Politicization

Why do people, both on the political left and right, get so angry that they decide to kill political figures with whom they disagree? Why is it happening in America even more, lately? Why do people murder state lawmakers in Minneapolis, and kill Christian political activists in Utah, and nearly succeed in slaying presidential candidates—all in the past 15 months?

Sure, “sin” is a cheap answer. It’s a good Sunday School answer, but it’s still a safe and lame answer. What is causing human sinfulness to show itself in this way? It’s because we let political passions become our life. That’s very bad.

By Jordan Standridge. Reposted from The Cripplegate, November 15, 2016. (HT: Zeteo 316.)

We were warned. I feel like it was over and over again. Pastor after pastor told us that if politics becomes an idol in our heart that those who don’t agree with us will slowly become the enemy. We were told that when we put our hopes and trust in the one who sits in the Oval Office and into avoiding persecution and holding on to religious freedom then when people speak out with opposing views from us we will despise them and treat them like an enemy.

All humans are political and ideological. We’re political in the sense that we have beliefs about the groups we’re part of—what those groups ought to have done in the past, ought to do now, ought to do in the future, and what sort of people should lead them. And we certainly have strong views about the groups we’re not part of.

We’re also ideological. Even the most down-to-earth among us hold to some big ideas, reject some big ideas, and look at the world through an ideological set of lenses. People’s worldviews range from highly rational, systematic, and coherent to highly random, chaotic, and contradictory, but we all have them.