The Emptiness of Opposition
As the articles of impeachment creep towards the Senate we have been reminded over and over that they are a stunt, void of foundation, void of evidence and built entirely on a loathing for the president. They are without substance; created only from opposition. Speaker Pelosi’s stunt, not immediately transmitting them to the Senate, has served only to illustrate their ephemeral nature. The articles of impeachment are as I have just described them because opposition, more accurately hatred, can only destroy it cannot build. Destruction is without substance.
Charges of this type, whether in criminal court, civil court, or this sort of circumstance are not intended to destroy the perpetrator. They are intended to build justice. But if there is no wrong there is no injustice and therefore no need to build justice. And hence the charges, or in this case articles, are composed of nothing and accomplish nothing. Let’s be honest, this is Twitter writ large – creating offense at a whim and generating outrage for its own sake.
Let us hope this represents the nadir of this current cultural trend. Unfortunately I am not sure. This president has done marvels at restoring our judiciary and our standing in the world. Our military is looking better everyday. The economy is humming in a fashion pretty well unprecedented in my over six decades. He is doing a great job of those things the federal government is designed to do. But stylistically he follows and contributes to the cultural trends so apparent in Twitter and now transparent in our politics.
That is, frankly, how our politics are designed to work. Elections are meant to reflect the mood and concerns of the nation – not shape them. We have other institutions that are meant to shape the mood and culture of the nation – media, education, religion – but they all seem to be falling down on the job.
Media? Well, let’s be honest, Twitter is media these days. TV reports now feature pictures of tweets and reports on what Twitter is saying, as does “print” media. But media itself is built of nothing – its product is entertainment. Entertainment is a sensation the perception of which can be based as much on the comfort of the seat you are occupying as anything else. I do not look for media to reverse this cultural trend.
Education? More accurately “edutainment.” See the preceding paragraph.
Which leaves us with religion. You would think that religion could stand against this tide. It’s foundations are, after all, in the eternal…the unchanging…the immovable. And yet in my lifetime the church has acted as if its foundations were just as fluid as everything else’s. And when it comes to the church’s involvement in politics it has been based primarily in opposition. Thus, like the articles of impeachment the church has nothing substantial to offer.
The surge of Evangelicals into politics, that really began with Reagan, began in opposition to Roe V. Wade. There is an injustice in abortion and a need to build justice, but we have not offered to build, we have offered only to oppose. As things have evolved onto other social issues we have found ourselves on the defensive, and again in opposition. We have decried bad news when we should have been offering good news. The gospel is still true, even if abortion is legal. If the gospel spread far enough and deep enough, even with abortion legal, abortion would not happen – and justice would have been built.
Our economy skyrockets as it currently does because we are a nation of builders. Years ago, when I was a young man, the church my family went to began a building campaign, even though it did not need the extra room. When I discussed it with my father I was quite confused as to why the church would step out on a limb in this fashion. His response was, “Nothing succeeds like success and nothing is as indicative of success as a building campaign.” Donald Trump won the last election on a platform designed to build, not oppose. Sure, that platform was communicated far more brusquely, even profanely, than I was comfortable with, but it was a platform about building something, not opposing something else.
If you are concerned about the current cultural trends, and I think all of us are, the answer is not to decry them – it is to build the alternative.
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