Sunday Sermon: Words Matter, But You Don’t Own the Language
Read Time:2 Minute, 53 Second
“Should your babble silence men and when you mock, shall no one shame you? For you say ‘my doctrine is pure and I am clean in God’s eyes’ but oh that God would speak and open his lips to you” Job 11:3
Working with the Devil to prevent an apocalypse? The way someone sees that notion says everything about him. The way some Democrats treat their opponents, vile or virtuous, doesn’t put them on the side of the angels either.
We are in fact trying to prevent an apocalypse today and in a country where many want to bring it on, it’s not going to be done by edict, by tantrum or the waving of signs. Ignorance, and that’s how I see racism, is only conquered by education, enlightenment and compassion and not by angry insult. Why is it wrong to show people the error of their ways in a way designed to be effective, to tie it to respect and acknowledgement of the opponents viewpoint?
“A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger.” Proverbs 15:1
So, no, there weren’t “good people on both sides” in Charlottesville, but the hidden assumption in the irate suggestion is that people don’t change and shouldn’t even be allowed to. Anger alone will conquer all and make people better. We on the side of the angels should simply attack relentlessly and forever. No tolerance, no forgiveness and Jesus can go take a hike on some water.
Whether or not the Love Thine Enemy trope is uniquely Christian or ever practiced, it doesn’t carry much momentum these days with the woke folk. You make someone feel uncomfortable and after 40 years of a virtuous life you still need to be ruined – et in saecula saeculorum, amen. No deposit, no return.
So, Joe Biden is wrong to work with an opponent, because opponents are the devil and immutably evil. Never mind that it produces your desired result or even accomplishes an increment of your goal. What do we want? Everything. When do we want it? Now! Never mind that people have epiphanies, conversions, moments of enlightenment or even slow revelation. They’re just the enemy. We don’t want success, we want triumph and so we fail.
No, it’s not that my halo is at the cleaners, I never had one. I don’t love my enemies, but there’s a degree of acceptance that one will always have them, because that’s how humans are. There’s a degree of acceptance that the man I see as the devil may none the less have a degree of compassion and desire to make things better that can be used to change him while moving toward the better world – and I still, even after three quarters of a century, have hope that our prodigal sons will return.
Sure, words matter, but you don’t own the language and you most likely are unaware of how yours hurt other people. Put yourself in my place. I’m a Jew but I’ve probably heard as many sermons as more than a few Christians. Trust me, your religious tradition is insulting to us. Your history is far, far worse, yet I ask for no reparations, but only that with time, humility will grow. I have the same hope for Democrats and even Republicans although I know, as we all do, that, like the poor, the ignorant will always be with us and never forgive us for knowing their ignorance.
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[…] From Glenn Geist at MadMikesAmerica: […]
Success as opposed to triumph?
Glenn Geist proposes a difficult task. He suggests it as both a political and a moral necessity.
How can we be on the side of the angels without condemning those who revile all that seems humane? How are we to be righteous, as we must seek to be, without becoming self-righteous?
For those of my generation, one small palliative can be the clear memory of past bigotries that we did not recognize at the time. One prejudice I did not question until adulthood was blanket rejection of gay people. I try to use that memory as the beginnings of empathy for those who seem unable to release other attitudes with ancient beginnings.
Joe Biden describes himself as willing to negotiate, seeking common ground, treating those with loathsome attitudes with a degree of respect that is unearned.
Glenn seems to suggest that this minimal respect does not need to be earned. It is owed by simple virtue of being.
I buy it. Thank you, Glenn Geist.
I am sick and tired of this racism BS. Blacks make up 13% of the population and yet the media and the activists would have us think blacks are in the majority. Are there abuses? Of course! But there will always be abuses, and they need to be dealt with but when we try to steer the entire Democratic political engine toward one race of another, we’re going to get stuck in the muck along the way.
So do I. Fact is that Biden is illustrating the very problem that people like Booker are talking about. Two classes of American, treated with different levels of respect according to their perceived race. That’s the problem with the politics of outrage and revenge. We trip over our own righteousness and get tied up in our talking points to the point where being against racism can make you a racist.
Does America need a suicide intervention?
Joe Biden makes a comment about being called son and not boy, and the f*cking democrats and the media go crazy, particularly long time loser Cory “Spartacus” Booker. As I write this the MSNBC panel is debating this most important issue. Give me a break, please. When I hear this shit I worry about another 4-years of Trump.