(Here’s an update on my new book, A Different Jesus: A Christian Theology Big Enough For An Interfaith World. At this early stage I have received some very encouraging responses from friends, clergy, and academics. I honestly believe this book can foster productive discussion about how Christians can be faithfully Christian in an interfaith world. I would be happy to have an internet question/answer time with any group studying it.)
Recently one of my sisters-in-law made the comment, “Politicians are people like the rest of us.”
In my last Blog I argued that not all politicians are alike. At the same time, I agree with my sister-in-law that they are all the same because they are people like the rest of us. Sound confusing? Not really. If we remember that politicians are people no better and no worse than any of us, we might start focusing on issues rather than the person, and that is when we will see that they are not all alike.
Let me share a story that graphically illustrates why this change is so needed, and how easy it is to fall into making personal attacks.
The day before my sister-in-law made her comment I received a Facebook post from a guy I grew up with who was responding to something positive I said about President Obama. “Jan,” he wrote, “you’re talking in circles. He’s a loser.”
This is exactly what is wrong with our politics today. Instead of focusing on the issue we started out discussing, he launched a personal attack on the President, and in the process ended up saying something that was ridiculous.
Calling President Obama a “loser” is like calling Vince Lombardi a loser. Barack Obama is as smart as they come, educated, attended the best universities in the nation, was elected to the state and federal Senate, and is serving his second term as President of the United States. Rather than being a “loser,” the President’s life is an American success story.
If this old neighbor had wanted to criticize President Obama’s decisions, policies, stands on issues, he had plenty of material to work with. Instead, he chose to attack him as a person.
People do it all the time. They called the President a loser, a socialist, a Communist, un-American, anti-Christian, a hater of white people, and worse things, ignoring the fact that he is a person with all the strengths and weaknesses they have. In my faith tradition there is something about the only way to qualify for “casting the first stone” is to have no faults yourself. Know anybody like that? Didn’t think so.
But people throw stones at the President anyway, without thinking about the effect their personal attacks can have. When you tear down the person who is President, you are contributing to the decline of respect for the office itself, and that is as destructive to our democracy as it gets.
I need to remember that, and I suspect you do, too.
It’s actually true across the board. All politicians are people, nothing more and nothing less. I may abhor things politicians do, say, and believe in, but as people they are just like me and I am just like them.
I have no doubt that if we as people remembered that, we would elect better people (as I argued in my previous Blog), and at the same time would raise the level of our political life.
So if you or I feel the urge to attack someone as a person, we should begin with the one we see in the mirror every day. That would likely be as far as we would get.
