Category Archives: Book Excerpts

One small step

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As I’ve studied the polarization problem caused by our endless Culture Wars and the negative impact on both ourselves and our society, I’ve begun asking myself these questions:

How do we engage people who disagree with us, while keeping in mind God’s commandment to love our neighbors as ourselves? 

How can we be part of the solution and avoid becoming part of the problem as our society grows ever more partisan and angry?

I’ve decided one of the first small steps I can personally take is to examine my relationship with social media. As I’ve begun doing so, I’ve come to an inescapable conclusion: I need to pay much more conscientious attention to what I post, share and “like” on sites like Facebook and X (formerly known as Twitter). 

If there’s one thing many conservatives and progressives agree on, it’s that social media have played a huge role in keeping the Culture Wars going. In one survey by the Pew Research Center (link HERE), 55 percent of adult social media users said they felt “worn out” by how many combative political posts and discussions they see on these platforms. 

Seven in 10 respondents also said they found it “stressful and frustrating” to communicate on social media with people they disagree with about politics. The sense of exhaustion and frustration held true across political parties, according to the report. 

Several culprits contribute to social media’s role in dividing us. Algorithms that create “echo chamber” bubbles of one-sided information and opinions. Viral spread of false or misleading information in “fake news” stories with click-bait headlines. Political “discussions” that amount to little more than judgmental blaming and shaming, name-calling, insults, character assassination and demonization of opponents. Endless memes promoting hateful and inflammatory messages.

The worst part? I have to admit I’ve been part of the problem from time to time. Too often in recent years, I’ve found myself getting sucked into social media fights – even with people I ordinarily like – over politics and contentious “hot-button” ideological issues.

Whenever a Facebook skirmish erupts – whether the trigger is a Supreme Court decision, a political candidate’s suitability for office, or a crisis playing out on the news – my first instinct is to try and stay out of the fray. 

Alas, I tend to have strong opinions about a lot of issues (imagine that!) and sooner or later, someone will post a meme that I just can’t seem to resist sharing against my better judgment. Okay, I know it’s a bit snarky. Maybe a bit judgmental or even mean. But it’s SO clever. Then, of course, someone on “the other side” will beg to differ with my assessment of the meme’s cleverness, and before I know it, I’m bogged down in another argument.

One evening, I realized I had just spent the better part of a whole day arguing with total strangers on a Christian Facebook page over this question: “Is it racist to make jokes about lutefisk, lefse and jello at Lutheran potlucks?” (No, I’m afraid I’m not making this up.) I further realized it wasn’t the first time something like this had happened.

So what can I start doing differently?

I’m not ready to go “off the grid” when it comes to social media. With family and friends scattered over two continents, I would not be able to stay connected so well without Facebook. This was especially true during the recent pandemic. 

However, I’ve decided I can take some constructive steps to avoid getting lured into flame wars and to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem when it comes to divisive social media behavior.

I can fact-check articles I want to share before posting them. I personally see nothing wrong with sharing thoughtful, well-researched articles about issues I care about. But I have a responsibility to double-check these for accuracy. Some good sites for fact-checking my sources include Snopes.com (link HERE), FactCheck.org (link HERE) and PolitiFact (link HERE).

I can respect people who don’t agree with me. I’ve learned it’s best to resist lecturing people on their lack of personal integrity or intelligence, even if I think what they’ve shared is just plain wrong. I can’t remember ever changing anyone’s mind about an issue because I sufficiently shamed them. If a Facebook friend posts an inaccurate or misleading article, meme or video, I can skip the snark and simply respond with a link to a Snopes.com article debunking the item in question.

I can practice selective attention. If I don’t agree with someone’s post, I always have the option to keep on scrolling and not respond at all. (What a thought!) 

I can set my own standards of behavior for my own posts. When the vitriol starts, I’ve begun deleting comments from people who choose not to respect others, and even blocking some of the worst offenders. I have blocked or “snoozed” both conservative and progressive Facebook friends who insist on insulting my other Facebook friends.

I can be aware of what I enable. What am I encouraging others to post by hitting the “like” button? Am I inadvertently rewarding name-calling, character assassination or polarizing comments? 

I can resist “click bait.” Sometimes I can tell from the headline that an article is pure negative spin. (Watch Politician A school Politician B on life in the real world.) Given the fact that clicks generate ad revenue, do I really need to contribute one more click in response to that scurrilous article? 

I can avoid using memes to convey complex ideas. One of the problems that keeps us all from resolving issues appropriately is our modern emphasis on brevity. It is nearly impossible to give an issue the depth it deserves when our communication is limited to 15-second sound bites, 280-character tweets, bumper stickers and t-shirt slogans – and all those endless memes.

I can reduce mindless surfing. If I go online with a specific purpose in mind – to check emails, research a blog article or catch up with the latest updates from Facebook friends – and limit my time on social media, I’m less likely to absent-mindedly click on headlines like 21 of the Biggest Political Scandals in History.

Finally, I can use Facebook for its original purpose – to help me keep up with family and friends. How are all my nieces and nephews and dozens of cousins doing? Who’s getting married? Who just had a baby? Which friend got a promotion at work or went on a fabulous vacation? Who just went to the emergency room and needs prayers?

Or I can share cute photos of all the adorable pets Pete and I have shared our home with since we first got married nearly 40 years ago. I’m happy to report I have never had anyone threaten to block or “snooze” me because I posted too many photos of these little sweethearts. 

Fortunately, my Facebook friends over the years have loved Elizabeth, Bryce, Champie, Oley, Angie and Torbjorn as much as my camera and I have.

Questions for readers: How has our society’s polarization impacted you personally? (If you live outside the U.S., is there similar polarization going on in your country?) How do we become part of the solution rather than part of the problem? I’d love to hear your responses to these questions, as well as your comments on this article. Just hit “Leave a Reply” below. When responding, please keep in mind the guidelines I’ve outlined on my Rules of Engagement page (link HERE).

How did we get so polarized?

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Note: I first posted this article shortly after the 2020 U.S. presidential election. But with another election season in progress, I’d like to run it again with just a couple of small updates, because it still reflects my feelings about the polarization ripping apart our society. If anything, the situation has gotten worse.

Some blame the news media. Some blame our political leaders. Many blame folks on the other side of our Culture Wars divide. But my research shows that a variety of interrelated factors contribute to the extreme polarization in our society, including some influences that creep in beneath our conscious awareness:

Social media. If there’s one thing most people actually agree on, it is that social media can exacerbate polarization. Platforms such as Facebook and X (formerly known as Twitter) provide the ideal forum for the moral grandstanding and flame-throwing that fuel our Culture Wars. Some folks love a good fight and make a hobby of keeping everyone stirred up through deliberate trolling. For more of us, the relative anonymity of a screen allows us to share sentiments we’d never dream of expressing out loud to someone in a face-to-face conversation. 

Ideological bubbles and echo chambers. In his book The Big Sort, journalist Bill Bishop describes a demographic trend in which Americans have segregated themselves into homogenous communities, choosing everything from cable news networks to civic organizations and church denominations compatible with their lifestyles and beliefs. We have even separated geographically from those who differ from us ideologically. The result, Bishop says, is “a country that has become so polarized, so ideologically inbred, the people don’t know and can’t understand those who live a few miles away.” Meanwhile, on the Internet, sophisticated algorithms create “echo chambers” that ensure we are exposed mostly to people and sites promoting our own worldview and shielded from conflicting ideas or viewpoints.

Manipulation. We are relentlessly manipulated, often without realizing it, by folks who profit handsomely from keeping us polarized. Social media advertisers know the most salacious headlines get the most clicks – and generate the most ad revenue. Politicians whip us into an us-versus-them frenzy to secure our votes. Cable news networks boost their ratings by keeping people angry and divided. Online businesses appeal to our partisan divisions with in-your-face merchandise – a Deplorable University coffee mug or Safe Spaces Are for Snowflakes bumper sticker for conservatives, a Jesus was Progressive car magnet or Democrats Cleaning Up Republican Messes Since 1933 dog sweater for progressives (or their pets). 

Groupthink and our need for belonging. Kids begin forming in-groups as early as kindergarten and our cliquish behavior unfortunately doesn’t end when we leave high school. “The human mind is exquisitely tuned to group affiliation and group difference,” says political analyst Ezra Klein in his book Why We’re Polarized. “It takes almost nothing for us to form a group identity, and once that happens, we naturally assume ourselves in competition with other groups.” The more we identify with a group, the more we feel pressured to agree with its dogma – a party line that seems to include 650 boxes which must all be checked or we risk rejection by our chosen peers. The deeper our commitment to an identity group, the more vulnerable we are to the effects of “group polarization” – the tendency for the group as a whole to adopt attitudes or actions that are more extreme than the initial inclination of its individual members.

Projection and scapegoating. We humans have a distressing tendency to project our own less-than-admirable thoughts, behaviors and forbidden impulses onto others. Christians and non-Christians alike “are at times behaving horribly in the ways they engage in our political discourse,” says the Rev. Eugene Cho in his book Thou Shalt Not Be a Jerk. “We want to preach to others, but we don’t preach to ourselves. We love to flip tables, but not our own. We love to expose the privilege in others, while rarely considering our own.” The concept of scapegoating first appears in Leviticus 16:8-10 – a goat would literally be cast into the desert to carry away the community’s sins – and the word “scapegoat” has since developed to indicate a person or group of people blamed and punished for the sins of others. Once we’ve blamed someone for all of society’s problems, it’s a short step toward demonizing and dehumanizing them.

Our soundbite culture. One problem that keeps us from discussing and resolving issues appropriately is our modern emphasis on brevity, which is often designed to accommodate our increasingly short attention spans. According to the Rev. Cho, our failure to engage issues more intelligently prevents us from fully understanding the “why” behind our convictions. (“Don’t just be a headline reader,” he urges us.) It is nearly impossible to give an issue the depth it deserves when we limit our communication to bumper stickers, 15-second sound bites and 280-character tweets.

Our inability to tolerate ambiguity or acknowledge moral complexity. Moral and ethical questions don’t always lend themselves to simplistic answers, and honest people can honestly disagree about the best way to resolve complex issues. An example of this dilemma has been our recent struggle over the best way to handle the COVID-19 pandemic. At the beginning of the pandemic, we wrestled with the question, “How can we protect people who are more vulnerable to severe illness or death without destroying the jobs that allow other people to feed their families, keep a roof over their heads and afford basic health care?” When we didn’t have enough of a life-saving vaccine to go around, who got priority? As things have returned to normal, scientists’ changing understanding of the virus has made it difficult for public health experts to offer consistent advice on the need for continuing safety measures. But rather than remain open to new research, too many of us have chosen to dig in our heels and stick with whatever our identity group decrees to be “the truth.”

Our oppositional mindset. We often hear how it’s easier to unite Americans against something than to unite them for something. In her now-classic book The Argument Culture, linguistics professor Deborah Tannen describes “a pervasive warlike atmosphere that makes us approach public dialogue, and just about anything we need to accomplish, as if it were a fight.” She explains that our society constantly urges us to engage the world in an adversarial frame of mind: “The best way to discuss an idea is to set up a debate; the best way to cover news is to find spokespeople who express the most extreme, polarized views and present them as ‘both sides’; the best way to settle disputes is litigation that pits one party against the other; the best way to begin an essay is to attack someone; and the best way to show you’re really thinking is to criticize.” Our use of language reflects this mindset, she adds: “The war on drugs, the war on cancer … war metaphors pervade our talk and shape our thinking.” 

Relentless pressure to take sides. Our determination to pursue truth by setting up a fight between two sides leads us to believe every issue has two sides – no more and no less, Tannen says. But opposition “does not lead to truth when an issue is not composed of two opposing sides but is a crystal of many sides. Often the truth is in the complex middle, not the oversimplified extremes.” In other words, an issue may not actually have two sides, but rather, three or four or seventeen sides. Pressure to choose between the two sides presented to us keeps us from recognizing and remaining open to other options.

Negative partisanship and defining-by-opposition. Partisan behavior is often driven not by positive feelings toward the political party we support but by negative feelings toward the party we oppose, according to Klein. You might be guilty of negative partisanship, he says, “if you’ve ever voted in an election feeling a bit bleh about the candidate you backed, but fearful of the troglodyte or socialist running against her.” Charles C. Camosy describes “the politics of defining-by-opposition” in his book Resisting Throwaway Culture. “We almost always view the ideological communities to which we belong through the lens of a narrow progressive/conservative binary – a binary into which all issues, regardless of their complexity, are shoved and made to fit,” he explains. “We define ourselves by our opposition to ‘the other side’ well before we even engage their ideas and arguments.”

Logical fallacies. The dualistic, oppositional, either/or mindset outlined above is an example of a logical fallacy – a thinking error that distorts our perceptions and leads to inaccurate conclusions. Other logical fallacies that contribute to polarization include zero-sum thinking (we insist that one side’s gain must be the other side’s loss); fundamental attribution error (when bad things happen to other people, we believe they are personally at fault, but when bad things happen to us, we blame the situation and circumstances beyond our control); confirmation bias (we embrace information that supports our viewpoints, while ignoring information that doesn’t); and all-or-nothing thinking (if we change our mind about one issue, it will mean everything we’ve ever believed in is wrong, so we’ll be forced to change our entire worldview). 

Addiction to outrage and contempt. There certainly are plenty of issues to be legitimately angry about in our society right now. But face it, outrage and contempt can help us feel so superior to others that many of us are hopelessly addicted. We live in a culture of contempt, says Arthur C. Brooks in his book Love Your Enemies. Brooks variously defines contempt as “anger mixed with disgust,” “an enduring attitude of complete disdain,” and “the unsullied conviction of the worthlessness of another.” While most of us hate what unbridled outrage and contempt are doing to our society, he says many of us “compulsively consume the ideological equivalent of meth from elected officials, academics, entertainers and some of the news media.” 

Our sinful nature. Many Christians believe sin can ultimately be defined as separation. And what word would describe extreme polarization better than separation? Several “sins of separation” contribute to the polarization tearing our society apart. We commit idolatry when we turn the conservative/progressive movements into quasi-religions and place our loyalty to a political ideology or party ahead of our loyalty to God. We take God’s name in vain when we use it to promote hatred toward people or groups we oppose. We bear false witness against our neighbors when we deliberately twist their words and distort their positions on various issues so we can portray them as terrible people. We ignore the plank in our own eye while focusing obsessively on the speck in our perceived opponent’s eye. Most of all, we fail to love our neighbors as ourselves, especially if they voted for the wrong candidate in the last election.

Unfortunately, polarization can be self-reinforcing, creating an endless feedback loop, according to Klein. To appeal to a polarized public, political institutions, cable news networks and other public entities behave in more polarized ways. As the political institutions and other actors behave in more polarized ways, they further polarize the public. To appeal to a further polarized public, institutions must polarize even more. The cycle becomes a downward spiral.

If we want to stop this depressing cycle, a good first step might be paying attention to the ways we are pressured and manipulated to take sides in situations where taking sides may not be the best idea, as well as recognizing the logical fallacies that encourage polarized thinking and behavior. I’m also thinking those of us who identify as Christians may need to renew our commitment to follow the Lamb rather than the elephant or the donkey.

Questions for readers: What factors do you see leading to the extreme polarization in our society? What would help alleviate this? I’d love to hear your responses to these questions, as well as your comments on this article. Just hit “Leave a Reply” below. When responding, please keep in mind the guidelines I’ve outlined on my Rules of Engagement page (link HERE).

How the Culture Wars affect us

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Note: I first posted this article shortly after the 2020 U.S. presidential election. But with our current election season growing increasingly rancorous, I’d like to run it again with just a couple of small updates, because it still reflects my feelings about the polarization ripping apart our society. If anything, the situation has gotten so bad that last weekend’s events – while shocking and tragic – were hardly surprising.

Some would argue that the extreme polarization in our society is normal and relatively harmless. We must simply learn to ignore the drama, we’re told. Turn off the TV. Spend less time on social media sites.

If only it were that simple. 

The Culture Wars have infiltrated every nook and cranny of our lives, and we can’t seem to escape the bickering, no matter where we go or what we do – whether we’re walking past a sea of bumper stickers in a grocery store parking lot, getting harassed by political robocalls while trying to eat lunch or encountering insults plastered across someone’s t-shirt in a doctor’s office. The blaming and finger-pointing have become white noise in the background of our daily lives.

Around the tables at 12-Step group meetings, people say it’s important to distinguish between “normal” and “healthy.” Some situations and behaviors considered all-too-normal in our society are actually anything but healthy, they warn. And this warning seems especially applicable to the Culture Wars.

For example, it would be bad enough if the tide of anger and disrespect swirling around us served merely to put people in a surly, antisocial mood. Unfortunately, the damage doesn’t stop there. On a societal level, our finger-pointing epidemic leads to everything from Congressional gridlock and loss of trust in our institutions to violence against individuals who belong to maligned groups. On a personal level, people report damaged relationships and higher levels of stress. Perhaps worst of all, our children are watching us. 

Here are some of the harmful ways I see the Culture Wars affecting us, both personally and as a community.

Our relationships. In a study published by the journal PLOS ONE (link HERE), about 20 percent of respondents reported that political animosity had damaged their friendships. Nearly 40 percent of registered voters – both Democrats and Republicans – surveyed by the Pew Research Center (link HERE) said they do not have a single close friend from the opposing party. I’ve watched some of my own Facebook friends – both conservative and progressive – shred each other on my news feed to the point where I needed to block them. Others have pressured me to “unfriend” or stop associating with people who voted the “wrong” way in an election. I’ve fretted about who to invite to gatherings at my house because I worried that one of my more opinionated guests might insult or offend another guest. Sadly, I’ve had loved ones decide they’re “done” with me because I wouldn’t take their side politically. 

Our livelihoods. Polarization can impact our jobs, along with our ability to support ourselves and our families. At the national level, our elected officials regularly threaten to “shut down the government” unless they get their way on hot-button priorities. In the past few years, government shutdowns have resulted in workers getting furloughed until the impasse is resolved. In Illinois, where I live, social service agencies were forced to conduct massive layoffs when our legislators and our governor at the time held the state budget hostage for two years while fighting over ideological agendas. 

Our civic engagement. The Culture Wars may boost TV ratings and generate clicks for social media advertisers. But the toxic nature of our conflicts leaves too many of us wanting to drop out of the civic arena entirely. Hidden Tribes (link HERE), a survey of public opinion by the organization More in Common, says two-thirds (67 percent) of Americans belong to a group the authors have dubbed “the Exhausted Majority.” Although members of this group have many political and ideological differences, they share fatigue with the current state of U.S. politics, according to the report. At least a quarter (26 percent) of those surveyed report feeling detached, distrustful and disengaged. On a personal level, the warring factions leave me wanting to grab a good book and a flashlight and dive under the bed with my cat.

Our conversations. No matter how innocuous or trivial the topic, many of us have become reluctant to express our true thoughts. Personally, I’m not afraid that people might disagree with me, which they have a perfect right to do, or even that someone might prove me wrong, which has happened more than once. But I do tend to avoid speaking up in situations where I might get name-called or otherwise bullied, and several friends have reported having similar experiences. I don’t think this makes us snowflakes. It means we practice good self-care. Unfortunately, this situation puts a damper on our ability to engage in anything more than the most superficial small talk with others.

Our credibility. Name-calling, flaming, trolling and other rude behavior don’t just stop genuine discussion in its tracks. Obnoxious behavior invites others to take us less than seriously. When we lash out with insults toward those who disagree with us, we only give others an excuse to discount us and dismiss our message. 

Our ability to profit from advice. Lately I’ve noticed that the constant vitriol has made both me and others more reactive, less able to tolerate even the mildest, most constructive criticism. I don’t think this is entirely a matter of our having overly delicate egos. What passes for criticism is so pervasive and so relentless and so abusive that we feel like we’ve had our lifetime quota and cannot bear even one more iota of “feedback.” How many times can we hear words like “moron” directed toward ourselves before even the most thick-skinned among us gets defensive and shuts down?

Our ability to fix or learn from mistakes. People these days find it almost impossible to admit when they are wrong. Again, I think this goes beyond fragile egos. I suspect one factor is that the punishment so often exceeds the crime. We don’t just ask people to repair the damage when they make mistakes. We sue them for everything they’ve got so we can make an example of them. We don’t just fire people. We seek to ruin their entire careers in the name of “accountability.” We “call them out,” target them for public humiliation and attempt to “cancel” them like credit cards. No wonder people are afraid of even the appearance of being wrong.

Our ability to resolve real problems. While we bicker incessantly, genuine problems go unaddressed. Raging war in various global hotspots creates millions of refugees. Thousands of children worldwide die each day of starvation and/or totally preventable diseases. Nearly a third of all children in the U.S. live in poverty. Because of Congressional gridlock, our elected officials are completely unable to come up with sensible policy on issues ranging from immigration and health care to criminal justice reform and how to manage a pandemic.

Our trust. We don’t trust anyone these days – not the government, not the press, not the police, not doctors or scientists, and not even the church. According to a recent Gallup poll (link HERE), barely half (51 percent) of Americans expressed “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in the medical system. Fewer than half expressed similar confidence in the police (48 percent), the church/organized religion (42 percent), public schools (41 percent), the Supreme Court (40 percent), banks (38 percent), or large technology companies (32 percent). Fewer than a quarter expressed confidence in the criminal justice system (24 percent), big businesses (19 percent), newspapers (24 percent) or television news (18 percent). A measly 13 percent of us expressed confidence in Congress.

Our physical health. It would be nice if our elected officials could sit down like mature adults and work out a comprehensive policy to ensure appropriate health care is available to everyone, regardless of income or pre-existing medical conditions. Instead, members of Congress insist on turning our health care into a political wedge issue. Disastrously, for several years, the Culture Wars rendered our national and state governments totally unable to effectively address either the medical or the economic fallout of COVID-19. The tricky part for the rest of us continues to be figuring out how to separate the progressive-versus-conservative political spin from the medical information we need to know in order to protect ourselves from a potentially deadly virus. 

Our mental health. In “Stress in America 2020,” a survey published by the American Psychological Association (link HERE), 68 percent of adults named the political climate in the U.S. as a source of stress. Republicans and Democrats were equally likely to say this was true for them. Three in five (60 percent) said the sheer number of issues America faces – ranging from racism and immigration to health care, the economy and climate change – was overwhelming to them. As anxiety arising from the COVID-19 pandemic was added to our tension over these already existing conflicts, our stress levels skyrocketed to the point that APA sounded an alarm: “We are facing a national mental health crisis that could yield serious health and social consequences for years to come.”

Our faith. The Culture Wars have literally split congregations down the middle in recent years, and major denominations have faced schisms over such issues as LGBTQ rights, abortion and the role of women. How do we have conversations about genuine moral issues such as racism or poverty when important Biblical passages are labelled “too political” and therefore off-limits for discussion? For those of us who claim to be people of faith, spewing hurtful and gratuitous snark on Christian social media sites gives the increasing numbers of young people who identify as “none” ammunition to call us hypocrites and declare they want nothing to do with either us or our religion. 

Our safety. Taken to extremes, polarization can promote dehumanization and lower the threshold for violence. Unfortunately, this past weekend’s assassination attempt was only the latest example. Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and Republican Congressman Steve Scalise were shot by mentally unstable individuals who took our society’s heated political rhetoric too literally. Since then, there have been a string of incidents involving political violence, from the attempted kidnapping of a governor to an assassination plot against a Supreme Court justice. Elected officials from both parties routinely receive death threats in response to their policy decisions. We have groups on both the left (such as Antifa) and the right (such as the Proud Boys) who endorse violence as a legitimate way to achieve political ends. Perhaps more disturbing, a Voter Study Group survey (link HERE) found that 16 percent of ordinary Americans felt that violence is sometimes justified to advance political goals. We’re not even safe in our places of worship – mass shootings have occurred in Christian churches, Jewish synagogues, Muslim mosques and a Sikh temple. A Marist national poll conducted in May 2024 (link HERE) found that nearly half of Americans think there is a likelihood of another U.S. civil war in their lifetime.

Our children. Do we really think our kids don’t notice the mudslinging we’ve come to regard as normal for political campaigns? Or the car with the middle-aged driver and the bumper sticker that tells us what we can eat if we don’t like the owner’s driving? Or the (alleged) adults who consider “flaming” a popular sport on social media? Or the talk show host who refers to ideological opponents as “wackos”? I’ve heard parents and teachers alike share concerns about children and adolescents watching political debates because of the abundance of name-calling, constant interruptions and generally uncivil behavior. Young people looking to adults for an example of how to behave could be excused for concluding that rudeness is clever. Kids who take their cues from their elders might also get this message: Consideration for others is passé.

So, is extreme polarization normal in our society? Unfortunately. Is it healthy or harmless? Hardly.

Questions for readers: How has our society’s polarization impacted you personally? How do we become part of the solution rather than part of the problem? I’d love to hear your responses to these questions, as well as your comments on this article. Just hit “Leave a Reply” below. When responding, please keep in mind the guidelines I’ve outlined on my Rules of Engagement page (link HERE).

Little epiphanies

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Note: I first posted this article shortly after the 2020 U.S. presidential election. But with another election season in progress, I’d like to post it again with just a couple of small updates, because it still reflects my feelings about the polarization ripping apart our society. If anything, the problem only seems to be getting worse. This is part of a series of articles I will post between now and the U.S. election in November.

Insight doesn’t usually come to me in big EUREKA! moments, but tends to creep into my awareness through a series of little epiphanies. And so it was with the realization that our society’s culture wars were wreaking real damage, both in our communities and in my personal life. Even worse, I began to discern – albeit more slowly – that my own attitudes and behavior might be contributing to the problem.

The first of these little epiphanies came during my 20-year career in human services. Between my paid employment and my volunteer commitments, it was hard to avoid the fallout from our larger society’s political battles because the never-ending conflict so often affected my ability to simply do my job. Government funding to the social service agencies where I worked would be cut or delayed on a regular basis because elected officials liked to hold state and federal budgets hostage until they got their way on ideological priorities. This often resulted in staffing shortages and a reduction in the level of services we were able to provide for people in need.

“Philosophical differences” within the social service system itself sometimes kept helping professionals from working together for the benefit of people who sought assistance for problems ranging from drug addiction and homelessness to domestic violence and mental health issues. Conservative colleagues said poor choices and lack of personal responsibility were to blame for these individuals’ problems, while progressive colleagues insisted bad luck and social oppression were the culprits. My own experience told me the cause of most client problems was a complex combination of poor choices, bad luck and social oppression, but I often felt pressured by colleagues on both the left and the right to deny the reality in front of me when certain details of a person’s situation were not “ideologically correct.” 

Outside of work, I frequently found myself sucked into arguments with friends, relatives and even strangers over contentious “hot-button” issues such as abortion, gun violence, climate change and racial unrest. Sometimes online squabbles would get sufficiently nasty for me to block or “snooze” Facebook friends – both progressive and conservative – who refused to stop insulting my other Facebook friends. This situation got more pronounced after the 2016 election, with some friends actually pressuring me to stop associating with people on the “wrong” side of the ideological divide. 

However, I have to admit I wasn’t always the innocent victim or bystander in these skirmishes. For years, I had been repelled by the culture wars and yet attracted like the proverbial moth to a flame.

One sign that I might be a bit too invested in the culture wars came when I realized I had just wasted an entire afternoon arguing with total strangers about jello. Yes, jello. Progressives and conservatives on one Christian denomination’s Facebook page had been wrangling for days over this question: “Is it racist to make jokes about jello at church potlucks?” I further realized it wasn’t the first time this had happened. Conservative and progressive Christians frequently mauled and skewered each other on Web sites such as Patheos, gleefully calling each other names and dropping F-bombs on people left and right. While I didn’t resort to insults or profanity myself, I confess to participating in too many of these “discussions” for longer than I should have. 

Another “Aha!” moment came during election season when I realized I hadn’t done my morning meditation in several days. Morning meditation was one of my favorite prayer rituals. I settled in my recliner in front of the fireplace with a cup of coffee by my side and a cat in my lap and asked for God’s protection and guidance as I journaled about my priorities for the coming day. Sometimes my husband serenaded Oley Cat and me with sacred songs on his dulcimer. So why was I missing out? Not because of early doctor appointments or work commitments. Before I even had my morning coffee, I would rush to my computer and click into Real Clear Politics or FiveThirtyEight.com to see who was ahead in the polls. Housework and my writing also languished while I aimlessly surfed the web, looking for that news story or editorial that would magically reassure me the right side was winning.

One beautiful October day, I was taking a twilight walk when I suddenly stopped short. Mother Nature’s handiwork prompted me to gasp. Fall leaves flashed yellow-orange-crimson. Light from the setting sun bounced off the tops of trees in even more vivid colors. The sky competed with the trees for sheer outrageousness – the sun painting the clouds red, orange, yellow, pink, purple. A still-warm breeze blew gently across my face. Then I stopped short again. I realized I had been walking for several minutes before I noticed what was in front of me. While God was putting on this living fireworks display, I had been gazing at the sidewalk, my mind flitting from one surly thought to another: I wish our elected officials would stop acting like children. … What kind of people would vote for a monster like that? … What on earth is wrong with people?! … How can they think that way?  

The final straw that convinced me I’d had enough of the culture wars came with the COVID-19 pandemic. Here we were, facing a virus that was killing hundreds of thousands of people, and our elected officials would not stop brawling long enough to develop a coherent plan for addressing this urgent public health issue. One would think the general public might urge lawmakers to put aside their political differences and collaborate on ways to get personal protective equipment to our frontline workers, ensure ICU beds were available for everyone who needed one, and help families and small businesses affected by our shutdown orders. Instead, all we could seem to do was bicker about face masks and shame each other with Facebook memes while we retreated further into our ideological camps and dug in our heels.

So what could one person do to stop the lunacy? I was pretty sure the answer was not to retreat from the political arena, look the other way in the face of injustice or stop working to resolve problems such as poverty and hunger. On the other hand, something clearly wasn’t working – either in our society or in my responses to the endless strife. At the very least, my own responses needed to change. 

Unfortunately, the church community – where one might hope to find some guidance – seemed only to provoke more confusion and discord. Many Christian denominations were drawing progressive-versus-conservative battle lines that matched those of secular society. As people on either end of the political/ideological divide pressured me to take sides, I often found myself performing mental gymnastics to make my religious beliefs about an issue fit a particular political party’s platform. And I came to realize how much my own beliefs were being shaped by my desire to fit in with the people around me rather than by an objective search for truth. 

This internal tug-of-war brought on by the increasing divisiveness in our society prompted me to ask myself several questions: What were my own beliefs about the hot-button issues that consumed our nation’s culture warriors? Should I continue holding onto these beliefs and values, or should some of them be changed or discarded? How could I avoid the continual pressure to “choose sides” and do more of my own thinking? What was my role as a Christian in fighting or mitigating society’s political battles? How should I engage people who disagreed with me, while keeping in mind God’s commandment to love our neighbors as ourselves? And perhaps most importantly, how did I avoid becoming part of the problem as our society grew ever more partisan and angry? How could I be part of the solution?

To help me sort through these questions, I engaged a spiritual director. With her encouragement, I began questioning many things I thought I knew. I questioned values other people wanted me to hold – whether they be conservative or progressive. I began asking myself how much I really believed everything I claimed to believe concerning church dogma and secular political ideologies. Was it possible I was merely paying lip service to certain ideas to please my peer group? I decided for the time being to ignore what academic “experts” thought. I did not want a value system that would simply let me fit in chameleon-like with my surroundings. Ultimately, I wanted a personal faith that would stand up to reason, scrutiny and pressure from the various culture warriors in my life. My “deconstruction and reconstruction” — or discernment — process continues to this day.

In 1 Thessalonians 5:21, the Apostle Paul said, “Test all things; hold fast to that which is good.” 

I certainly haven’t figured out all the answers. But I do think one key to finding an appropriate Christian response to our society’s polarization problem is to avoid knee-jerk ideological responses to heated controversies, hear people out on all sides and keep asking those pesky questions.

Questions for readers: How has our society’s polarization impacted you personally? If you’re one of those people who feel exhausted by the fighting, what incidents or events triggered that exhaustion? How do we become part of the solution rather than part of the problem? I’d love to hear your responses to these questions, as well as your comments on this article. Just hit “Leave a Reply” below. When responding, please keep in mind the guidelines I’ve outlined on my Rules of Engagement page (link HERE).

We need to talk

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Note: I first posted this article during the lead-up to the 2020 U.S. presidential election. But with another election season heating up, I’d like to run it again with just a couple of small updates, because it still reflects my feelings about the polarization ripping apart our society. If anything, the situation has gotten worse.

Sometimes I want to stick my fingers in my ears and yell “SHUT UP!” over and over at the top of my lungs until the madness stops.

One cannot turn on the news, sign in to a social media account or even go out in public without getting a daily dose of the name-calling, accusations, counter-accusations, demonizing of opponents and overall nastiness that characterize our society’s Culture Wars:

You know who’s causing all the problems in this country, don’t you? … It’s those racist, misogynistic Rethuglican deplorables who want to impose their narrow version of morality on the rest of us. …  Those whining Dumbocrat crybabies and snowflakes who want safe spaces and free stuff. … Those naïve socialists who would destroy businesses and bankrupt the government with their outrageous demands. … Those greedy capitalists who stuff their pockets while robbing honest hard-working people of their retirement funds. … Those lazy welfare recipients with their infuriating sense of entitlement. … Those wealthy elites who have too much already and want more, more, more. … Those incompetent teachers who staff our lousy public schools. … Those illegal immigrants stealing our jobs. … Those SUV drivers contributing to global warming. … Those environmental wackos who want us to give up eating hamburgers. … Those obese gluttons who gorge on fudge rounds and drive up health care costs. … Those fat-shamers who encourage eating disorders with their unattainable standards of attractiveness. … Those feminazis destroying the family. … Those cisgender, heterosexual white men who refuse to acknowledge their privilege. … Those people who own guns. … Those people who want to take away our guns. … Those fundamentalist Christians, those radical Muslims, those godless atheists, those New-Age navel gazers … Those self-centered Boomers running up the national debt with no regard for how their decisions will affect future generations. … Those teenagers who watch too much TV, play too many video games, listen to music with depraved lyrics, do drugs, drop out of school, get pregnant and join gangs. … Of course, none of this would be happening if it weren’t for those helicopter parents who fail to teach their hopelessly coddled trophy kids personal responsibility!!!

Whew! Have we left anyone out?

Here in the U.S., one could see news commentators practically salivating as they proclaimed the 2016 demolition derby of a presidential campaign to be the ugliest mudfest in history. The venom showed no signs of abating during a 2020 campaign season that began with an impeachment trial and ended with the January 6 horror show. Many people I know say the 2024 election is filling them with dread, because they fear there will be violence no matter who wins.

For too long now, we have come to regard name-calling and character assassination as normal for election campaigns. But the gutter brawling isn’t limited to political candidates. On the cable news networks, guests routinely talk over each other and shout each other down while debating the latest hot-button issues. “Flaming” and “trolling” have become popular sports in the anonymous comments sections that follow some news articles and blog posts. 

We have Climate Wars — those who believe climate change is caused by human behavior versus those who believe the former are perpetrating an elaborate hoax. We have Health Care Wars — those who wish to preserve the private insurance system versus those who want government-funded Medicare for All. We have Class Wars — the 99 percent versus the 1 percent. We have Education Wars — ferocious debates over issues such as what books and subjects are suitable for students, merit pay for teachers and private-school vouchers. We have Mommy Wars — mothers scrutinizing and judging other mothers’ decisions on everything from working outside the home to letting one’s toddler use a pacifier. 

This seething anger has seeped into the public square and manifests itself as an epidemic of rudeness. Many people I encounter in my everyday life seem more cranky and defensive than they used to be, and some seem to be spoiling for a fight. A car with a middle-aged driver sports a bumper sticker that tells us what we can eat if we don’t like the owner’s driving. We have Road Rage (shouting, cursing and flinging obscene gestures at other drivers), Airport Rage (yelling at ticket agents or flight attendants and starting fistfights on flights), Sidewalk Rage (reacting violently because people in front of us are walking too slowly), Parking Lot Rage (engaging in an angry standoff with another driver over a parking space) and Starbucks Rage (working oneself into a ballistic frenzy over the color and design of a coffee cup).

Sadly, those of us who identify as Christians are in no position to judge secular society when it comes to polarization. We often stand justifiably accused of stirring the pot ourselves — and not in a good way. Several denominations have split down the middle over hot-button social issues. Progressive and conservative Christians regularly skewer each other on Web sites such as Patheos. And we have our Worship Wars (which transcend denominational boundaries) — Christians locked in an unyielding struggle over whether a congregation’s music and worship style should be traditional or contemporary. 

As I’ve paid closer attention to the steady drumbeat of vitriol that makes up the background noise of our daily lives, I find myself thinking, “No wonder we’ve become a nation of people with clenched teeth and balled up fists.”

It would be bad enough if the tide of anger and disrespect — both in our churches and our larger society — served only to put people in a surly, antisocial mood. Unfortunately, the damage doesn’t end there. Our finger-pointing epidemic leads to everything from Congressional gridlock to violence against individuals who belong to maligned groups. While we bicker incessantly, our real problems go unaddressed — raging war in various global hotspots creates millions of refugees; thousands of children worldwide die each day of starvation and/or totally preventable diseases; nearly a third of all children in the U.S. live in poverty. 

On a personal level, the constant conflict leaves me wanting to grab a good book and a flashlight and dive under the bed with my cat. Apparently, I’m not alone. Hidden Tribes (link HERE), a report on public opinion by the organization More in Common, says as many as 67 percent of Americans belong to a group the authors have dubbed “the Exhausted Majority.” Although members of this group have many political and ideological differences, they share fatigue with the current state of U.S. politics and a feeling of being forgotten in political debates. The relentless back-and-forth arguments have rendered many folks just plain fed up and wondering if the U.S. can move beyond division, according to the report.

Matthew 5:13-16 urges Christians to be “the salt of the earth” and “the light of the world.” I suspect this precludes my hiding under the bed with my little yellow cat until the world stops fighting. But I suspect it also means I must aim to avoid being part of the problem. Because the vitriol on all sides is so widespread and so relentless and so damaging, we must look for ways to create more light and less heat. As Christians, I believe we should do no less.

Questions for readers: How has our society’s polarization impacted you personally? Your family and friends? Our larger community? Our churches? Which problems do you see going unaddressed while we rip each other apart? What do you think is behind all the divisiveness and how do we turn down the heat? How do Christians avoid becoming part of the problem? 

I’d love to hear your responses to these questions, as well as your comments on the article itself. Just hit “Leave a Reply” below. When responding, please keep in mind the guidelines I’ve outlined on my Rules of Engagement page (link HERE).

Book excerpt: Our children are watching

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Note: This is an excerpt from my book in progress, which examines the polarization ripping apart our society and shares my personal search for an appropriate Christian response. For an overview of the book and to read my other excerpts, click HERE.

It would be bad enough if the tide of anger and disrespect fueled by the Culture Wars served merely to put people in a surly, antisocial mood. Unfortunately, the damage doesn’t stop there. On a societal level, our finger-pointing outrage epidemic leads to everything from loss of trust in our institutions to violence against individuals who belong to maligned groups. On a personal level, people report damaged friendships and stress at family gatherings.

Perhaps worst of all, however, is the fact that our children are watching us. 

Of course, adults have been lamenting youthful attitudes and behavior ever since Socrates complained that the younger generation of his day disrespected their elders and lacked proper manners. Twenty-first century adults gripe that kids feel entitled, want instant gratification, lack a proper work ethic, spend so much time glued to their devices they no longer have basic communication skills, and are generally rude and inconsiderate of others.

The school shootings that occur with numbing regularity in the U.S. have called attention to a problem pervasive in most school districts – student cliques, outcasts and bullying. Children begin forming cliques as early as grade school. High school jocks pick on geeks. Middle school mean girls single out scapegoats for gratuitous abuse because their hair is wrong.

Many of these students aren’t content to simply avoid or exclude certain kids. Insiders often treat outsiders in ways that seem inexplicably cruel. Insults, harassment and scapegoating abound. Almost any perceived difference – race or ethnicity, language, social class, disability, size, wardrobe, personal style – serves as useful fodder for hurtful words and actions. Tragically, some students have been driven to suicide by cyberbullying.

Yet we must remember that children aren’t born with social graces. Getting along with others requires skills that, for most kids, don’t come naturally – the ability to listen, negotiate, compromise, and look at a situation from another’s point of view. Youngsters need to be guided toward healthy behavior, and the best guide is adult example. “Train children in the right way, and when old, they will not stray,” Proverbs 22:6 reminds us.

So what kind of example are we showing them?

Cliques, bad attitudes and hypocrisy, oh my!

A cynic might suggest that cliques and cyberbullying provide excellent practice for life in adult society. Several parallels could be drawn between student cliques and adult culture war “tribes” – social sorting, an Us vs. Them mentality, in-group conformity and out-group stigmatization, and peer pressure to align with the in-group’s norms, beliefs and behaviors in order to gain acceptance and avoid isolation.

We live in echo chambers that ensure we are exposed mostly to people who share our own worldview and are shielded from conflicting ideas or viewpoints. The more we identify with a group, the more we feel pressured to agree with its dogma – a party line that seems to include 650 boxes which must all be checked, lest we risk rejection by our chosen peers.

Kids who take their cues from adults in our highly polarized society might be excused for thinking rudeness is clever. Parents and teachers share concerns about allowing younger children to watch political debates because of the name-calling, insults and other loutish behavior on the part of the candidates. Comedians and talk show hosts derive perverse delight from their crude and uncontrolled behavior toward people perceived as opponents. Cable news programs feature guests who constantly interrupt each other and engage in shouting matches.

Young people looking to adults for examples of how to behave might also get the message that values like kindness and compromise are passé. Elected officials who work across the aisle often risk losing support from their base or face opposition in their party’s next primary election. In our private relationships, people who insist on maintaining friendships across ideological lines may be accused of selling out.

Politically progressive folks who should be old enough to know better accuse us of “tone policing” if we object to their profanity-laced tirades directed toward anyone who disagrees with them. Supposedly mature conservatives tell us we’ve overdosed on “political correctness” if we dare to suggest that consideration for others is still a virtue worth cultivating, especially if we suggest those people should be the recipients.

Kids adept at spotting adult hypocrisy don’t have to look far to find it. Do we think our kids don’t notice the mudslinging we’ve come to regard as routine for political campaigns? Or the car with the middle-aged driver and the bumper sticker that tells us what we can eat if we don’t like the owner’s driving? Or the (alleged) adults who consider flaming a popular sport on social media sites?

A Gallup poll found that a majority of Americans think our lack of manners in everyday life is a somewhat or very serious problem, and that the problem is getting worse. However, when asked whether they had displayed road rage themselves (shouted, cursed or made gestures to other drivers), 61 percent of the same survey respondents admitted doing so.

Sadly, those of us who identify as Christians are in no position to judge secular society when it comes to adults behaving badly. For years now, church folks have been locked in “worship wars” – an unyielding struggle over whether a congregation’s music and worship style should be traditional or contemporary. Progressive and conservative Christians regularly skewer each other on Web sites such as Patheos in diatribes complete with insults, name-calling and expletives NOT deleted.

In short, when one looks at the divisions between various groups in our culture, not to mention the general incivility that seems so pervasive everywhere, is it any wonder that our kids form cliques and behave in inconsiderate ways toward their peers? Should we be surprised if our young people roll their eyes or ignore us when we lecture them about their manners?

In Ezekiel 18:2, we find an ancient Hebrew proverb: “The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.” Seems that some things haven’t changed much in the past 3,000 years or so.

Let’s watch our own manners

The fact that our society has become more relaxed in recent years – and more open-minded about what constitutes proper etiquette – is not a totally bad thing. Who cares whether we wear white after Labor Day? And modern courtesy demands respect for the fact that different cultures may have different rules about how to set a table.

But perhaps we could refrain from spilling beer all over the fans in front of us at sports events, constantly checking our mobile phones or other devices during face-to-face encounters, or interrupting and shouting down speakers at public forums. Common sense would dictate that verbal abuse and harassment, belittling others, and using intimidation tactics to get our own way constitute inappropriate behavior in any culture.

School districts have tried various means to encourage more respectful behavior among students – anti-bullying programs, social skills incorporated into lesson plans, even etiquette classes. Many parents try to do their part by encouraging their children to avoid cliquishness and show empathy for others, as well as letting their kids know they disapprove of hurtful behavior.

But families and schools can only go so far in an era of road rage, political scapegoating and so-called “news” shows that glorify shouting matches. If we really want to encourage younger generations to be polite rather than insolent, and inclusive rather than cliquish, we need to look at what’s going on in our adult communities.

Exodus 34:7 warns us that the sins of the parents shall be visited upon the children unto the third and fourth generations. In other words, children often suffer the consequences of their parents’ sins, especially when young people adopt the sinful behavior for themselves.

While it’s true that children are not born with social graces, it would be interesting to contemplate how much better our kids might behave if everyone over 21 observed a few rules of basic courtesy – the kind that go beyond which fork to use at the dinner table:

• Say “please” and “thank-you.”

• Avoid name-calling, insults and character assassination, even when posting on social media or running for public office.

• Refrain from flashing obscene gestures at other drivers, whether or not your kids are in the back seat.

• Resist dropping F bombs on the heads of people who fail to check all your ideological boxes.

• Keep in mind that political differences are no excuse for rudeness.

Syndicated columnist Judith Martin, a.k.a. Miss Manners, reminds us, “To have a pleasant society, you must control yourself.” Especially if we want our kids to control themselves. When we forget or overlook our manners, so, it seems, does everyone else – including our children.

Questions for readers: Do you feel that rudeness has gotten worse in recent years? How does one “train children in the right way” when we have so many examples of adults behaving badly? I’d love to hear your response to these questions, as well as your comments on this article. Just hit “Leave a Reply” below. When responding, please keep in mind the guidelines I’ve outlined on my Rules of Engagement page (link HERE).

We need lament

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For a while now, my husband and I have been facing a series of personal crises that have left us only half-jokingly pondering whether the Biblical Book of Job was written especially for us. A cancer diagnosis. A heart attack. The deaths of multiple loved ones over a very short period of time. In the middle of all this, a pandemic with restrictions that felt like a prison sentence in solitary confinement. And we’ve been asking ourselves, “How do we get through this ‘midnight of the soul’ with our lives, our relationships, and our faith intact?”

When we sought professional counseling to help us process all this – a wise decision, I now believe – I sent a warning shot across the bow to Robin, our therapist: No toxic positivity, please. I wanted at least one place where I didn’t have to say “fine” when asked how I was doing. After all, anyone who attends 12-Step meetings knows what “fine” really means, right? (Clean version: A Frazzled, Insecure, Neurotic and Emotional mess.) What I needed, I told Robin, was a place where I could say, “I’m scared. I’m overwhelmed. I’m exhausted.” And not be judged.

Far from being a sign of “adjustment disorder” – or any other pathologizing label insurance companies want mental health professionals to paste on people as a condition for covering the cost of therapy sessions – my attitude going into counseling may be entirely healthy, according to both secular and spiritual experts.

What is toxic positivity?

Toxic positivity is the demand that we project a relentlessly upbeat attitude regardless of our actual feelings and circumstances, says Miami-based psychotherapist Whitney Goodman. “Every day we’re bombarded with pressure to be positive,” she explains in her book Toxic Positivity: Keeping it Real in a World Obsessed with Being Happy. “Even faced with illness, loss, breakups, and other challenges, there’s little space for talking about our real feelings – and processing them so that we can feel better and move forward.”

Before I go further, let me emphasize that I’m not suggesting all positivity is wrong. I certainly am grateful for the get-well wishes and prayers, the delicious meals people have sent to our house when we didn’t feel like cooking, the many offers to assist with transportation and other needs, the cat photos and baby goat videos and bad puns posted to our Facebook pages, and the many other things our wonderful family members and friends have done to help us feel supported as we’ve moved through our recent crises. However, it is quite possible to experience “positive” emotions such as gratitude and “negative” emotions such as grief simultaneously. For example, when I’ve lost loved ones, I’ve felt both gratitude for their lives and grief over their loss. At the same time.

According to Goodman, positivity becomes toxic when someone seeks support, validation or compassion during trying times and is met instead with a platitude or a lecture, or is shamed for not being happy or positive enough.

Toxic positivity may be well-intentioned but often ends up feeling dismissive, she says. We may think we’re being supportive by offering platitudes such as “this too shall pass” when a friend is going through a difficult time. But in reality, we may be invalidating their experience by subtly suggesting that their feelings are somehow wrong. At worst, our good-vibes-only culture encourages emotional suppression and shames us for being too negative: You’re not the only one who has problems. Focus on the good things in your life and be grateful. It could be worse. Suck it up, buttercup. Spare us the pity party. Get over it already.

Toxic positivity too often has the effect of gaslighting people who have legitimate feelings or concerns, and may seem to imply that everything bad in their lives is their own fault, Goodman adds. Whether our goal is to help people feel better or to shame them, we tend to use platitudes and lectures as a conversation stopper. Always appearing positive and carefree allows us to deny our reality or the other person’s, rationalize unacceptable situations, or avoid taking responsibility, and can instantly shut down uncomfortable dialogue.

I suspect toxic positivity may be one of the drivers behind the nastiness of our current culture wars. In our day-to-day conversations, how long can we discuss news stories about tragedies such as floods or earthquakes, let alone “political” issues such as racism or gun violence, before someone subtly or not-so-subtly encourages us to change the subject? And while our society allows us few acceptable outlets for the legitimate expression of suffering and anguish, there is one negative emotion that is not only accepted but celebrated: Self-righteous outrage. We are allowed to call people names, hurl insults and assassinate each other’s character, but heaven forbid we break down and cry when we are grieving.

Putting on our ‘church face’

Unfortunately, even our churches – at least in the U.S. – often don’t do much better with strong “negative” emotions, according to Methodist pastor Abby Norman. “In church,” she says in the book Yes You Can Talk to God Like That, “we slap a smile on and wear the mask I have heard called ‘church face.’ As in, ‘I was crying in the parking lot, but I put my church face on and walked into the foyer and told everyone I was fine.’ Somehow, we’ve decided that church is where everyone is supposed to be OK, fine, great! We are afraid our church family can’t handle our sorrows.”

Church people can be nearly as uncomfortable with suffering and anguish as secular folks are, so we may also discourage overt expressions of strong emotions. The result? At church, we often get to hear still more dreadful lectures and platitudes: God is good, all the time! Everything happens for a reason. You mustn’t question God’s will. God won’t give you more than you can handle. If we fail to keep our “church face” properly pasted on at all times, it may be implied that we lack enough faith to trust God appropriately.

Some folks suggest that even our private prayers should reflect a good-vibes-only attitude. Prayers of praise and thanksgiving only, we may be told. If we ask for anything, we must only ask for knowledge of God’s will for us. Heaven forbid that we ask for something selfish, or admit to God that we’re afraid or angry. “Perhaps we’re afraid even God can’t handle the hardest stuff in our lives,” Norman laments.

This, she believes, is pretty unhealthy. “Imagine going to see your doctor, but instead of explaining what is wrong with you, you immediately tell the doctor you are fine or that it isn’t that bad,” she explains. “Why even bother going? Coming to God and to the greater body of Christ as though everything is fine when it is not fine is exactly what we do at church. Then we wonder why church doesn’t feel good or why we can’t heal.”

An antidote from the Bible

Fortunately, the Bible offers a healthy antidote to toxic positivity: Lament.

According to Norman, lament takes up a surprising amount of space in Scripture. “People giving God the what-for, while not taught in Sunday School, is actually almost a third of the Bible,” she points out. “When categorizing the Psalms, experts say that 40 percent of them are psalms of lament.”

Indeed, the Book of Psalms brims with prayers about pain, anguish, fear and grief. Take passages like Psalm 6:6:

I am weary with my moaning;
    every night I flood my bed with tears;
    I drench my couch with my weeping.

David certainly spews out some honest feelings in Psalm 22:14-15:

I am poured out like water,
    and all my bones are out of joint.
My heart has turned to wax;
    it has melted within me.
My mouth is dried up like a potsherd,
    and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth;
    you lay me in the dust of death.

In fact, Psalm 22 continues in this vein for 21 verses before turning to expressions of faith that God will deliver him from harm.

Additional examples of Biblical lament abound:

  • The Bible offers us the entire Book of Lamentations, which is chock full of passages like 3:17-18: “My soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten what happiness is; … my endurance has perished; so has my hope from the LORD.” (Maybe it should come as no surprise in our good-vibes-only circles that Lamentations seems to be one of the most neglected books of the Bible.)
  • The Hebrew custom of wailing and rending one’s garments to express deep anguish upon the death of a loved one or a great calamity appears several times in the Bible. Reuben rent his clothes when he found that Joseph had been taken from the pit (Genesis 37:29).  David rent his garments when he heard that Absalom had slain his brothers (2 Samuel 13:31).  
  • When Job fell on excruciatingly hard times, he didn’t lose his faith, but he did confront God, demanding to know why these things were happening to him. He even wanted to put God on trial. Meanwhile, his friends responded the way too many of us do. At first, they were empathetic, but then began offering useless advice and even asking what Job had done to deserve his misfortune.
  • Chapter 3 of Ecclesiastes reminds us that for everything, there is a season. A time to weep and a time to mourn are sanctified, right along with a time to laugh and a time to dance.
  • Jesus wept. More than once. As he faced crucifixion, he pleaded with God, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me.” And while he hung on the cross, he asked, “My God, why have you forsaken me?”

In other words, Job and David and even Jesus were willing to talk to God in ways many of us can’t quite manage, and none of them were struck by lightning as a result.

Lament can be healthy

“Lament allows us to fully face and name our pain,” says longtime Bible Project Blog contributor Whitney Woollard. “It creates space for future resolution and hope without glossing over our trauma.”

In a post titled “Lamentations: The Volatile Voice of Grief” (link HERE), Woollard explains that lament “gives us permission to protest life’s difficulties, to scream, cry, vent, plead, and complain in the presence of God and others. It lets us ask the hard questions without condemnation: Why did this have to happen? How could you allow it? Where are you in the midst of it? It allows weeping without explanation. It might be messy and uncomfortable.”

By the way, God is quite capable of handling our negative feelings, including our anger, according to Jesuit priest Jim McDermott. “Most of us were taught being angry at God was taboo, at least a sin and at worst ‘duck your head because the lightning is coming’ dangerous,” he says in a recent blog post (link HERE). “But we have known hard times, some of us very hard times, or we have witnessed people we love ravaged by disease or addiction in ways that just seem cruel or malicious. It’s only natural in those moments to turn to God, who we hear over and over at church is here for us, loves us, walks with us, and ask, ‘Well? How about it? Where are you now that we actually need you?’”

Woollard believes we could benefit from including elements of lament in both our individual and congregational lives.

“Incorporating prayers of lament into a Christian worship service or small gathering is a way to give voice to hurting believers,” says Woollard. “It says, ‘We see you and we grieve alongside you.’ In a global village where disasters, wars, shootings, and famines are brought before our eyes daily, it’s natural that we should weep with one another by sharing in the God-given language of lament and crying out ‘How? Why?’ alongside them. Lament then, is a powerful practice that gives voice to our grief and initiates the healing process.”

On an individual level, “if you feel alone, forsaken, or abandoned by God, give honest expression to those feelings,” Woollard suggests. “If you’re exhausted by life’s blows, having lost all endurance or the will to go on, tell it to God. Really. The Bible wants you to do this.”

If we can trust God to handle our anger and our sadness, we can avoid using these emotions to damage other people or ourselves by bringing them into our prayers, says Kaya Oakes, a contributing writer for America magazine (link HERE). “Yes, you’re angry,” she points out. “Yes, you’re sad. God is present to us in those states of emotional turmoil, too. But God isn’t asking us to move on or let go; like a trusted friend or a good therapist, God simply receives our sorrow and desolation, and gives it a place to go.”

We need not edit our prayers

In other words, we need not edit ourselves when praying, but can be as brutally honest as we need to be when life gets painful. “As in any meaningful relationship, sometimes taking the risk of saying what you actually think and feel is itself the path out of the desert,” says McDermott. “What is shared is no longer carried alone; in fact, it’s often released.”

Woollard concurs. “If you’re not used to this kind of raw honesty in God’s presence, it might seem scary at first. That’s okay. Just know that lament isn’t irreverent; it’s biblical. Going to God in your grief is an act of faith all on its own.”

This all sounds very reassuring to me because I must confess that, during a crisis, most of my prayers tend to be of the foxhole variety:

Dear God, please get us out of this jam. Help!

One time, while I drove to the emergency room in the wee hours of the morning – for the fourth time in two weeks – I just plain screamed:

DEAR GOD, MAKE IT STOP!!!!!!!!!

My prayers have also sounded a lot like lament on numerous occasions:

Dear God, I’m tired of cancer. I’m tired of heart problems. I’m tired of arthritis pain everywhere that’s so bad I can’t sleep. I’m tired of test results with nasty surprises. I’m tired of fighting with insurance companies every single time a doctor changes one of our medications. I’m tired of doctors who don’t want to communicate and collaborate because of turf issues. I’m tired. I’m tired. I’m tired.

So, here’s another heartfelt prayer.

Dear God: To be perfectly honest, I’m scared. I’m overwhelmed. I’m exhausted. Thank-you for listening. Amen.

Book excerpt: Yes, I have questions

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Note: This is an excerpt from my book in progress, which examines the polarization ripping apart our society and shares my personal search for an appropriate Christian response. For an overview of the book and to read my other excerpts, click HERE.

My continuing work with my spiritual director has involved asking questions – lots of them. What do I actually believe about God? What is my position on each of the hot-button issues that consume our nation’s culture warriors? What is my role as a Christian in mitigating society’s problems and fighting its political battles? What is God’s plan for my own life? How do I live in a way that is consistent with my beliefs, values and purpose?

And I’ve discovered there’s a rather trendy word for what I’ve been doing with my faith during my spiritual direction journey of the past few years: “Deconstruction.” Wikipedia defines faith deconstruction as “a phenomenon where people unpack, rethink and examine their belief systems.”

I’ve also learned that deconstruction is nothing, if not controversial. Some folks argue that the process is mostly an excuse to stop going to church. However, while deconstruction may involve walking away from Christianity and becoming an atheist, this is certainly not true for everyone.

For some, it might involve leaving a congregation that has become dysfunctional or even corrupt and finding a healthier church home. For others, it may warn us that we – or our church – are in danger of being co-opted by the secular culture wars. For still others, it can help in sifting through competing truth claims promoted by Christians of differing denominations. Individuals may also use the deconstruction process for everything from addressing doubts and clarifying values to rejecting inaccurate teachings and holding ourselves accountable.

Can deconstruction strengthen our faith?

The Wikipedia article on faith deconstruction acknowledges that the process may lead to dropping one’s faith altogether, but added that it may also result in a stronger faith. Following are what I’ve come to see as potentially positive outcomes for the deconstruction process, based on my own experience and the experience of others who have shared their stories.

Detecting undue political influence. From the beginning, I have been questioning all kinds of dogma, from the religious to the political and ideological, and have been challenging beliefs and values other people – whether progressive or conservative – want me to hold. Where do I honestly, personally, stand on issues ranging from abortion and racism to immigration and the environment? On what authority do I base these positions? Deconstruction can help us discern whether our positions on moral issues (or those of our church congregations) might be overly influenced by secular right-wing or left-wing politics. One clue might be when God starts sounding too much like a conservative Republican or a progressive Democrat. Could we be guilty of creating God in our own image? Shouldn’t we be following the Lamb rather than an elephant or a donkey? What should that look like?

Spotting red flags. If we pay attention to the news at all, we’re aware of the financial corruption and sex abuse scandals that have rocked whole denominations in recent years. In other cases, an individual congregation can have a toxic organizational culture. A number of years ago, my husband and I walked away from a congregation marked by constant bullying, backbiting, infighting and power struggles between rival cliques. If a congregation is dysfunctional in a way that is truly damaging to its members, the discernment encouraged by the deconstruction process can reveal red flags and prompt us to ask the right kinds of questions when seeking a new church home. What characteristics should we look for when evaluating a church? What characteristics should serve as deal-breakers? Note: The church my husband and I belong to now is much healthier than the one we left. Thank God.

Sifting through competing truth claims. One reason we have so many Christian denominations is that Christians have so many different interpretations of “the truth.” The various sects and denominations offer contrasting teachings on nearly everything, it seems. How does one conduct baptism – by sprinkling or immersion? Should communion be open or closed? How does one get “saved” – by baptism or personal decision? What is our authority for what we believe? The Bible? Church tradition? Clergy? Where does science fit in? And don’t even get me going on how progressive Christians would define sin versus how conservative Christians would define it. When Christians can’t agree on the “right” answers, deconstruction can be a valuable tool for sorting out which beliefs and interpretations we adopt for ourselves. Is there a common core of beliefs shared by most Christians, regardless of sect or denomination? Is there a way to heal the divisions between believers and relate respectfully to people whose viewpoints differ from ours?

Rejecting clearly inaccurate teachings. My need to question “received wisdom” began early – at age 8, I listened in shock as a mainline Protestant minister “explained” to the congregation that “God does not intend for black people to be equal to white people.” In college, I listened with equal dismay as members of an evangelical student organization eagerly discussed a best-selling book speculating that the Pope might be the anti-Christ and the Catholic Church the Great Harlot mentioned in the Book of Revelation. During my recovery journey, my 12-Step peers encouraged me to fire the perpetually angry bully God of my childhood nightmares and get in touch with the real one. (One might say 12-Steppers were “deconstructing” before deconstruction was cool.) Over the years I’ve also rejected white Christian nationalism, the so-called “prosperity gospel,” the concept of double predestination, and the notion that God really cares whether we sing traditional hymns or contemporary music at our church services.

Personal discernment. For me, the deconstruction process has been helpful for continued, lifelong personal growth. In fact, it has turned into more of an ongoing journey than a “once and done” activity. Now that I’ve retired, what is God’s plan for the rest of my life? How can I improve my conscious contact with God through prayer and meditation? How do I relate the 10 Commandments and other Biblical teachings to the 21st Century issues in my life? What role should I be playing in our church and in our community? How can my husband and I invest our money in an ethically responsible way? Pete and I have also faced a series of personal crises in recent years – the loss of several loved ones, scary health problems, fatigue from the endless pandemic – that leave us only half-jokingly pondering whether the Book of Job was written especially for us. How do we get through this “midnight of the soul” with our faith intact or maybe even strengthened?

Holding ourselves accountable. My deconstruction process has even involved questioning my own attitudes and behavior. I must admit I occasionally notice cognitive dissonance between my stated values and my actions. For example, I decry crass consumerism, yet can’t seem to stop accumulating STUFF. I’ve also come to realize – to my occasional dismay – how much my own values have been shaped by secular culture-war ideologies rather than by actual spiritual beliefs. I feel constantly pressured, even by other Christians, to adopt positions I don’t fully agree with on a variety of issues so I can be ideologically correct and fit in with the people around me – or at least avoid being the target of shouting and name-calling. So, how have I come by my own worldview? Who or what, inside or outside of church, is influencing my beliefs? How reliable are these “influencers”?

The importance of asking questions

While the word deconstruction may be trendy, the process of unpacking, examining and rethinking belief systems is hardly new. One can make the case that “deconstructors” have populated both the Bible and church history for millennia. When prophets and apostles exhorted us to beware of false doctrines, were they not promoting a form of deconstruction? Before Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses that set off the Protestant Reformation, one might say he engaged in some major deconstructing, as did Catholics when they embarked on their own Reformation a short while later. When Jesus repeatedly challenged the religious leaders of his day and asserted “you’ve heard it said … but I say,” I’d propose that he offered us a perfect example of the deconstruction process.

Some would suggest getting around the deconstruction controversy by using a different word – reformation or accountability or discernment. But regardless of which word we use, it all boils down to asking questions – of ourselves, our culture, our leaders, and even our church.

I’ve noticed that some folks get nervous when we ask these kinds of questions. If I’ve heard this admonition once, I’ve heard it a gazillion times: “You mustn’t question God’s will.” Usually this happens when we challenge some aspect of denominational dogma or someone’s interpretation of a Biblical passage. Sometimes our fellow Christians on the political left will imply that we’re complicit in all manner of injustice if we dare to question their ideological dogma, while those on the political right will imply that we want everyone to wink at sin. When people “caution” us not to question God’s will, I suspect what some of them really mean is, “Don’t question my interpretation of God’s will.”

I must admit, I become innately suspicious when any person (or church denomination) does not want us to ask questions. In fact, I’ve learned that discouraging questions should be viewed as a red flag. At best, a group or leader who silences questions may have a personal or political agenda that has little to do with anything Jesus taught. At worst, a group whose leaders or truth claims can’t be scrutinized or challenged may be a dangerous cult, and its leader a charismatic demagogue. Whether or not we question God’s will, we can certainly question another human being’s interpretation of it. Sometimes this is exactly what we need to do.

Worth the effort – and the risk

During my spiritual direction journey, I’ve been using my meditation sessions to journal about my beliefs and values and the impact they should be having on my daily life. I want to use my pesky questions to develop a belief/value system that both my rational mind and my conscience can accept, rather than simply parroting a set of values and beliefs that will let me fit in chameleon-like with my peers.

From the beginning of my current deconstruction – or discernment – process, I was aware that the mere act of asking questions carried risks. Would I stop believing in God altogether if I expressed too many doubts out loud, even to myself? Would I decide that yet another church was no longer appropriate for me? Would I lose friends or allies if I stopped agreeing with them on certain issues? Yes, it was possible these things could happen. But it was equally possible that answering questions to my own satisfaction could strengthen my faith, encourage me to appreciate my present church congregation even more, and allow me to discern who my real friends were. That’s largely what has happened – so far, at least.

I strongly believe we are intended to use the mind God gave us to develop our critical thinking skills. Matthew 22:37 says, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” Our mind, it says. Our mind.

Ultimately, I want a personal faith that will stand up to reason and scrutiny. What that means is, I will probably be questioning God, myself and others until I draw my last breath. For now, I’ve decided that’s not only okay, but healthy. As I continue my spiritual journey, I want to keep being honest about the questions I have.

Questions for readers: Have you engaged in “deconstruction”? If so, where has this experience taken you? I’d love to hear your response to these questions, as well as your comments on this article. Just hit “Leave a Reply” below. When responding, please keep in mind the guidelines I’ve outlined on my Rules of Engagement page (link HERE).

Book excerpt: Confessions of a spiritual mutt

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Note: This is an excerpt from my book in progress, which examines the polarization ripping apart our society and shares my personal search for an appropriate Christian response. For an overview of the book and to read my previous excerpts, link HERE.

My church’s adult faith formation class has been discussing Christianity’s Family Tree, a fascinating exploration of how several denominations came into being and what their members believe. One thing I like about the book is that author Adam Hamilton refrains from criticizing the denominations he writes about. Instead, he compares members of various faith traditions to relatives we might meet at a family reunion, and invites us to enrich our own faith by learning what we can from our “cousins” in Christ who belong to the other traditions.

Studying the book has also helped crystallize for me why I’m increasingly at peace with the convoluted nature of my own spiritual journey. Hamilton’s personal faith experience somewhat resembles mine in its twists and turns – he started life as a Roman Catholic, joined a Pentecostal church as a teenager, then ended up a member of a United Methodist Church, where he is now a minister. I’ve done some hopping around myself and, like him, I’ve come to see my rather zig-zaggy spiritual path in a positive light.

My journey through the spiritual/religious kaleidoscope began early. The church my family attended on a given weekend often depended on where we had Sunday dinner. One week we might attend the mainline Protestant church we and several members of Dad’s family belonged to, while the next Sunday might find us at the more conservative church Mom’s side of the family attended.

Being of different denominations, the two churches presented contrasting teachings on everything from baptism (sprinkling or immersion?) to communion (wine or grape juice?) to how one gets “saved” (baptism or personal decision?). But Dad regularly assured us, “In the end, we all worship the same God.” And the extended-family feasts that followed church and Sunday School are among my favorite childhood memories.

In college, I joined Campus Crusade for Christ (now known as Cru), a nondenominational student organization whose main attraction for me was that these classmates didn’t pressure me to participate in the drug scene or the sexual revolution. (In the early 1970s, both proliferated on campus.) Some of the classmates invited me to attend services with them at a local evangelical free church, where congregation members encouraged us to join them for Sunday dinner – a great outreach effort for homesick students, I must say.

After college, I followed the trajectory of a growing number of today’s young adults and became a “None.” I didn’t stop believing in God altogether, but I was preoccupied with chasing professional brass rings and worshipping at the altar of career success. I referred to the endless round of political fund-raisers, Chamber of Commerce cocktail parties and Happy Hour gatherings with colleagues as “networking” and convinced myself these alcohol-soaked events were essential to my job … until I wound up in detox.

When I embarked on my recovery journey in the early 1990s, I immersed myself in the 12-Step movement, which labeled itself “spiritual but not religious.” The people I met “around the tables” came from a wide variety of spiritual/religious backgrounds with wildly diverse understandings about God. Folks at the meetings advised me, “Take what you need and leave the rest.”

Meanwhile, my husband and I joined a church that shall remain mercifully nameless. Members seemed obsessed with pointing out how smart they were in comparison to most Christians. The toxic organizational culture – marked by constant bullying, backbiting, infighting and power struggles between rival cliques – ultimately drove us out of the congregation. After that, I took another hiatus from church, though I continued to attend 12-Step meetings.

In my late 40s – after a huge medical scare during which I prayed fervently and made promises to a God I hoped would still listen to me – I started going to a mainline Protestant church with my husband and mother-in-law and periodically sneaked into a couple of Evangelical/Pentecostal churches my parents, other family members and friends now attended.

Shortly after I started going to church again, I began working for a faith-based prison re-entry program that encouraged congregations to “adopt” incarcerated mothers reintegrating into the community. Part of my job description involved recruiting and training a team of volunteers from each congregation to work intensively with their “adopted” mother and her children. The recruitment process required me to attend services at a dazzling array of churches – from Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Methodist and Presbyterian to Baptist, Evangelical and Pentecostal. Every month or two would find me attending a different congregation’s church service.

In addition to sampling the denominational smorgasbord as part of my new job, I read the entire Bible from front to back for the first time in my life and discovered passages that prompted me to observe, “So that’s where the Pentecostals get their belief about speaking in tongues … where the Catholics get their belief about purgatory … where the Evangelicals get their belief about the Rapture.” And I found myself agreeing with Dad’s long-ago observation: “In the end, we all worship the same God.”

I now belong to the mainline Protestant church I began attending nearly 20 years ago with my husband and mother-in-law. I like that the people at my current church do their best to practice what they say they believe. I like their involvement in serving the larger community. I like that I’ve been able to ask questions in our adult faith formation class that probably would have gotten me burned at the stake in a previous era, and I haven’t been excommunicated or struck by lightning. At least not yet. So even though I’m still questioning a lot of things, my current church is where I’ve settled and plan to stay.

But I haven’t stopped exploring ideas or getting spiritual support from a variety of sources.

Over the years, I’ve continued to attend Evangelical and Pentecostal services when visiting family and friends. Members of my parents’ congregation never failed to make me feel welcome when I went to church with them and I absolutely appreciate how supportive they were of my parents during their final years when I lived too far away to be as involved in their day-to-day care as I would have liked.

More recently, my husband and I have been receiving spiritual direction from a pair of Dominican teaching Sisters and this year we joined their “associates” program. Spiritual direction is a partnership in which one Christian helps another grow in a personal relationship with God, and serves as a supplement to – rather than a substitute for – church. During monthly sessions, I have been examining my relationship with God, prayer, my personal values, and various lifestyle choices. As associates my husband and I assist, among other things, with the Sisters’ social justice activities such as their anti-racism and environmental efforts.

I’m an insatiably voracious reader as well. I subscribe to both Christian Century (mainline Protestant) and Christianity Today (Evangelical), as well as America Magazine (Catholic). I devour books by authors from a variety of faith traditions – some of the more interesting titles I’ve been reading lately include Falling Upward by Franciscan priest Richard Rohr, Do I Stay Christian? by Emerging Church leader Brian McLaren, Thou Shalt Not Be a Jerk by Evangelical pastor Eugene Cho, Creation as Sacrament by Greek Orthodox theologian John Chryssavgis and Holy Envy: Finding God in the Faith of Others by Episcopal priest Barbara Brown Taylor.

During a recent session of my congregation’s adult faith formation class, I shared some details about my rather eclectic spiritual background. “I guess you could call me a spiritual mutt,” I joked. One of the other participants responded, “I’m not sure that’s such a bad thing,” and I would be inclined to agree.

Some might consider my spiritual journey – with its hopelessly squiggly lines – confusing. (At best!) But I’ve come to believe that experiencing a variety of traditions has had benefits. I certainly don’t claim to have a corner on the truth about religious/spiritual matters. I refuse to demonize people whose beliefs differ from mine. I’m less likely to get drawn into squabbles with other Christians over the long list of issues Martin Luther would label “adiaphora.” And I get thoroughly impatient when either conservative or progressive culture warriors imply that people who belong to a denomination other than their own “aren’t real Christians.”

Instead, like Hamilton, I prefer to learn from my “relatives” in Christ and to look for areas of agreement. What I really care about these days is how well a church encourages its members to fulfill these commandments:

  • Love God with all your heart, all your soul and all your mind.
  • Love your neighbor as yourself.

“When we view the body of Christ as a tree, there are several things we begin to realize,” says Hamilton, in Christianity’s Family Tree. “We are reminded that all the branches share the same roots and trunk. Our roots are Judaism. Our trunk is Jesus Christ. Permeating the entire tree is the Holy Spirit, which feeds the leaves and allows the tree to grow.”

Hamilton reminds us that in the beginning, Christianity did not have denominations. There were no Lutheran, Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Baptist, Methodist or Pentecostal churches. Christians were known as “followers of The Way” or simply followers of Jesus Christ.

And I still trust my father’s advice: “Remember, in the end, we all worship the same God.”

Question for readers: What has your spiritual journey been like, and has it changed over the years? I’d love to hear your response to this question, as well as your comments on the article. Just hit “Leave a Reply” below. When responding, please keep in mind the guidelines I’ve outlined on my Rules of Engagement page (link HERE).

Book excerpt: Memes worth sharing

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Note: This is an excerpt from We Need to Talk, my book in progress, which examines the polarization ripping apart our society and shares my personal search for an appropriate Christian response. For an overview of the book and to read my previous excerpts, link HERE.

As I search for an appropriate Christian response to the polarization ripping apart our society, one question in particular confronts me: What can I do personally to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem?

I’ve decided one small step I can take is to examine my relationship with social media. As I’ve done so, I’ve come to an inescapable conclusion: I need to pay more conscious attention to what I post, share and “like” on sites such as Facebook. 

My research suggests that several culprits contribute to social media’s role in dividing us. Algorithms that create “echo chamber” bubbles of one-sided information and opinions. Viral spread of false or misleading information in “fake news” stories with click-bait headlines. Political “discussions” that amount to little more than judgmental blaming and shaming, name-calling, insults, character assassination and demonization of opponents.

But one of the biggest culprits? Endless memes promoting hateful and inflammatory messages.

On any given day when I go on Facebook, I can count on seeing at least a dozen memes from progressives and conservatives hurling insults and accusations at each other. The typical fare has become as predictable as rain in April.

Republicans are people too: Mean, selfish, greedy people.

It was so cold this morning I actually saw a Democrat with his hands in his own pockets.

Folks on both sides of the divide seem to relish in-your-face rudeness.

Excu-u-u-use me if my posts offend you, but the future of my country is more important than your precious feelings.

Misanthropes of all stripes show off their generalized contempt for anyone anywhere who disagrees with them about anything.

I lose track of how many times per day I want to say, “You can’t seriously be that stupid.”

The worst part? I have to admit I’ve been part of the problem from time to time. 

Until recently, I often found myself getting sucked into social media fights – even with people I ordinarily liked – over politics and contentious “hot-button” ideological issues.

Whenever a Facebook skirmish erupted – whether the trigger was a Supreme Court decision, debates about a political candidate’s suitability for office, or a crisis playing out in the news – my first instinct was to try and stay out of the fray. 

Alas, I tend to have strong opinions about a lot of issues (imagine that!) and sooner or later, someone would post a meme I couldn’t seem to resist sharing against my better judgment. Okay, I knew it was snarky. Maybe a bit judgmental or even mean. But it was SO clever.

Then, of course, someone on “the other side” would beg to differ with my assessment of the meme’s cleverness, and before I knew it, I was bogged down in another argument.

Finally, I made a decision: I would no longer post memes that “called out” or in any way disparaged other individuals or groups of people – even public figures considered to be fair game. I’ve been pretty disciplined about sticking with that resolution for the past couple of years.

I’ve also started to ask myself this question: What am I encouraging others to post by hitting the “like” button? Am I inadvertently enabling and rewarding name-calling, character assassination or polarizing comments? With that in mind, I no longer react to others’ memes that do any of these things.

On the other hand, I’m not totally against memes in and of themselves. Some make me laugh out loud, and we can all use a bit of humor after a stressful day – especially if we can have a good laugh without it being at someone else’s expense.

Here’s one of my all-time favorites.

So, in addition to avoiding negativity, I’ve decided to take a proactive approach to the meme-war issue. I’ve begun collecting positive memes and posting them on my own Facebook page’s newsfeed when the feuding gets especially fierce or obnoxious.

If I feel I must respond to a political meme (for example, one that I believe promotes dangerous misinformation), I make a conscientious effort not to insult the person who posted it.

For example, I love this meme. Unlike those that try to shame people who resist COVID safety measures, it uses humor to get the point across about the importance of masking without calling anyone names or assaulting their character.

When the meme wars on Facebook get particularly heated or nasty, I occasionally like to drop this favorite into my news feed, with some words of wisdom “attributed” to our 16th president.

However, I’ve come to believe that part of the problem fueling our culture wars is our modern emphasis on brevity.

It is hard to give a complex issue the depth it deserves when our communication is limited to 15-second sound bites, 280-character tweets, bumper stickers and t-shirt slogans. Or memes. And most hot-button issues are complex or they wouldn’t be “hot button.”

With that in mind, I usually prefer to post memes that have nothing whatsoever to do with political/ideological hot-button issues.

Cute animals are one of my favorite go-to subjects when I’m looking for something innocuously funny to share. I mean, who can resist this adorable kitten?

I can also change the subject to the weather. When I post this meme, Facebook friends like to dicker with me over whether the caption should read “Weather in Kansas” or “Weather in Colorado” rather than “Weather in Illinois.” But at least it’s a friendly argument.

I’ve found that Bible-verse memes can be a bit tricky – such a meme in direct response to someone else’s post can come across as hitting people with a “clobber verse.” (And we certainly wouldn’t want to do that, would we??)

But an occasional meme posted to my personal newsfeed – on its own rather than in response to anyone else’s post – can be a subtle, unobtrusive way to share Biblical wisdom in a society that needs to hear it.

Or I can demonstrate love of neighbor by posting a cheery feel-good message.

Religious memes can also be seriously funny. (Who says Christians don’t have a sense of humor?)

If I want to avoid Facebook nastiness, I’ve found I can’t go wrong with a bad pun – especially with some of my friends and relatives of all political stripes (they know who they are).

For a twofer, how about a bad pun that doubles as religious humor – with a cute animal tossed in for good measure?

I’ve found memes that help us laugh at our own foibles are great for sharing – like this one that gently ribs my urge to correct other peoples’ grammar.

Or my “old-timer” frustration with technology.

Finally, there’s always this piece of sage advice, which I may preface with the words “Note to Self.”

Just to clarify: When I say I no longer plan to “like” or share memes that keep the culture wars going, this doesn’t mean I plan to retreat from the political arena altogether.

I don’t plan to stop discussing hot-button issues in appropriate settings such as personal conversations, Bible study sessions or religious education classes. And I certainly don’t plan to look the other way in the face of injustice or forsake my favorite causes.

However, I do plan to stop enabling the trolling, the name-calling, the insults, the character assassination, the demonizing and scapegoating, and the gratuitous rudeness that have become a mind-numbingly routine part of our social media interactions. 

Fear-mongering, blame-gaming, and self-righteous outrage may be the norm on social media these days, but I have a choice whether to participate. Increasingly, I’m choosing not to.

The good news: If I want to share something on Facebook, I’m finding there are all kinds of memes that can make us laugh – or brighten our day or provide a bit of inspiration – without ridiculing or insulting or otherwise bashing anyone.

More good news: I now waste a lot less time arguing about politics with total strangers on Facebook.

Question for readers: What are some positive steps you’ve taken to avoid being part of the culture wars problem? I’d love to hear your response to this question, as well as your comments on the article. Just hit “Leave a Reply” below. When responding, please keep in mind the guidelines I’ve outlined on my Rules of Engagement page (link HERE).