Saturday’s RSS feed brings a reminder of why I re-subscribed to the Slacktivist.
I know it’s self-referential if not self-congratulatory of him to cite himself, but he does it. It’s not unlike my own succinct standing advice on recurrent themes (which I just revised again, by the way), only his way takes more work.
Anyway, Saturday, the Slacktivist linked to a two-year-old blog, Confused Rhode Island Christianists sing secular song to defend Pagan symbol:
I have long argued that perpetual offendedness leads to stupidity.
This stupidity is not innate. It is willful, voluntary and chosen. But it’s also extreme. Those who have become addicted to indignation wind up divorced from reality, interacting with it only sporadically when in search of some new pretext onto which they can project the pre-existing umbrage that has become their character, their identity and their reason for being …
This was illustrated yet again yesterday, when a small cadre from the IndigNation interrupted a children’s choir to sing “O Christmas Tree.”
Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee had upset these Christianists –
Wait, no, that’s not accurate. They were already upset. These people are always upset. “Upset” has been what they do for so long that now it’s just who they are …
… Chafee’s “holiday tree” gave these Christianists an excuse to pretend they’re being persecuted and nothing delights them more than a chance to pretend they’re being persecuted.
…
The Bible may not say anything about Christmas trees, but then it doesn’t say anything about guns either. Or the American flag. But whenever anyone says anything that might be remotely construed as questioning the sacredness of those, such comments will be made into the focus for the next performance of IndigNation theater and the pre-existing offendedness of the tribal Christianists will be projected in that direction for a while.
Which brings us to the other inevitable consequence of perpetual offendedness: It leads to unhappiness.
That unhappiness is willful, voluntary and chosen. And it’s also extreme.
I wouldn’t be blogging on the topics I blog on if I were a Pollyanna. I think things are going desperately wrong. But I don’t think that calls for “desperate measures,” or immediate imposition of a different ideology across the board, because desperate, sudden and radical ideological changes often produce worse evils than the evils they’re trying to address.
I’m just trying to inject daily soliloquies into the current remake of Planet Earth’s perennial favorite, Quem deus vult perdere, dementat prius.
One of the things some members of IndigNation are indignant about is that anybody has anything good to say about Nelson Mandela. That continues to nag at me because someone I care about is a member of that sub-tribe of IndigNation.
Let me put it this way. It seems to me that there are two sets of deeply and equally unChristian attitudes toward Mandela:
- We hate the evil he did and hate him so we will acknowledge no good in him.
- We love the good he did and love him so we will acknowledge no evil in him.
The first is unChristian because it extends no grace, acknowledges no possibility of repentance and change, and cherishes its IndigNation. It tries to be more righteous than God. It is the posture of the Pharisee: “I thank Thee, O God, that although I may be a liar, covetous, a fornicator and more, I never ordered anyone killed like that Publican Mandela over there.” It is the posture of the older brother of the prodigal son, who resented the party dad was throwing his whoring, wastrel brother.
The second can pass for Christian only where “Christian” has been debased to mean nothing more than “nice,” as at the Chamber of Commerce, the Miss American pageant, or the newly revamped book review page at Buzzfeed.
Oh, yeah: both views are pretty oblivious to the way the world and its human inhabitants are, too. We’re living in the kind of world where, for example, a blogger can commit Pharisaism by how he decries Pharisaism. Really. Just look around you. Or in front of you.
And both views are very American, and may summarize our polarization.
In opposition to both, I propose a Christian response: “We hate the evil he did and pray that God will have mercy on him. We love the good he did, and are awed by his example of costly forgiveness (not for his jail sentence, which was just, but for seven decades of intransigent apartheid) — better than many Christians forgive (despite their weekly or oftener “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us“). May his memory be eternal!”
To my great delight moderate surprise, there finally is a Distributist Party website, however implausible the Party may be and however marginal its site may be. I’m glad for a place I can throw away my vote without feeling that my protest will be misunderstood.
* * * * *
“The remarks made in this essay do not represent scholarly research. They are intended as topical stimulations for conversation among intelligent and informed people.” (Gerhart Niemeyer)
Some succinct standing advice on recurring themes. Added today:
- “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you odd.” (Flannery O’Connor)
- Lex orandi, lex credendi.
Tipsy Teetotaler ن 