The Cornerstone Of Divisiveness In America

 Divisiveness in America can be best explained by the following Martin Luther King Jr. quote (click here for the source):

The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.

The above quote is part of King's speech against the Vietnam war given on April 4th, 1967 at Riverside Church in New York City. Now that quote alone doesn't really explain our divisiveness. But if we modify that quote by replacing the word 'Western' with a fill in the blank, then we have happened on the real cause for divisiveness in America:

The ________ arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.

Why the fill-in-the-blank? It is because there are a number of groups in America that have that kind of arrogance of feeling to varying significant degrees. And as a result, each group that has that kind of arrogance of feeling is doing its part to split up the country. In addition, each group that has that kind of arrogance of feeling is speaking from the assumption that it is omniscient and thus not only does not need any input from others, but all such input is then logically deemed as a threat. And thus, each group that has that kind of arrogance of feeling is saying to all others in the nation that it is either their way or the highway.

Of course it isn't just groups that have that kind of arrogance of feeling, people can too. Two such people who come immediately to mind are Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis. Either name could fit very well in the fill in the blank. It is easy to see that kind of arrogance of feeling in Trump. After all, one of his campaign claims was that he was the only one who could fix things in America. Unfortunately the fixing he did only further entrenched the swamp which he said he opposed.

It's not to difficult to see that kind of arrogance of feeling in Ron DeSantis either. His political revenge against Disney for campaigning against one of his bills along with his political war against CRT and wokism reveal that he sees himself as the only arbiter of truth and history in America--or at least in Florida. That means that he acts as if CRT and wokism have nothing to contribute to our understanding of race and other issues from America's past and present.

Of course, that arrogance of feeling on the conservative side was spawned by conservative pop conservative radio talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Mark Levin. Each one divided ideas and even Americans into 2 categories of either agreeing with them or being totally wrong. These radio show hosts canonized their version of conservatism and demonized everyone else. Being a good or patriotic American required one to do nothing more than to express a general agreement with or like of these radio hosts. From their shows came the idea that their version of conservatism would fit well in that fill in the blank. 

And though I can't think of any liberals who embrace that kind of arrogance of feeling, there are individual democratic voters who would unflinchingly insert the name 'democrat' into that fill in the blank. Likewise, they have Republican counterparts who would do the same with the name 'republican.' 

I know some fellow leftists who would proudly insert the name 'marxist' or socialist' in that fill in the blank. The ones I know are not public figures. But the groups they belong to believe that they have everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them. Such people include many Stalinists and ideological Marxists. 

In the end, those who are most vulnerable to having that kind of arrogance of feeling are traditionalists and ideologues. We should note that traditionalists are defined by their social, ideological, or geographical locations. By ideologues, I don't mean those who generally or loosely hold to a given ideology. Instead,  by ideologues I mean those who see their favorite ideology as having all or almost all of the answers to America's problems so that they believe that their ideology is the only ideology America needs to thrive.

Why do we embrace such a delusion of grandeur about our favorite politician, political party, or ideology? One reason, and certainly not the only reason, has to do with the sense of significance rush that comes with believing that one's side is so exceptional and above the others.

And isn't it in our American DNA that our sense of significance as Americans comes from being exceptional and the greatest in the world? We see this compulsion to regard ourselves as being exceptional above all others in how we talk about our history. This is especially true for those Americans who try to censure CRT from being taught to students or business people.

We also see it in our sports. How many world championships are played for by American teams only? Here we should note that Japan won the most recent World Baseball Classic championship. And of the 5 or 6 such classics, the U.S. has won the championship only once.  

We see it in our music. How many times have baby boomers regarded the music they grew up with as the greatest music in the world despite the fact that there are some regions of the world where the music is far more rhythmic, expressive, and deep.

We see it in our foreign affairs we we assume that America is the leader of the free world. Here, one has to ask why a free world would need a leader or how can part of the world that has one leader really be free? But more than that, we often assume, at least initially, that our foreign policies are good and righteous and have the world's best interests at heart. That was certainly true during the Cold War and is true, to a weaker degree, in the War Against Terror.

We also see this arrogance of feeling in some of our conservative churches. Those denominations that believe that their doctrinal standards and confessional standards best summarize what is in the Scriptures are very vulnerable to having that kind of arrogance of feeling. That is especially true when complete subscription to a denomination's confessional standards is required among its church officers. And Christians partially have that kind of arrogance of feeling when they believe that they have everything to teach the secular world and nothing to learn from them even when it comes to secular issues.

That kind of arrogance of feeling not only has us competing in America's market place of ideas, it makes us conclude that our beliefs are in a life and death struggle for the nation in king-of-the-hill battle with all other ideological or political party challengers.

Perhaps it isn't the life and death struggle that mostly drives us to having that arrogance of feeling. Rather, it is the sense of significance we gain by believing that we have everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them that maintains that delusion about ourselves and the groups we are in. I am beginning to suspect that many political debates between people do not involve a contest of ideas as much as they involve the defense or assertion of one's sense of significance and the pride that comes from believing that oneself, one's own group, or one's ideology is exceptional and above all others.

Therefore, perhaps it is our compulsion to feel special and exceptional, either as individuals or in groups, that is contributing the most in the current dividing of our nation.

What Does The Movie 'Do You Believe?' Want Us To Believe?

The movie Do You Believe? (click here for the move's website), like the movie God's Not Dead, is a Christian film focused on evangelism. While the previous movie revolved around stereotypes, the movie Do You Believe? does not, at least as much. This movie revolves around the lives of 12 people whose paths will intersect under an actual physical cross due to a chain reaction of car crashes on a bridge. In the meantime, this move presents a description of 3 kinds of characters: God and Jesus, the believer, and the unbeliever. 

The movie starts with the personal Christianity of a church minister being indirectly challenged by a street preacher carrying a cross. The message of this street preacher to the minister is that he should take the Cross seriously. This scene takes place in the city where a van is being stolen by one of the 12 people who are featured here and his gang. The street preacher challenges the kids not to steal the van, despite them pointing a gun at him, but they do so anyway. This impresses the church minister and it starts him to preach to his own church about the meaning of the Cross and what it calls us to be.

Some of the other characters in this movie include a paramedic who is sued for leading a man to faith while that man is dying from an accident, the lawyer who sues the paramedic, the gang leader and his brother, a veteran suffering from PTSD and was considering committing suicide because, while in action, he saw another soldier killed and he was too scared to help, a distraught young woman who was also considering suicide, a homeless woman and her daughter, a church janitor who was dying from cancer, an old retired couple who lost their only child early in the child's life, the wife of the paramedic who is also a nurse, the childless wife of the church minister, a pregnant homeless woman, and an unbelieving doctor. That partial list of the 12 characters also contains some of the characters in their lives. BTW, there are some notable people performing in this movie including Cybill Shepherd, Mira Sorvino, Brian Bosworth, Lee Majors, and Shwayze.

As a movie designed to convert unbelievers, this movie is an improvement over its predecessor God's Not Dead in that some of the stories are touching. But the ending is a bit contrived as the dying church janitor comes back unassisted after being dead for quite a few minutes. The veteran redeems himself as he saves a family who were stuck in a car that was falling of the bridge from the crash, the paramedic helps the veteran save that family as well as saves the life of the lawyer who sued him. In addition, the gang leader, who lost his brother to the man the leader was trying to kill, converts to Christ because his brother did and because his being wounded in the street not only started the accident, but saw the person attempting to kill him be killed. And finally, the church minister and his wife become parents by virtue of the homeless pregnant woman giving birth to her child while dying from the accident.

There are two basic messages this movie attempts to convey. It first adequately conveys the basic Gospel message of how God sent His Son to die for our sins because of how He loves us. That was adequately done. But the second message that was, IMO, conveyed is that we come to faith via the dramatic. Some of the dramas include the wife of the paramedic begins to believe when she sees the church janitor return from the dead in the hospital, the lawyer sees the paramedic she sues not only save her, but the helps save the couple in the car that is falling off the bridge, the veteran who risked his life to save the family in that car, and minister and his wife as they help the homeless woman deliver her baby. 

And what this coming to faith via the dramatic seems to lead us to believe is that Christians who take the Cross of Christ seriously in their lives become heroic. And it is with this heroism that we get  a very important insight into how some Conservative Christians see themselves and their role in this world. If they take the Cross seriously, they will be inspired to obtaining such a virtuous character that it causes those around them to believe. In short, this is a Christian movie about portraying Christians as the heroes of the world. We could call this Christian Exceptionalism, however, this exceptionalism only comes to those who take the Cross seriously enough.

In real life, we've seen another side of this Christian Exceptionalism. We've seen it throughout the history of our nation as Christianity once had a privileged position in society in terms of determining its laws and mores. And some Christians make the case that that privileged position should continue so that our  influence can save the nation from falling for self-destructive beliefs and actions.

We should also note the questions that this Christian Exceptionalism message and being saved by the dramatic might be asking of us non-exceptional Christians. Can we ordinary people Christians help the world without becoming heroes? If the answer is yes, then note that not only will our positive qualities help the world, our failures and sins might help as well. In other words, we can spread the Gospel and help the world as ordinary people. This is not a put down on those who are true heros. It simply states that we can help unbelievers in the world by relating to them as peers and equals. For what validates the Gospel is not Christian Exceptionalism, but Christ's exceptionalism. As for us Christians, we should focus as much as possible on not fumbling the ball by creating obstacles to those who would hear the Gospel. The obstacles I have in mind are those that result from us trying to do too much, of trying to show of our spiritually enhanced, "superior" character. So our job is to point to and not distract from Christ's exceptionalism.

We might also ask if people can come to faith without the drama of traumatic events merely by hearing God's Word? Are God's Word and His Spirit capable of winning hearts and minds simply by how they work together when people hear the Word? These are questions people should be pondering but are unaddressed by the movie as it insists on portraying us Christians in the way we would prefer to see ourselves: as the world's heroes.

Christians Should Include Self-Criticism When Criticizing Others

Dr Graham Cole teaches at Beeson Divinity School, a school which sprang up from Samford University. In the accompanying video, Cole is asked about Post-Modernism.





In this interview Cole is asked for a definition of Post-Modernism and he provides a partial definition. He states that Post-Modernism is the rule of relativity as opposed to Modernism which is the rule of reason. And he praised Post-Modernism because for challenging Modernism's for relying on human reason. However, he criticizes Post-Modernism because it embraces relativity. He states that neither Modernism nor Post-Modernism is a sufficient guide for finding one's worldview.

If neither Modernism nor Post-Modernism are good enough, what should we use to develop a worldview? Pre-Modernism is the answer according to Cole. The reason is because Pre-Modernism relies on the rule of revelation and Christians know that we have God's true revelation. So Christians should use God's revelation as the ultimate standard in developing one's worldview.

Before we proceed, we listen to what Cole says about one's worldview. According to Cole, a worldview consists of the ideas we use to interpret the world. These ideas act as 'gatekeepers' in determining how we process the world around us. A Christian worldview uses the Scriptures as one's primary source for ideas used to interpret the world. Cole identifies 3 criteria a Christian should use in evaluating competing worldviews. The first criteria is whether the ideas we rely on here are Scriptural. The second criteria is whether the ideas we relay on here are 'thinkable.' Here, a worldview is thinkable if it is consistent and does not lead to contradictions. Finally, one must determine if one's worldview is 'livable.'

Before criticizing Cole's views here we should note that his criteria for developing worldviews are good. We should also note that this clip does not give us an opportunity to hear everything that Cole thinks about Post-Modernism. But here is the problem. At least in the interview seen in the above video, though Cole gives an adequate definition of Post-Modernism, he fails to list the issues that Post-Modernism has been trying to address when it embraced relativity and rejected both the rule of faith/revelation, which is Pre-Modernism, and the rule of reason. Post-Modern embraced relativity because those in the movement found the colonialism, wars, and imperialism that resulted from both Pre-Modernism and Modernism to be not livable. And this is true especially when WMDs exist. Neither Pre-Modernism nor Modernism showed themselves to be effective in restraining man's tendencies to show intolerance, dominate others, and make war.

So what we see in Post-Modernism's emphasis on relativity is not the assertion of a positive but an attempt to remove a negative. That is that Post-Modernism attempts to remove any reason which, according to history, people have used to rationalize their brutal treatment of others. Seeing that neither the rule of faith/revelation nor the rule of reason has curbed our abuse of others, none are livable.

So Cole's problem here is not found in his criticisms of Modernism and Post-Modernism. Rather, his problem is not owning up for Pre-Modernism's failures, Christianity's sins to be specific.  And though his hesitancy to criticize Pre-Modernism because of its reliance on revelation, his, and our failure to own up to our and our forefather's mistakes is not just a problem in the video, it is our modus operandi. It is not until we address our mistakes that we will start to answer the questions that Post-Modernists are asking. And it is not until we address our mistakes that we have a chance to restore credibility to the Gospel.

We should note that many who refuse to own up to mistakes often do so in order to avoid accountability and to establish or maintain a position of authority. And perhaps this is why some Christians, especially American Christians, find it difficult to give Post-Modernism the full credit it is due. For as wrong as Post-Modernism is in embracing relativity, it is trying to challenge the presumption of some who believe that they, because they are exceptional or have a monopoly on some truth, are entitled to rule over others. Such people view attacks on their right to rule as attacks on the truths they hold dear. That is because they equate their right to rule with the facts as they see them and the principles they practice.

If America and American Christians want to experience a growing influence on their worlds rather than a diminishing one, they need to be upfront with their past and present sins. And to identify their sins they must listen to the complaints of those with whom they disagree in order to find the truths in what they say. Failure to do so will only mean that we follow the same flawed course that we are on now. And though while we will feel persecuted because we are losing our influence on others, the truth will be that as others will gain more and more power, they will treat us as we have treated them.