In Romans 12:18, we are advised “Do everything possible on your part to live in peace with everybody.”
Seems like great advice for the United States today. After all, the sort of nation we’re going to be and the sort of life we citizens live depends on each of us. Attitude seems to be important. Tumbleweed has observed that negative attitude tends to lead to negative outcomes while positive usually leads to positive. Fascinating. Seems we have divides that need healing.
If we’re to believe certain elements in our political infrastructure, many of us qualify as gun-toting bible thumpers, deplorables, and dregs of society. Lest you be wondering, those appellations are from Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden, respectively. Throw in Resist, Black Lives Matter, Antifa, Women’s March, the KKK, white supremacists, Nation of Islam, and a few other organizations, and we have quite an array of angry, condescending, elitist, fire-breathing, glitterati arrayed in the morass called social politics. Hate and vitriol are their weapons of choice. Words like sexism, racism, homophobia, misogyny, and more are thrown about as hate chaff. There’s certainly nothing positive to endear them to us, and we should not expect positive attitudes from among them. They are divides cutting us apart.
Tumbleweed has further observed that this hate and discontent didn’t begin with the recent elections, though the outcome thereof seemed to exacerbate the vitriol and division. Now, Tumbleweed could go on here about social ills in general and could endeavor to place much of the blame to the rise of cultural Marxism in our midst, but suffice for now to simply label it societal misanthropy. Oh, and we tend to forget that we’re a Republic, not a pluralistic democracy. Generations in our midst don’t understand the difference.
Lest we forget, a war was fought in our nation over deep divides more than 150 years ago and millions died. Violence was endemic for years before and after. We can point to vignettes of political turmoil from Aaron Burr killing Alexander Hamilton to John Wilkes Boothe assassinating Abraham Lincoln to Lee Harvey Oswald assassinating John Kennedy to James Earl Ray murdering Martin Luther King and more. When and how might such violence, such weaponized hatred end?
We need to step back, take deep breaths, and reflect on civility, respect, and love and the freedom from fear they imply. If nations are formed to provide for common defense, then we need to ensure that such defense is provided against both the internal and external forces that would deprive us of our freedoms. We must heal the divides among us without compromising our natural rights and freedom. I do suggest that we need to take Romans 12:18 to heart. Just sayin’.