Reactionary Jerks & Jesus

The political left-wing has successfully marketed itself as compassionate, caring, and empathetic. To be clear, much of their policy ideas lead to death, suffering, and destruction. However, their PR has effectively painted the broad movement as the caring ideology. The left is the movement of “the people,” or so they say. 

But what’s the response of the right-wing? Instead of saying, “you know, being compassionate is a good thing, but this is how to really care for people well,” the right-wing has instead decided to market themselves as the assholes who don’t care about anything but the “facts” and “statistics.” Feelings be damned.

The left-wing takes a stance of caring about people, so the right-wing, in a reactionary knee-jerk way, decides that they should do the reverse and even vilify ideas like empathy and mental health. This is, to be sure, a losing strategy. Hearts and minds are not won over without compassion. Fear is a great motivator, but it will lose in the long term. Cold factual (or supposedly factual) analysis will convince some, but many more will not. This doesn’t mean we reject factual or logical analysis (by no means), but it should help us understand that emotions and logic cannot be pitted against one another. From our perspective, both are limited. But this more considerable epistemological discussion is best left for another day. 

But more than a losing political strategy, it’s also an anti-Christian attitude that denies a wide swath of basic Christian ethics (Galatians 5:22-23, just for starters.) Regardless, far-right pastors have adopted the very same attitude as their political pundit counterparts. But instead of a well-tailored marketing strategy based on fear, hostility, and sensationalism, these pastors and Christian leaders reveal their hearts with their words (Matthew 15:18). 

This is what happens when we react instead of staying grounded in God’s Word. This is what happens when we’re more concerned with opposing the liberals than we are with honoring God. I speak more about this reactionary attitude here, but I want to remind us that this reactionary tendency can play a role in our tone and messaging, not just our theology. 

Nevertheless, this dynamic does touch on theology as well as practical ethics. Functionally this is a denial of common grace as if non-Christian or liberals can’t ever get anything right. As if those to the left of us are incapable of discerning any truths whatsoever, even in part of imperfectly. 

The truth is, those with lousy theology or who outright deny Christ can discern some element of truth, at times, just due to them being created in the image of God (Romans 1:18-32). They can support just causes, know some truth, and can even do a better job at certain things than many Christians. They do not have the complete truth or have a grounding justification for their limited truth, but we can still learn from them at times.

But this dynamic also strikes at the heart of the nature of Jesus, the Son of God who emptied himself and humbly came to earth to die for his people, the Christ Jesus who did not see equality with God a thing to be grasped (Philippians 2:5-11). 

Yes, the Jesus who was harsh at times, but also the Jesus who counted gentleness as a fruit of the Spirit as opposed to angry harshness. Yet, some live by the exceptions. Some major in the minors to the degree that their entire personality and ministries focus around the few times Jesus did not demonstrate a gentle and understanding temperament. 

Yes, some in the left certainly react in similar ways to the right and blindly adopt inverse or contrary views, but I’m (in most important ways) from the right-wing and know the right-wing. I see “my side” commit this error far more often because I’m around “my side” more often. However, and more importantly, we should have a higher standard for ourselves. We know the truth, generally, but do not act like it. They do not know the truth, generally, and they expectedly do not act like they do.

Compassion does not belong to the left, or even the right, it belongs to Jesus. Don’t allow political optics steal that truth from the Church.