L. Scott Ekstrom – Writer

Once upon a time ago in a town where I no longer live, I was in a bookstore, browsing, but also eavesdropping on two other customers standing at the newspaper rack. Perusing the front pages, one of the ladies apparently saw a photo of kids standing in a classroom with their hands over their hearts.  Provoked, she lamented to her friend, “Well, at least they still say the pledge, even if they don’t say ‘Under God’ any more.”  The second woman, apparently the sycophant in this relationship, nonetheless showed a moment of pushback with the clarifying question, “They don’t say ‘Under God?’”  “I don’t think so” was the leader’s quick response, and then, before there was time for anyone to interrupt her diatribe with the actual history of the much evolving pledge that has remained unchanged since the McCarthy era insertion about the deity, she changed the subject, sort of, by reading aloud an anti-government op-ed headline, which elicited a kind of Amen from her repentant sidekick.

It was election season, a time that seems to bring out the worst in all the citizenry, led headlong to ugly by grandstanding candidates and savage talking heads.  In the months leading up to the most recent major election, it was, in part, such lack of basic manners that moved me to deactivate my Facebook account—I was fed up with equally annoying posts by donkeys and elephants so vicious in their caricature of the opposition it made even an apolitical animal like myself wonder if, with civility already passé, civilization might not be too far behind.

I don’t know if the socio-political divide in America is the worst it’s ever been.  A quick survey of campaign posters from the nineteenth century unearths ridiculous attack ads far meaner than any negative commercials we might see on television every two years (or is it always?).  But, in my lifetime, the culture war virus seems to be more infectious than ever.

In recent years, I’ve done a lot of flip-flopping, not just in my politics, but in my living arrangements, moving between upstate and downstate New York, a few hundred miles and many worlds apart.  In the City during most of President George W. Bush’s tenure, I noticed many liberals reacting like we were under a neo-Nazi regime.  And back in the Country under the Obama administration, I’ve heard plenty of conservatives say things like, “We’re now living in Communist Russia.”  I oversimplify, of course.  There are people of all stripes on both sides of the state.  But usually you can feel, in any given place, which semi-culture is dominant.

Twenty-some years ago charismatics and other evangelicals were abuzz with “spiritual warfare” prayer.  We would “put on the armor of God” and “plead the blood” of Jesus over the forces of darkness, and, as weird as that could get, there was biblical warrant to some of it.  I still sometimes call myself a charismatic, by which I mean the Holy Spirit can do whatever He wants and I don’t want to get in His way.  I do believe in an unseen realm somewhere beyond the matrix, and sometimes, when I use the word spiritual, I am referring to invisible but no less real forces of heaven and hell that, by our daily actions, we are all partnering with, on one team or the other.  But I’m pretty sure the best of us are also sometimes Satan’s little helpers, so we should be very suspicious of our own tendency to see the devil working primarily through people we don’t happen to like.

Back in my teens, as I was beginning to become uncomfortable with some of these extra-biblical adventures in the spirit world, I shared my concerns with an anti-charismatic pastor friend who said what worried him was that, for the most zealous of believers, some day the spiritual war could turn in to an actual war.  I thought he was being melodramatic.  I no longer do.

Perhaps, when we demonize the other simply for being different from us, we are looking for a scapegoat—in bad economic times, in the midst of relational strife, in the wake of our own moral failure.  Perhaps we are feeling the sword of God’s conviction come against us and, instead of letting Him have His way, which always turns out to be love, it is easier, in the short run, to try to turn the sword against another tribe.

Whatever the reason for our society’s verbally combative mood, I am increasingly concerned about how we are treating each other.  Whether it’s a young man at my favorite breakfast spot in Hell’s Kitchen yelling to someone across the table about “that evil dictator Bush” or a middle-aged man at a small town diner seething with anger over the anti-American machinations of “Barry Hussein Obama,” I am worried about what might happen if this rage, the same poison available in blue or red, spills into the streets.

It’s already in the church.  Good Christian people express unadulterated hatred toward the heathens moving their country away from God.  Elderly parishioners percolate with bile about immigration.  And then there are the younger faithful, attending services for God and country, who also attend gun shows to shop for the arsenal they might need to protect themselves when America falls because of judgment against people who sin in ways they don’t.

But I don’t want to exclusively pick on conservatives, whose extremities led me to react by turning in my penny loafers and becoming a Democrat some time between Bush 43’s first and second terms.  I actually find the other side equally unpalatable, so much so that I’ve recently become an Independent, or rather, unaffiliated.  That was what I intended to be when I first registered to vote, until a local politician and family friend told me, “You know, you can’t vote in primaries if you don’t join a party.”  I knew that, but to make the guy happy I said, “Okay; I’ll be a Republican.”

I’ve heard that Billy Graham is a registered Democrat and that Jimmy Carter was the first president to identify himself as a born-again Christian.  But when I was born again in the late eighties, in part through the ministry of a right-wing televangelist, I assumed that being conservative theologically meant being so in every way, including politically.  The incredibly effective rhetoric was If you vote for pro-choice candidates, you are a baby killer.  When I moved outside of my hometown, however, I started to meet Christians who were as ardently pro-life as the church folks at home but who didn’t allow that one big issue to determine all their votes.  Some of them even thought governmental policies could play a role in helping the poor.

But spending much of my adult life in liberal-leaning cities, I have frequently been witness to self-righteous and childish antics equal and opposite to that which put me off of the GOP.  That bookstore I used to visit, though occasionally patronized by conservative tourists like the aforementioned passers-through, was, like many bookstores, actually a bastion of liberalism, or so the locals thought.  But when one of the staffers, hoping to demonstrate balance, tried to showcase a few titles by conservative figures, the regular customers, and some employees, messed up the display, moving Dick Cheney to Horror, and placing Glenn Beck in Humor.  I get the joke.  And those are innocuous enough examples.  But, for a people forever bragging about their broadmindedness, liberals can be awfully petty.

It makes me wonder, if you start to think there are some views that don’t deserve a respectful hearing, where might that lead?  Could it actually go as far as an enlightened elite determining which beliefs a tolerant society will tolerate and mandating that the dissenting opinions of “intolerant” others be banned, and the people who hold them . . . extinguished?  Some alarmists (on both sides, fascinatingly enough) say that’s where we’re headed.  To me, it still seems far-fetched to imagine America crumbling in any of these scenarios.  However, if the atrocities of history have taught us anything, isn’t it that any view, be it right, left, religious, or secular, can be used to justify genocide?

Some years ago I was attending a Christian conference sponsored by an organization that is ostensibly nonpartisan but known for its historic ties to the politics of “family values.”  The worship was incredible and the bible teaching was great, and then, between seminars, while chatting with a colleague, I saw a well-known engineer of the Republican machine shaking hands with a bunch of ministers.  At least I thought I recognized him, though I was willing to doubt myself.  But when I shared my apparent celebrity-sighting with a couple friends who’ve worked for some of the most conservative pundits and politicians in recent history, they didn’t doubt what I saw.  One said, “He has a house nearby.”  And the other rolled her eyes and said, “. . . strengthening the base.”  I had long wondered if the convictions of prayer warriors had been preyed upon by vote-seeking fear mongerers.  Now I was pretty sure they had been; that I had, in fact, been had.

I have said in recent years that I am politically liberal, socially moderate, and theologically conservative.  But, truthfully, I have no idea what I mean by that.  I like the sound of the words as they come out of my mouth, but, probably, they aren’t precisely true.  For the truth is, it’s all relative.  Like everyone else, I am and always will be, in the various senses of these words, more conservative than somebody and more liberal than somebody else.  Because I drink and swear and sometimes vote for Democrats, I don’t consider myself a fundamentalist.  But because I try not to drink too much, am pretty goshdarn modest in my use of language, and hold a view of scriptural inerrancy that leads to a few convictions even some of my fellow evangelical friends would label hyper-conservative, maybe I am, by some definitions, a fundamentalist, albeit a nice one.

Recently, in conversation with a newish friend but in the hearing of an old one, I referred to myself as nice.  The person who has known me well for a long time interrupted with a counter-argument in the form of a query:  “Wait—You think you’re nice?”  Maybe she was suggesting my self-affirmation as a friendly person was too much protestation, like the person who begins an account of his own boorish shystering by saying, “I’m a good person, but . . . ” or ends a period of backbiting manipulation by insisting, “I’m not a . . . .”

Perhaps, when I was trying to paint myself as nice, I was resting on ancient laurels that haven’t been true of me for decades.  Or maybe I was still trying to convince myself that it’s always okay for me to do what I often do:  quietly listen to others air their strong opinions as I nod my head slowly, brighten my eyes slightly, and, with a vague smile, say “Interesting,” by which I mean, “That is the least interesting thing I’ve ever heard” or “Not only do I disagree with most of your answers, I think the way you’ve framed the question is based on assumptions diametrically opposed to mine.”

In fairness to me, I want to mention that my reserve seems perpetually misread as dislike or disinterest; that, often times, when I furrow my brow and take a beat, I’m just thinking; and sometimes, actually, what I’m thinking is that I completely agree with what’s been said and that I’d like, somehow, to passionately express that agreement but am not quite sure how to do so in a way that is believable as well as socially appropriate.  So, rather than do disservice to my point, I avoid extemporaneous speech, and maybe later (like decades later), write about it.

But then, there are other moments, probably the kinds of ones my friend was thinking of, when I do finally speak, too much, and in a way that comes across as bullying or bitchiness.  And I follow up my zing with a look that tells my conversational partners, “I could level you with five syllables of snark.”  Maybe, at another Christian conference, a decidedly non-charismatic one, where we took an inventory of spiritual gifts and mine came up as Discernment, it was my snarking that friends around the table were thinking of when they said, “You need to be very careful how you express the truths you discern.”

Few of us are good at balancing truth with love.  But, like the friend who once interrupted my whining by saying, “Scott, get over yourself,” the friend who called me on my phony niceness did a pretty good job.  I liked hearing her say that I wasn’t always nice.  It provided a gracious few seconds when I felt free to admit what I wasn’t and empowered to start becoming what I already thought I was.

Not that niceness is always appropriate.  If someone near you is in danger, a harsh scream may be the most necessary and loving action possible.  Or, if someone you are not romantically interested in is trying to chat you up, a curt “No” may be the kindest word you should muster.

As for me, I increasingly suspect that my attempts to see through all political visions and align with none are part of a larger problem I have in wanting everyone to like me without my having to commit much of anything to anyone in particular.  All the same, I do think it’s right to affirm that no political candidate is dangerously close to ushering in the kingdom of God.  Because ideologies–including social, fiscal, and diplomatic ones–tend to bifurcate in ways that don’t perfectly line up with good and evil, Christians will always have to be eclectic when it comes to exercising their franchise.

I think republican democracy (with all lowercase letters) is a great idea that has been a blessing to many parts of the globe and could be so for more of it.  And I am humbled by the service and sacrifice of those who make my freedom possible.  But all governments are temporary, save one.  And I’m not sure how to classify that one—the benevolent monarchy of King Jesus?  An oligarchy of the Three-in-One?  Or, when the Godhead comes to earth, and the justified behold His glory as well as their own, maybe the scenario would best be labeled a peaceable anarchy.  For, on that everlasting day, we who have looked forward to it will do whatever we want, no one’s desires will conflict with the wishes of anyone else, and every action will conform perfectly to the glorious will of God.

You’ve probably noticed that hasn’t happened yet.  So, in the mean time, I’ll keep studying the issues to better perform my civic duty.  And, to tell you the truth, I’m a little worried by the fact that some of my spiritual mentors exhibit political views quite different from mine, and they aren’t afraid to express those views out loud.  This troubles me, not that we disagree about the political stuff, which is still not that important to me, but because maybe, if we agree on so much spiritually, and they, my intellectual heroes, are farther ahead in life and faith than I, if I think things through to the extent they have, I could end up where they are politically—that is, having some definite opinions that some other people are definitely not very happy about.  I guess I’ll have to see what comes and trust that God’s grace comes with it.  I hope, whatever conclusions any of my beliefs come to, I will be able to express them without being a coward behind the back of my stronger opponents or a jerk in the face of the weaker ones.

For now, my point is not to advocate for either side, in part because I don’t follow the news closely enough to know what I’m talking about.  And maybe also because it’s kind of fun to keep people guessing.  I’ve been a Republican and a Democrat, and now, as a nothing, I’m planning to hint at being a Green Working Families Party member for a few years while I secretly study libertarianism and then choose myself as a write-in candidate in 2016.  May the best me win.

@LScottEkstrom is a freelance writer living in New York.

Article and photo credit:  Copyright 2013, L. Scott Ekstrom.  All rights reserved.