You’ll never hear me denounce “anti-Christian bigotry” in
the United States of America.
There are reasons for that. One it that it’s, at best,
overstated. More importantly, the people who make that kind of statement
identify with Christianity so much that no other affiliation matters — which is
incorrect.
You see, I’m also African-American. I’ve worked in media for
much of my adult life, 20 years at the same major metropolitan newspaper. I
belong to two labor unions. I’m a native and lifelong resident of a major
northeastern city. These connections not only color my experiences but expand
my worldview.
I bring this up because of an excellent piece, “In Praise of
Equipoise,” in today’s New York Times by conservative columnist David Brooks.
As he puts it, “We live in an atomized, individualistic society in which most
people have competing identities. Life is more straightforward when you’re
locked into one totalistic group, even if it’s imposed upon you. When you’re
disrespected for being a Jew, a Christian, a liberal or a conservative, the
natural instinct is to double down on that identity. People in what feels like
a hostile environment often reduce their many affiliations down to just one
simple one, which they weaponize and defend to the hilt.”
That’s something I’ve always refused to do because it leads
to racism and other types of prejudice, resentment toward some “other” and the resultant
arrogant delusion that eliminating certain types of people will lead to justice
and prosperity. That’s the real reason why the white supremacists backing President
Donald Trump are so extremely dangerous and need to be repudiated tout de suite — in
that context it becomes addictive religion where people can’t change their
minds or the subject. (As things stand now, the political left isn’t yet
equally guilty but if the “alt-right” continues to pick at it, watch out.)
Basically, we need to get over ourselves and lose the navel-gazing
tunnel vision that leads to complaints about constantly being persecuted. (Indeed,
too much focus on “persecution” represents “crying wolf” — there may come a day
when there really is persecution but no one will hear it.)
Over the years I’ve been blessed with friendships across
ideological, racial and theological lines and intend to continue them; the only
times when those relationships have been threatened or even broken is when I
speak my piece and say, “This is why I believe you have it wrong.” It’s
happened from time to time and I do mourn those losses, but I don’t intend to
be anyone’s sycophant because truth means more to me than telling people what
they want to hear.
As I mentioned, it’s not that I don’t have any allegiances
at all — in fact, I have several. And it’s likely that you do as well, so don’t
discount them.
As Brooks writes, “The person with equipoise doesn’t feel
attachments less powerfully but weaves several deep allegiances into one
symphony”; quoting a James Q. Wilson, “it is a life lived in balance.” “Achieving
balance,” Brooks continues, ”is an aesthetic or poetic exercise, a matter of
striking the different notes harmonically.”
That’s the reason that, when people accuse “the media” of
hostility toward Christians, I get in their face and try to shut them down. The truth
is, we don’t have the time or energy to try to discredit the faithful; more
accurately, they do it to themselves with their bellyaching because it actually
makes them look weak. (Not to mention God.)
I can’t argue with Brooks’ final words, so I’m making them
mine: “Today rage and singularity is the approved woke response to the world —
Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders. But you show me a person who can gracefully
balance six fervent and unexpectedly diverse commitments, and that will be the
one who is ready to lead in this new world.”
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