Extreme Politics

We seem to live in an age of extremism. Extreme sports, extreme cooking, extreme home makeover, and so on. I have a family member that goes for extreme sports: hang-gliding, bungee jumping, parasailing, and more. He loves the adrenaline rush. Me, I see it as highly risky. I see that in the recent debt deal as well; it has become a game of extreme politics. Throughout the debate, polls reflected the disappointment and distaste of the American people for the partisan extremism that kept the process in the throes of debate for such an extended time. These polls and the disappointment of the people were ignored to enhance the ideological stands of party politics. Extremists in both parties, refusing to give, have moved our nation to the brink of disaster. This whole process and the ensuing compromise, that no one seems to be happy with, have left me to pose again the question, where has the middle gone - what has happened to the moderate voice in our politics?

Before the last election cycle, then chair of the RNC, Michael Steele commented on one of the morning talk shows that he believed the GOP needed to get back to its conservative roots. Meanwhile liberals in the DNC continue to suggest that the President must be careful to keep his base happy. I am not an expert in politics, but I believe they have both missed the point. President Obama, by all accounts, won the election because of independent voters (who are most typically moderates) because he promised change. The Republicans flourished in this last election because the independents supported them. Both parties have seen this as an ideological victory, but I believe the recent polls and the feelings of disdain generated by the debt debate suggest that both parties won those election cycles because the people were disgusted with the politics as usual incumbents. The voters that are moving the politics of our day are moderates - and unfortunately we are the least represented.

Allow me to offer a modest means to help achieve the goal of reduced deficit - let us cut the highway department. We no longer need to do maintenance on all of the nation's roads because no one uses the blacktop anymore, they are all on the shoulders. Extremism and the selfish insistence that our ideology is correct, therfore yours must be wrong, these are not only dividing us as a people - they are handicapping us as a nation and have become the stone that has created ripples across the pond of global economics as well.

Extremism is opposed to everything Jesus stood for. I listen to representative after representative talk about their faith. I listen to people proclaiming their certainty that we are a Christian nation. Yet, extremism seems to flourish in our culture. It is endimic on the highways, it is obvious in the malls and superstores, and it is apparent in our rude and absolute disregard for one another. In John 14:6, Jesus proclaims, "I am the way, the truth, and the life." But do we understand that the three are connected? Eugene Peterson writes, "We cannot proclaim the Jesus truth but then do it any old way we like. Nor can we follow the Jesus way without speaking the Jesus truth. But Jesus as the truth gets far more attention than Jesus as the way. We cannot skip the way of Jesus in our hurry to get the truth of Jesus...the way of Jesus is the way that we practice and come to understand the truth of Jesus, living Jesus in our homes and workplaces, with our family and friends" (The Jesus Way, p. 4)

Too often today we want to proclaim the truth of Jesus as an exclusive commodity. Too often we add the word "only" to John 4:16, and continue our practice of extremism. But to share the Jesus truth, we must be willing to use the Jesus way (love) and live the Jesus life (community). And the enemy of love and community is the very types of extremism we see in our culture and reflected in our political processes.

Now I am not suggesting that all of our elected officials have to be Christian. What I am suggesting is that those of us who are Christians must influence our leadership, not with divisive words and ideologies but through love. Jesus began his ministry by proclaiming that the Kingdom of God was at hand (Mark 1:15). He instituted in his person and in his ministry this new kingdom; it was radical in nature and communal in arrangement. And the bond that held the community together was love. And what does that kind of love look like? See Paul's first letter to the Corinthians in the 13th chapter. How would politics look if we lived this kind of love? Now I know - some of you are suggesting that sometimes we are right and the other person is wrong and we have to stand up for what's right. Really? To paraphrase Paul in 1 Cor. 13, I may have all knowledge, I might be right, I might have the necessary wisdom and understanding of the universe - but if I do not have love, I am simply making noise. Love, Paul says, doesn't demand its rights and it doesn't demand its own way. It seems to me that this sounds a lot like compromise - seeking to know and understand what the other person needs so we can do what's best for the entire community and not just for part of them.

As I listen to our political discourse and as I live and work in our small community, I am struck more and more by how we continue as a people to choose up sides and demand that others align themselves with us. We want to know how to fix Washington, we say. We don't want politics as usual, we say. We want change, a balanced budget, prosperity, jobs, we say. I suggest that Washington is reflecting the extremist nature of our culture - this incessant demand that we must be right. I suggest that if we truly want to embody the notion of being a Christian nation, we must live out the the life of Jesus - the Kingdom of God, a community - and we must live out the way of Jesus - a way of love that seeks what is best for the other. The extreme politics we have just witnessed is a reflection of a nation that lives on the extremes - competing for everything and winning at all costs. But how do we as a nation win, when 1/3 to 1/2 of the population loses? Jesus calls us to community - a community that shares with one another - a community that loves one another. A community shaped by these things is a community that is not separated onto the left and right shoulders of the road, but is driving down the center of the highway, together.

(The thoughts and views reflected in this blog are the writer's own and do not reflect either those of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) or of First Christian Church, Neosho.)