The Challenge Not to Challenge
Peaceful Politics Please #2 of 11
I am so grateful to my daughter for bringing this admonition to my attention today:
“Let us not become so intense in our zeal to do good by winning arguments or by our pure intention in disputing doctrine [or politics] that we go beyond good sense and manners, thereby promoting contention, or say and do imprudent things, invoke cynicism, or ridicule with flippancy. In this manner, our good motives become so misdirected that we lose friends and, even more serious, we come under the influence of the devil. I recently heard in a special place, “Your criticism may be worse than the conduct you are trying to correct.” ~James E. Faust, “The Great Imitator”, October 1987
Note to self:
NO cynicism,
NO ridicule,
NO flippancy,
NO slander,
NO crassness,
NO sarcasm,
NO acrimony,
NO harshness,
NO hostility,
NO humiliation,
NO rancor,
NO unkind accusation,
NO defamation,
NO condescension,
NO contempt,
NO cruelty,
NO vitriol,
NO rigidity,
NO schadenfreude,
NO zero-sum thinking,
NO self-righteous anger,
NO hate
“It does not matter how small the sins are, provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into the Nothing.” ~C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, 1962
Will you join me, friends, family, and followers, in being especially vigilant about what we post, and repost, and in how we choose to respond or to comment on one another’s posts throughout the next several weeks and months? Political opinions/leanings may differ, but we can pledge not to denigrate one another’s fine intelligence or good character or to question one another’s love and loyalty to the country, the Constitution, or God. I am indebted to my son for teaching me and many others that we CAN be unified in our love of freedom (#1), and in our love for the Constitution (that grants us that freedom), EVEN WHILE DIFFERING in our opinions on how best to preserve the liberty and values we ALL hold dear.
Let’s not challenge one another’s spirituality, righteousness, discernment, or intelligence. Let’s instead judge hopefully of one another (the very definition of “charity”), and let’s commit to carrying on exchanges of ideas and perceptions, as well as individual interpretations of events and candidates, in a way that restrains contention instead of promoting contention. Let us be oh-so wary of going “beyond good sense and manners”, no matter how “right” we may be, no matter how passionate we may feel. That toxic approach will only and surely…little by little…as wise men warn, cause us to lose friends and “edge” us “into Nothing”.
I believe that the dust and the dirt will eventually settle, and when it does, I want to standing WITH you “in the Light”: the light of respect, the light of cooperation, the light of goodwill, the light of love. We can do this.
Image: © Antonioguillem. Adobe Stock.