This article first appeared as Can we live faithfully in a time of vitriol? on Sojo.net.
Scripture is rife with paradox. Live by the Spirit but be firmly anchored in the Word. Seek justice but love mercy. Love sacrificially but maintain healthy boundaries. Be gracious with people but hold to the standard of holiness.
Followers of Christ and children of God are called to center ourselves in the example of Jesus and navigate these tensions continually. Instead, we seem to have evacuated the center to migrate toward the wings of easier-to-digest theology, in all directions. In this season of Lent, perhaps it would be beneficial to examine our tendency toward extremes, and how Jesus navigated paradoxes during his time on Earth.
Extremes are easy — clear-cut, straightforward. They’re comfortable and certain. But they don’t accurately represent reality, nor do they require us to develop a capacity for complexity and delve into the mud that is life experience. With our appetite for extremes — or in our fear of others' — we’ve created narrow corridors of opinion that are impossible to deviate from, lest we be ostracized or vulnerable. And this kind of atmosphere enables authoritarian figures to rise. The fact that so many Christians have not only acquiesced to President Trump’s administration, but enabled it, is very confusing.
Scripture exhorts us to walk humbly before God and live in peace. Are we doing that?
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