Holier than who?
“Some men never feel small,
but these are the few men who are.”
-G. K. Chesterton
I hadn’t expected to write much more along the lines of my last post, but the buzzing in my head (propped up by some gracious and thought-provoking emails from a respected reader) hasn’t stopped yet, so here I am with a little magnification on the subject, which is only incidentally related to Ms. Coulter.
When partisan political folks talk about things like godlessness and holiness, I often chafe. I have less trouble with folks who defend a hard-right agenda with non-Christian ideals, mostly because so much of the extreme conservative agenda doesn’t stand up to Christian ideals. Which isn’t to give extreme liberalism a pass, either; it’s just that I notice far fewer liberal voices using God as not only their refuge, but also their excuse. But anyway…
In the days since terrorism became a norm in U.S. political discourse, I’ve noticed a lot of voices decrying any suggestion that we should examine ourselves and our own policies prior to slinging arrows (or missiles, or bombs) at those outside our own borders. As a person, my default analytical settings push me to look inward, toward things that I see as being in my purview. Things like my personal behavior, things affected by my representative leaders, and any policies or decision following that pattern of extension. Because of the political animus that usually follows any such ideas, as well as the strains of feigned humility to which I’m prone, I’ve tread carefully in discussing these notions.
But I have I had issues with those who thump a Bible while advocating an outward-looking approach to analyzing things like terrorism, or crime. Especially when my deeply-held religious beliefs require me to practice introspection.
It’s not a general Christian value to only look outward when analyzing fault, and by doing so, ignore the faults in the first person – much the opposite. It’s not a Christian tenet to kill those who hate us (I’m sure many would be shocked to learn that Christian teachings suggest the opposite). And it’s certainly not a Christian ideal to devalue the lives of those who aren’t “us.”
But you might not know it to listen to the segments of the Christian agenda long since high-jacked by pop conservatives. I think that angers me most, the arrogant idea that God calls on us to be his personal emissaries, judging and punishing those we deem evil, so long as we don’t commit the modern-day heresy of judging ourselves (or our representative government).
In my previous post, I meant not to call Ann Coulter, or anyone else who echoes her politics, a liar. I don’t even mean to call her a liar now, though I scratch my head at how she could so vastly misunderstand the story of Jesus and the money changers in the Temple.
She may mean well; she simply doesn’t appear to understand Christ very well. Which isn’t to say that I’m an overwhelming authority on Christian theology, but I will suggest that anyone who uses Christian ideology as a subterfuge for killing (or wishing ill toward) other people is at least treading on thin ice. They may be using sound theology, but the odds on that are slim to none.
I don’t even mean to say Ann Coulter’s a bad Christian, though I would offer a cautionary note to anyone who truly believes they have earned the status of “extraordinarily good Christian” or even a Christian state of moral superiority: Arrogance may be the rightful domain of those who have attained perfection; but more often than that, it’s just a symptom of those who lack self-awareness.
And on that note, God forgive me if I’m slipping into arrogance myself; I certainly haven’t earned the right to.
I leave you with the closing lyrical quatrain of a song some say suggests sympathy for a serial killer, though to me it just reflects the idea that we are all sinners, which maybe requires a bit of sympathy. (Hopefully, it explains something I was previously trying to explain in an email):
And in my best behavior,
I am really just like him.
Look beneath the floorboards
for the secrets I have hid.
Click here for the full song lyric.
