A Stain on Souls

Many of my friends have a seething hatred of Barack Obama. And they have a seething hatred of his supporters. "Takers" they call us.

I believe that the devil delights in this hatred.

1. My own problem with hatred.

But let me track my own history of hatred before I talk much about others.

When I did not believe, I was a hater.

I judged. When I disapproved of someone, I seethed at them. I expressed my hatred to my circle of friends.

I try to remember the attractiveness of condemnation. I suppose that in scorning others, I felt, by comparison, virtuous. Making judgments on lesser mortals, I was a god in my own mind.

I look back with more years and maturity, and I know that I fooled myself. I was not virtuous because I judged others. In fact, I might have been, on balance, less virtuous than the ones I judged.

2. The problem of judging.

It was not a beautiful quality that I had. I remember realizing this when a younger friend of mine in college adopted my habit of harsh judgment. I realized that of all my qualities, I regretted that he had adopted that one.

I have not after many years completely freed myself of this habit. I still need to pray to God to help me not look down on others.

We are commanded not to judge – judge not, lest ye be judged. With an instruction so clear, it is a wonder that Christians don’t flee from condemning others.

Maybe I don’t understand. But it does seem that it’s important to judge ourselves against our understanding of what we ought to be. And it’s natural apply this knowledge of the difference between "is" and "ought" to others. The ability to tell the difference between "is" and "ought" is a quality that makes us better persons.

Maybe the difference between what we may and what we may not do is the step of lifting ourselves in our own minds above the person whom we judge. Or maybe it’s the step that judging goads us to take. That step is to forget that the person we judge is made in the image of God, and that, God having made them in his image, he also loves them. I could never love and judge a person at the same time.

I hope I don’t look down on those whom I now criticize. If I criticize, I need to recognize myself in my own criticism.

3. Freedom from fact.

It seems to me that this hatred of Barack Obama has a fact-free quality, like bread baked without flour.

The claim that Obama overreaches with executive orders fits well with the president-gone-wild meme; it is largely fact free. For example, people persist in claiming, in defiance of reported facts, that Obama is banning assault weapons by executive order.

My friend believes that Obama is a communist. I don’t know what his proof for this folderol is. I suspect that he’s looked at some minutiae in Obama’s background and, ignoring everything else, lets that tiny fact grow in his mind, like Jack’s magic beans, into a full-fledged stalk leading him up to the heights of Obama-hating.

The birther controversy is famously fact-free. It’s evident that to true believers, no evidence will ever convince them that Obama was born in Hawaii. Their flight from proof becomes ever more fantastical but no less cherished.

I’ve even seen Obama called a "dictator". Now, there are people who resemble dictators who lead nominally-democratic countries. Hugo Chavez so controlled mass media in his country and attacked so relentlessly the economic base of his enemies that elections really were a farce.

But that’s not America. We have a vigorous and squabbling media that feels free both to support and condemn Obama. Nobody who wants to hear hatred of the president ever has to wait longer than the end of a commercial break. So the defects of elections in, say, Venezuela or Russia simply do not exist here. The accusation that democratically-elected Obama is a dictator – the Obama who is subject to Congress and the Supreme Court – this accusation is just bizarre.

4. Fear.

I try to understand. I try to relate the attitudes of Obama-haters to my feeling about the last Bush in the presidency.

I did condemn him during the U.S. Attorney firing scandal. The evidence seemed to show that Bush’s Attorney General fired U.S. Attorneys who did not make criminal prosecutions political hammers. But the idea of using the criminal justice system to imprison political opponents is, to me, genuinely frightening. It was a direct threat to democracy.

So maybe, with Obama-haters, a little evidence bonds with a lot of fear – fear that somehow Obama is going to destroy the country. A perfectly rational friend of mine, a teacher, really does believe that Obama wants to turn America into a third-world country.

And maybe this fear has an avalanche quality. It picks up strength as it gathers momentum. New "facts", new accusations, get added to the deadly wall of roiling dread. The speed of this avalanche of dire fear does not allow each new fact to be carefully vetted, and every time a new fact is added to the avalanche, the avalanche picks up speed. This makes it increasingly doubtful that the next cluster of facts will be examined with any care. It becomes something like unstoppable.

5. Panic.

And if there was a time when rationality could be applied to the evidence, the growing power of the newly re-elected president makes his detractors panic and leads them to pull fire alarms rather that weigh their worry. They might not see smoke coming from under classroom doors, but they believe that it’s there, and the dread of the country disappearing in a sudden fireball puts them in full freak-out mode.

But, truthfully, "[W]e don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud" has logical appeal. It got us into Iraq. If the fear is great, the evidence is judged more leniently.

6. Stain.

And if they were right, then of course our circumstances would be grave.

But if they’re wrong, then this seething hatred is a stain on their souls.

Among Christians, their hatred leads them to hate a Christian brother. 1 John 2:9: "Whoever says, ‘I am in the light,’ while hating a brother or sister, is still in the darkness." (NRSV.)

Even were Obama not a Christian, his haters who are Christian would have no excuse for the kinds of things said about him. James 3:8-10: "[B]ut no one can tame the tongue—a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this ought not to be so." (NRSV.)

7. Challenge to Obama-haters.

So a lot rides on Obama’s nature and our judgment on it.

Either the country is headed into hell, or hatred of the president is a stain on the souls of those who condemn him.

This calls for sober judgment. I invite my friends who are eager to hate our president to enter into conversation. I invite you to explore more than the sources of opinion that confirm what you already believe.

8. Challenge to liberals.

But here’s a challenge to my liberal friends: if we want our conservative friends to examine their beliefs, we must have the courage to examine ours. If we want conversation, it must be a real back-and-forth. We have to go into the woods with them to find together the way out.

Having said that, I also know that I won't necessarily do it. I have a friend who, I now believe, argues for the sake of provoking and angering. It's not my calling to put up with that.

9. Out of our hands.

And, just like I depend on God for my own sanctification, such as it is, in the end God will do his business with our freinds who cling to strange ideas about our president. Who knows what God plans; but in the end he is capable of doing more than we with our mortal arguments and internet fact-checks can.

The Generosity of Abraham Lincoln

1. Hate calls to hate in American history.

Before the Civil War, abolitionists spoke hatefully about the South, and Southerners spoke hatefully about abolitionists. Even before the war-killing started, there was violence.

Senator Charles Sumner was a strong abolitionist, and Congressman Preston Brooks was a Southerner. Sumner insulted a kin of Brooks in an anti-slavery speech. The next day, on the floor of the Senate, Brooks ambushed Sumner and beat him with a cane. The beating was so savage that Senator Sumner never fully regained his health. Brooks survived a congressional censure vote, resigned from Congress, and was immediately re-elected by the elated voters of his district.

At Pottawatomie Creek, Kansas, abolitionist John Brown and his men hacked to death five pro-slavery supporters. John Brown was celebrated in song. (John Brown’s Body.)

2. The generosity of Abraham Lincoln.

Not everybody shared hatred. Abraham Lincoln did not. He gave a speech in Peoria, Illinois in 1854. He attacked the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. This repeal permitted slavery to spread. He did not attack his opponents. He showed that he did not judge them.


Before proceeding, let me say I think I have no prejudice against the Southern people. They are just what we would be in their situation. If slavery did not now exist amongst them, they would not introduce it. If it did now exist amongst us, we should not instantly give it up.

This I believe of the masses north and south. Doubtless, there are individuals, on both sides, who would not hold slaves under any circumstances; and others who would gladly introduce slavery anew, if it were out of existence. We know that some Southern men do free their slaves, go north, and become tiptop abolitionists; while some Northern ones go south, and become most cruel slavemasters.

When Southern people tell us they are no more responsible for the origin of slavery then we, I acknowledge the fact. When it is said that the institution exists, and that it is very difficult to get rid of it in any satisfactory way, I can understand and appreciate the saying. I surely will not blame them for not doing what I should not know how to do myself.
The insight "They are just what we would be in their situation " is brilliant, humble, and non-judgmental. And it is Biblical. It lives in "Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven." (Luke 6:37 (NIV).)

3. Lincoln’s understanding as a lamp to read the Bible by.

And Lincoln’s understanding, which is from the Bible, also reflects back on the Bible. It helps us to understand the importance today to us of some parts the Bible.

I’m reading the Old Testament prophetic book Ezekiel. I’m reading about the children of Israel, what they did before God crushed them and scattered them to the nations. They worshiped idols. They even sacrificed their own sons and daughters to these handmade gods. It’s easy to judge. It’s better to wonder: if I had lived in those times, would I have joined in these horrible practices?

Likewise, people often judge those who crucified Jesus. Instead of judging, the better response is to wonder whether we, if we had lived in those times, would have stood in the plaza in front of Pontius Pilate and shouted "Crucify!" Instead of assuming that we would have wept at the foot of the cross, it’s better to remember what Lincoln said: "They are just what we would be in their situation."

4. The good in us, the good in others.

If we have any good in us, we don’t have it because we are innately good. It’s the favor of Providence. It is the Holy Spirit working in us.

Hezekiah was a righteous king of Judah. The kings of Judah were good and bad. Sometimes they were very bad, like Hezekiah’s father, Ahaz, and Hezekiah’s son Manasseh. But Hezekiah was the best of kings. (2 Kings 18:5.)

And he was righteous because of God in him. Toward the end of his life, God withdrew from him, and Hezekiah blundered. The blunder is described in 2 Kings 20. The blunder is explained in 2 Chronicles 32: "God left him to test him and to know everything that was in his heart." (2 Chronicles 32:31 (NIV).)

The Holy Spirit is at work in the world and in the universe, in the believer and in the unbeliever. God can withdraw the Holy Spirit at any time. My faith in God is what it is, and I consider it to be a bedrock of my personality. But recently, I believe that God withdrew my faith, and for the first time in many decades my faith collapsed in weakness. This humbled me.

5. Lincoln’s generosity as a light in these dark times.

We can choose to judge those Muslims in Libya who killed our ambassador and three others. But it might be better to remember Lincoln: "They are just what we would be in their situation."

I tend to judge the makers of the crude and hateful film that insulted the Muslim prophet and may have provoked the deadly response in Libya. So I too need to remember "They are just what we would be in their situation."

I tend to judge Mitt Romney. Some of my friends fume against Barack Obama. But "They are just what we would be in their situation."

So that we don’t think of ourselves more highly than we ought, or think of others more harshly than we ought, we need to remember what Paul said: "God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all." (Romans 11:32 (NIV).)

As for our conduct, I guess that the right thing to do is to struggle against disobedience, as strongly as God empowers us to do. And we should give glory to God for the good that he grows in ourselves and in others, Christian, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, unbeliever.

Unlike the makers of the crude film that provoked fury in Islam, we should not call hate to hate. We should not return evil for evil. God calls us to love our enemies. Sometimes this is considered naive. But it is generous, like Abraham Lincoln.