Monthly Archives: January 2023

The Culture Wars’ lies about otherness:

“Everyone on my side of the culture wars is more nuanced and different from one another, but everyone on the other side is basically the same.”

“There are only two sides to every cultural issue.”

Those People are All the Same

Here, we defined culture wars as more than just advocating for positive change. Culture wars happen when we use political or social or economic power to force others to behave the way we think they should behave. In order to feel good about that, we have to see those others as people whose behavior MUST be changed, even if forcefully. The group think and tribal mentality of the culture wars make that easy for us. The culture wars lie to us about those we have “otherized.” And the culture wars’ lies about otherness make our lives so much easier.

The tribal mindset of the culture wars causes us to see anyone who disagrees with us as a bonafide member of the other tribe. And, as such, we just assume that person thinks and acts just like everyone else in that tribe. The social science word for this phenomenon is “out-group homogeneity”. Once we label someone as “other” there can be no nuance, no complexity in them.

That, of course, would require work on our part to actually learn about them and how they think. It would require us to expend time and energy actually trying to understand their life experiences and their core fears and pain. It would also mean understanding their strengths and value to our community and the various lenses through which they see the world. In short, it would demand way too much from us. Simply grouping them all together is easier and, frankly, better suits our goals and narratives in the culture wars. It is how we justify our feelings that our country or community would be better off with them.

The False Binary

The culture wars’ lies about otherness also change how we talk about the important issues of our day. They create false binaries around each issue. They remove all the nuance and they use marketing slogans to make unbelievably complicated issues into simple binary choices. You are either pro-life or pro-choice, either black lives matter or blue lives matter. Either you want open borders to absolutely everyone or you want to build a wall to keep everyone out. You either want to take everyone’s guns away or you want no restrictions whatsoever on guns. You see the problem. Our group think and tribal positioning leaves little room for actual conversations to delve into the complexities of our current social issues.

Of course, here in the U.S., our two-party political process only exacerbates the false binary. First, there is the constant pressure toward the extremes which naturally flows from the pep rally mindset of winning at all costs. Secondly, party loyalty forces all the players not only to espouse those extreme positions, but to act like they actually believe in them. Again, any notion of nuance or complexity simply does not fit the culture we have created. And if it doesn’t fit, then any desire to nevertheless maintain it simply requires way too much energy.

Hatfields and McCoys

Back in Jesus’ day, this same tribal dynamic was in full blossom with regard to the ongoing hatred between the people of Judah and the people of Samaria. The divisions we experience in our current culture wars all pale in comparison to the ethnic tension between those two groups. Hundreds of years of hatred had taken root, creating seemingly insurmountable cultural barriers between them. And Jesus blew right through those barriers both through his teaching and in how he conducted himself.

What Jesus Said and Did

The parable of the good samaritan in Luke 10 was, by Jesus’ teaching, an example of how things SHOULD be. Having rightly summed up God’s law for the Jewish people with, “Love God, and love your neighbor”, a lawyer invited Jesus into their culture war with a simple question: “Who is my neighbor?” Of course, the culture warrior’s response would have been, “people in my own tribe.” But Jesus’ response was jarring. A Samaritan, it would seem, could well be my neighbor. The teaching was clear: God expects us to show genuine curiosity and compassion, even for those who are “other” than us…maybe ESPECIALLY for them.

But Jesus did not just teach this. He lived it. His “appointment” with the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4 demonstrated beautifully how things COULD be. He literally went out of his way (geographically) to fulfill this God-ordained appointment with a Samaritan woman. He committed energy to breaking down religious, gender and ethnic barriers to have a conversation no self-respecting Jewish rabbi of the time would have had. Eventually seeing that he was a man of God, the woman asked a point-blank religious question that had always nagged her. The truth was not one she wanted to hear: “You Samaritans know very little about the one you worship, while we Jews know all about him, for salvation comes through the Jews.” John 4:22 (NLT). But Jesus delivered that truth only after having done the hard work of forging a compassionate relationship with her.

Compassionate Curiosity is the Way Forward

The Culture Wars’ lies about otherness cause us to get lazy in our relationships with others. They let us off the hook for doing actual, meaningful community the way our creator intended. The way forward, then, is to do that hard work. It means fostering genuine curiosity about others and showing compassion in how we engage them (indeed, in how we even think about them). We can do so much better than the group think and tribal warfare which our culture wars encourage. We can actually build one another up.

The Corresponding Truths

So, in contrast to the culture wars’ lies about otherness listed at the top of this post, here are the corresponding truths for Christ followers:

Every individual is unique and the more we try to paint entire segments of people alike, the more foolish we look.

We are all nuanced and complicated and almost never fit perfectly into the caricatures we tend to use for each other.

We can do this…together.

© One Another Project

Permissions: We permit and encourage you to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way and do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction. For web posting, we prefer a link to this document on this website. Any exceptions to the above must be approved by One Another Project.  Please include the following statement on any distributed copy: © One Another Project. Website: oneanotherproject.com.

The Culture Wars’ lies about identity:

“We each find our own identities by looking within ourselves and trusting our feelings.”

“Our political identities define us and are core to who we are.”

“Choosing not to take on a political identity is choosing to be ineffective and inconsequential.”

What does “identity” even mean?

Wikipedia defines identity as “the qualities, beliefs, personality traits, appearance, and/or expressions that characterize a person.” Psychology Today describes identity as “the memories, experiences, relationships, and values that create one’s sense of self.” Identity includes concepts of life experiences, worldview, and ideology. In essence, identity becomes not only a lens through which I see and understand the world around me, but also includes the operating system I use to navigate it. When our current culture thinks and talks about identity, then, it seems to be referring first and foremost to how I see myself and, perhaps in some cases, to how others might see me.

Who gets to determine my identity?

But where does our identity come from? Who gets to tell us who we are? How do we “find” our identity? Some say our family does this…that our parents or grandparents or ancestors have much to say about who we are or who we should be. This, of course, adds some puzzle pieces to the question…both good ones and bad ones; both helpful and some not so helpful.

Some of us tend to find our identity in our work or our accomplishments, or perhaps in things we have NOT accomplished. Others find our identity in choices we have made, both good and bad. Some find identity in core pain or wounds we have endured or survived.

Culture warriors (as we have defined them here) often define themselves based upon particular social causes or ideals, or (more likely) in terms of what or whom they oppose. They are, after all, fighting a war.

Our culture has some prevailing ideas about where we should find our identity. It encourages us to identify with “whatever feels right to us.” The culture says, “never let anyone else tell you who you are.” It encourages us to “have the courage to be yourself.”

But how valid are any of those ideas? Is my identity a matter of what others think or say? Is it a matter of my accomplishments? My family? My mistakes? Is it a matter of my own feelings?

I am who my Creator says I am

For Christ followers, identity is about who God says we are. Scripture begins the search for my identity at a place completely separate and apart from me…it begins with God. He knows every detail of my past, including all my thoughts and feelings, even those long since forgotten by me. He sees me and pursues me and knows everything about my present. And He knows every detail of my future, including all my thoughts and dreams.

John Calvin said: “It is certain that man never achieves a clear knowledge of himself unless he has first looked upon God’s face, and then descends from contemplating him to scrutinize himself.” If David, the writer of Psalm 139 which is all about identity, had gotten his identity from his family he would never have been anything other than a shepherd. Had he depended on his feelings, he may never have been more than a poet or songwriter. If he had depended upon his life experiences, he may never have been anything more than a soldier. If he had been defined by his mistakes or poor choices, he would have been merely a murderer, an adulterer or a rapist (depending on your interpretation). But history reveals David as perhaps the greatest king Israel ever knew…because that is who God created him to be.

And so it is with God’s children. Contrary to the culture wars’ lies about identity, we are whom God says we are.

Culture War Identities in Jesus’ Time

Jesus was a rabbi. He was a spiritual leader who had a handful of followers who did life with him and sought to learn from him and to grow to be like him. That is the very definition of rabbi. But in his culture, any rabbi of any influence at all took on a cultural identity with one of several groups. At Jesus’ time, there were four group identities from which a rabbi could choose: Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes and Zealots. Like our current political climate, there simply was little or no place for an “independent.” The expectations of the culture all operated against it.

At Jesus’ time, the Pharisees were the most popular. They were mostly middle class, followed the Mosaic law (the Torah) as well as all the oral traditions (the Mishnah). To them, Roman authority was a necessary evil and was tolerable as long as they (the Jewish people) could continue to practice their beliefs. The Sadducees were the second largest group. They were priests who were wealthy, aristocratic and often Hellenistic. These priests followed ONLY the law and were NOT fans of the Mishnah. They dominated the ruling council and they received plenty of Roman support. The Essenes were rigid followers of the Torah and were all about anti-corruption. Indeed, many were dissidents from the ruling council. They lived lives of isolation in the wilderness, making copies of the Torah. The Zealots were extremists, formed as a militant group around the time of Jesus’ birth. They were common in Jesus’ hometown area of Galilee and were anti-Rome, anti-slavery, and anti-taxes. They practiced acts of terrorism against Rome.

Jesus, the Independent

Interestingly, people in Jesus’ time often accused him of being a part of each of these groups at one time or another. But others also often saw him as being the enemy of each of these groups at one time or another. In other words, people were constantly trying to categorize him into one or another of these groups, because that is what humans do…we categorize people. That kind of “group identity” makes it easy for us to know how we feel about people. That way, we don’t have to do any of the hard work of actually knowing somebody before we talk (or post or tweet) about them. Indeed, some of Jesus’ own followers were often frustrated with him for NOT aligning into one or more of these groups. The pressure was constant to find an identity this way. And that pressure exists for all of us today as well.

But Jesus refused. He did not find his identity from any of these groups. His identity was throughly and completely in relation to his Father in heaven. He never bothered comparing himself to anyone in these groups. He established his own identity through his relation to God the Father. And he taught his followers to do likewise.

The Corresponding Truths

So, in contrast to the culture wars’ lies about identity listed at the top of this post, here are the corresponding truths for Christ followers:

We find our identity from the only one who can tell us who we are, our Creator; not from our ideological groups and especially not from our own feelings.

To the extent we even have them, our political identities are among the shallowest of our defining characteristics.

In our current climate, choosing a political identity (publicly) probably means having little spiritual influence at all with about one half the country.

…just a few things to ponder.

© One Another Project

Permissions: We permit and encourage you to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way and do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction. For web posting, we prefer a link to this document on this website. Any exceptions to the above must be approved by One Another Project.  Please include the following statement on any distributed copy: © One Another Project. Website: oneanotherproject.com.

This begins a series of posts dealing with just how the “culture war” mentality is damaging our public discourse and causing us to believe things that are simply not true.

I AM BIASED…AND SO ARE YOU

It is important that we own our biases when we begin important conversations, so here are a few of mine. First, I believe our political system has become horribly broken…in so many ways. I probably do not need to go into those examples here. Suffice it to say that, because of this, I simply do not trust political motives. So, once it becomes apparent to me that your “heartfelt, thoughtful” position on an issue is mostly about winning the next election, I admit that I stop doing the kind of deep listening we most need these days.

Second, I believe our culture places way too much emphasis and importance on national politics (where very few of us live) and not nearly enough on local politics (where most of us live). I admit to having little regard for a person’s opinions about people he/she has never met living in a place he/she has never been about an issue with which he/she has no experience. These are the realities of national politics.

Third, as a peacemaker, I know I have a clear bias against extreme voices. And yet, in this day of social media, it seems those are often the only voices we want to hear. Those are the voices that get the much-coveted “clicks” and “follows”. My bias against them colors my conversation about them. I own all these biases and recognize all the ways they color my thoughts and my words about the “culture wars”.

WHAT I MEAN BY “CULTURE WARS”

“Culture wars”, to me, mean something more than merely advocating for positive change. I am all for advocacy, even activism, when it is thoughtful, purpose-driven, and aimed at changing people’s hearts. To me, that advocacy becomes “culture warring” when our engagement with each other shifts, leaving no further room for listening or learning or curiosity. It is a way of engaging with each other that foregoes any kind of collaborating or negotiating.

By “culture wars” I mean using political or economic or social powers to force others to behave the way I think they should behave, irrespective of what they want or believe. As a metaphor, “war” signals the end of listening or coexisting. It shifts to a kind of aggression and conquering mindset, seeking to bring the other side to a humiliating end. The implication is that there must be a winner and a loser, that one side has value and the other side is absolutely and completely devalued. As a metaphor for our motivations in our public discourse, then, it is horribly flawed. And it leads to horribly flawed messaging, with lies and mischaracterizations on every side. As with all wars, it makes moving forward as a pluralistic community virtually impossible.

TRUTH MATTERS

The point, then, of this series of posts, will be to identify the lies inherent in ALL SIDES of our current culture wars. Because these lies are misleading us. They are causing us to engage with one another in ways that are doing damage to the fabric of our communities, our families, and our friendships. And in each of those cases (communities, families, friendships), when we lose our connection to truth, it leaves us with nothing else to build on. If we do not have truth, i.e., if we believe the lies of the culture wars, our hope for any sense of community and moving forward together is gone.

I will begin, then, by identifying the lies. I will call them out, one at a time, and I will suggest an alternative truth to each of them. In that process, perhaps we can find a more productive way of engaging each other…one that can actually move us forward together. Stay tuned.

© One Another Project

Permissions: We permit and encourage you to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way and do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction. For web posting, we prefer a link to this document on this website. Any exceptions to the above must be approved by One Another Project.  Please include the following statement on any distributed copy: © One Another Project. Website: oneanotherproject.com.