It’s been an interesting couple of weeks. I started a new position at the local Giant Eagle. I’m no longer in the bakery. I’m now “Mike the Meat Man” in the meat dept. What that means is that I get to do whatever the meat cutters tell me to do. It’s cold over here. The chaos of the bakery is not missed.
I was in hospital this week for a cardiac procedure. I had an ablation done for AFib & Aflutter. Fun? Yeah, no. Hopefully this will take care of the arrythmias and eliminate risk of throwing a clot.
While I was in hospital not getting any sleep, I turned on the TV at about 5 A.M. There was a show on some Ideastream station about the threats to libraries by Christian Nationalists. The main story took place in a small town in Texas. A woman, mother of 9, was trying to get books banned and librarians dismissed and even arrested. This person has a son who came out as gay a few years before. He was cast out of his family and forbidden to have any contact with his siblings. This is NOT unusual for conservative Christians. It’s not a bug. It’s a feature. This is the environment that this woman has built for herself and her family.
The vitriol this person exhibited was unreal. She truly believes what she says. That is sad. Because all I saw in her face and heard in her words was fear. The fear of change. The fear that all that she believed in and cherished was in danger of collapse. The whole house of cards that she wanted to protect was about to be assaulted by a cultural hurricane.
Sad. Well and truly sad.
I know folks like her. I was part of a community of faith that shared the same fears. They have to fight because they feel threatened by powers beyond their control.
Their fear is misplaced.
John the Elder wrote, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love.” The apostle Paul wrote to the church at Corinth that Love is the greatest gift of all.
John the Evangelist also wrote about fear, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”
The writer of the Sermon to the Hebrews states it another way, “So we can say with confidence, “The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can anyone do to me?”
Fear is not helpful for anyone. It’s especially damning for folks who claim allegiance with God. That fear becomes a deep, spiritual fear where there are demons and evil spirits who are threatening their world. The fear reinforces a need to defend our way of life at all costs. “We alone know the real threat! We must fight!” These are natural responses to unnatural fears.
How do we respond to such fear in others? What can we do to encourage them to change perspective. Precious little. Such folks are certain in their beliefs and are easily swayed.
We can love. We can love them but also call them out for their wrong thinking. We don’t have to agree with them. In fact, I believe that we have a responsibility to stand against such thinking. Not in ways that become ad hominem statements. Rather we can stand with the rejected kids and the librarians and whoever else become targets by these scared people.
Jesus said that the world would know who we are by our love. Let’s not forget.
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