The President appropriately did not blame anyone who uses phrases like "Lock and load" or "take out the opposition" in political debate for the shootings in Tucson. It appears, in fact, that the president managed to turn the whole debate around and some very thoughtful people have taken up the challenge of suggesting exactly what "civility" would look like in public discourse in our society.
Jim Wallis and Charles Colson are easily identifiable as representatives of the "Religious Left" and the "Religious Right", respectively, but they coauthored an article in Christianity Today in which they wrote:
" . . . we affirm the politics of conviction. Conviction is not inconsistent with civility, which is far deeper than political niceness, indifference, or weakness. We recall the example of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who could never be accused of a lack of passion; yet he persisted in the non-violent treatment of his adversaries, hoping to win them over rather than to win over them.
Perhaps the most helpful article I've read comes from Martin Marty, a noted historian who has watched and commented on current events for decades. He finds guidance in Martin Luther's Shorter Catechism (Dr. Marty is a Lutheran and P-R-O-U-D of it!). Luther is explaining the commandment: "Thou shalt not bear false witness against your neighbor" to what we would today call "teenagers".
Martin Luther says this commandment means:
"We are to fear and love God, so that we do not tell lies about our neighbors, betray or slander them, or destroy their reputations. Instead we are to come to their defense, speak well of them, and interpret everything they do in the best possible light."
Now here is a spiritual exercise. Just as a litmus test let us suppose that you choose either Hillary Clinton or Sarah Palin as your subject, whichever one rubs you the wrong way the most, and try it out.
Maybe we can handle the first part: "We are to fear and love God, so that we do not tell lies about our neighbors, betray or slander them, or destroy their reputations."
But, what about that second part? Instead we are to come to their defense, speak well of them, and interpret everything they do in the best possible light."
Not so easy, is it? Or maybe I'm just speaking for myself.
It shows how much our souls are affected by what passes for public discourse these days that we may not feel a need to strictly "fact check" the criticisms we make of people we disagree with and even actively dislike. (I've read and passed on so many emails that I later learned were "urban legends" that I now check even the most plausible with Snopes.com .) And it is even sadder that we are almost proud of our suspicion and cynicism about public figures with whom we almost always disagree. Indeed, many of us, I suspect, would feel that we would be betraying our own integrity if we ever " come to the defense, speak well of, and interpret everything [the public figure we despise] does in the best possible light."
It is precisely here that we see and experience a spirituality that can counter the spiritual poison that often claims a bizarre caricature of Christianity as its basis and authority. Christian "conviction" is not an excuse to put the cross-hairs on anyone, even metaphorically, and it precludes a self-righteous presumption (and I mean both those words theologically) that we are completely right about any issue.
Christian moral and spiritual conviction, in fact, demands non-violent discourse and action. It demands truth. Truth may not be comfortable for those who don't want to hear it. And the truth places two obligations on those who would speak it.
One is that the speaker must be open to the possibility that he or she may not have the whole truth or even be mistaken. John Wesley used to preface some of his statements of deepest conviction by saying, "Until I am better instructed, I will believe . . . "
The second is that the speaker of the truth must seek the ultimate good of the person being addressed. Martin Luther King, Jr. believed that the white racists' souls would be saved if they were confronted with the truth about the evils of their racism, even though, in the short run it might deprive them of an economic or social advantage.
Colson and Wallis give us an alternative that is open, I think, even to those who are not conventionally religious and it is liable to make those of us who are conventionally religious to become unconventionally open-minded and open-hearted:
The scriptural admonition to pray for those in political authority is more than a religious duty, it promotes good civic behavior. It is more difficult to hate someone when you are praying for them. Jesus' commandment to love our enemies, including those with whom we politically disagree, is even more challenging and defies the ideologies of both left and right.
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