How Liberals & Conservatives Both Justify Hating their Enemies

Phil shares a recent epiphany about the ways liberals and conservatives justify hating their enemies, just in different ways. We discuss whether moderating voices can still have an impact in our media-saturated culture which amplifies the most extreme voices, and the importance of trusting that God is always working in ways we can't see. (Full episode: Holy Post 687: Charlie Kirk & the Conflict Entrepreneurs)

Phil: I was thinking about this food fight over which side is worse, you know? “We're the righteous ones. No, we're the righteous ones.” And this is what kind of dawned on me in my coffee shop: both ends of the political spectrum will justify violence under certain circumstances. Both feel hatred toward their enemies, but they hate differently.

Conservatives hate evil, which sometimes translates into hating those they believe are evil. It's justified because those people are evil. We've turned them into demons, manifestations of pure satanic evil. Liberals hate hate, which sometimes translates into hating those they believe are spreading hate or filled with hate. “I hate those who hate.” Similar to, “I will not tolerate those that are intolerant.” So one group hates those who promote evil, the other hates those who promote hate. We all arrive at the same place: giving ourselves permission to hate those whom God loves.

From the right we say, “You are not worthy of my love if you promote evil,” and then we define what is evil, often based on the politics of the moment. From the left, we say, “You are not worthy of my love if you promote hate.” And then we define what is hateful, often based on the politics of the moment. And then you get to, you know, for example, the Southern Poverty Law Center, which determines which groups in America are hate groups. That's their whole list: “You're a hate group.” And the list includes almost anyone who held what was a normal Christian sexual ethic, largely agreed upon 30 years ago - is now a hate group. And that is the mortal sin, is being labeled as a hateful person. And even the shooter of Charlie Kirk said, “He spreads hate.” That was Charlie Kirk's sin, you know, why he was opposed to him. Whereas what we're hearing so much now from the right is that, well, “Leftism is demonic. These people are demons that we're facing.” So it's not, it's not that they love or hate, it's not in terms of love and hate. It's in terms of good and evil. So we've, each side has found a metric they can use to give themselves permission not to do what Jesus asked us to do, which is love our enemies. 

Skye:  I agree. I don't have anything to pick apart with that. I just … I think what I've been - I was talking to my church about this yesterday, but like I … Where are, where are the leaders, the women and men, particularly in the church, with real gravity of soul who can speak into this moment, with not the authority of position or the authority of like ecclesiastical office, but just the authority of a soul that is so full of God's presence and spirit, that they arrest people where they are and remind them of the way of Jesus? We, it seems like … I know there are women and men like that in this country.

Phil: There are. A moderating voice cannot build an audience.

Skye: I know, and that's what I'm grieving is, we need them right now. I know they're out there. I know they're doing good work in their local settings. 

Phil: How do we do it? Kaitlyn’s got an idea.

 Kaitlyn: I'm totally with you Skye. And I actually, I really appreciate your description, Phil, of it. 'Cause I do think, at the end of the day, part of it is just we find frameworks and language to justify what we already wanted to believe and do. I do think if someone is out there going, “Okay, how do I become the moderating voice in the online ecosphere of all of this?” I do think they should probably go, “I don't know that that's going to be possible.” Like just the logistics of it, the financial aspect of it. And I actually hope, in a weird way, this can encourage a lot of us to just go, “My sphere of influence is way smaller if I'm going to be a moderating voice, and that's a good thing.”

We've talked on the show before, I do think some of what creates these dynamics online is not just: Yes, we're polarized. Yes, there's incentive to stoke conflict and extremism. But also a lot of us are fed on the right and the left in Christian and non-Christian spaces that the most important thing you can do is have the biggest possible impact. “Change the world” is the like, you know, slogan on every Christian college campus and every campus ministry and I think this can be a helpful way to go if just the mechanics are against me.

If I'm going to try and just be like a faithful moderating voice that says, “There is evil happening across the political spectrum.” I want to be someone who says, "You do keep turning the other cheek. You do resist evil. Not with more evil, but with love and generosity and kindness.” I think this could be a good push to just be like, “That's not going to make me a lot of money. That's not gonna make me famous. I guess I have to just like teach Sunday school at my church,” - I'm serious - and take care of my family, and be involved in my neighborhood association. And I also think maybe the closest you can get on the level of being a big voice online is not being a big voice that’s moderating, but just being a voice that's like, “It would be a good, faithful, fruitful life for someone to do that and, and tell a story of that.”

We talked maybe a week or two ago about, do people have an imagination for a different kind of life? We were talking about like dating and marriage. The same is true with this. Like, it's not just, do you give people the right political views? It's also, are you giving them a vision of a good human life that doesn't have to make the biggest impact possible, but can just be like, “These four second graders are better because of me,” “The children in my home are better because of me,” “The people that live on either side of my house are better because of me”? I think that's more possible.

And I think it's not just that we have to - I think a lot of people look at the dynamics online and think, “I have to find a way to work within those dynamics.” And I actually think it'd be a really Christian thing to just be like, actually those don't work and I try to do something else.

Skye: I agree entirely. I believe people are doing that and I applaud them, and I hope I'm doing that in the ways that I'm called to and be faithful. 

 Kaitlyn: So much of the toxicity boils down to: the people who I think really have something important to say or have their head on straight feel powerless. And there's a lot that is really difficult to do. But I just wish that instead of going, like throwing up our hands and just going, “This is impossible,” we went: Maybe I make a very small impact and maybe I don't see the results of it. Maybe I ask someone to dinner for months or years, and they never seem to change their mind and they're still listening to the same stuff online. But that's why it's great when you believe in God who might be doing things that you don't have the power to do or working in ways you don't see.