violence.  It is time that we, as rational Americans and Christians, make it plain to McCain and Palin that this rhetoric must stop and ask both candidates to condemn any calls for violence against their opponent or his supporters.  

Of course, I’m not talking about criminalizing this sort of rhetoric.  Among other things, the right of free speech garuntees the right to spout lies and vehemence against your enemies. What I’m talking about is a national outcry.  I envision a world where Americans from both sides of the aisle say enough is enough and call for McCain/Palin to admit that Obama is not a muslim, a terrorist, or the anti-Christ, just a guy with whom they passionately but respectfully disagree.

And I envision a world where the church leads the way, where followers of Jesus who are pro-McCain are the first to say publicly that this way of fear-mongering is not civil and, more importantly, is not the way Christians are to act.  I envision a world where Christians who will vote for the blue team and those who will vote for the red team would be examples of beautiful ways to disagree and yet love and even enjoy the Other. And I envision a world where as one united voice we ask that our public figures take responsibility for the consequences of their words and do not engage in deceit, slander, or malignant rhetoric, particularly if it is said by public figures who claim to follow Jesus.

Christians, put down your stones. Say enough is enough.  And pray for peace and the kingdom to come and overwhelm this messy and violent world with obedience, community, and truthful love.

 And pray for both candidates and for the church, that she’d rise above these petty politics and that she (not a particular nation-state) would be the city on the hill that she has been formed to be.   

Tags: Christianity, McCain, Obama, Palin, politics and faith, violence