This morning I woke up to what has become a familiar scene in our world: There is a barrage of bad news that will throw me wildly off-center if I do even more than scratch the surface of the news app on my phone. One headline caught my attention:
Romney gives MUST-WATCH interview on bombshell vote to convict Trump
I clicked.
Though I haven’t followed the impeachment trial very closely, I did know enough to understand that it was expected that a full party-line vote would emerge from both the house and the senate.
(Also, this post is in no way a commentary on whether or not President Trump should have been convicted. I don't have enough information to make that call. We have people who are supposed to be representing our best interests and doing their due diligence in these matters. I defer to them. This post is PURELY a pushback against the mob mentality I'm seeing online and in real life)
Listening to Mitt Romney’s interview this morning on why he defected was both alarming and disheartening.
Reading some of the online responses to his vote were even more abysmally discouraging.
It seems as though, the vast majority of Republican conservatives expect every congressional representative to walk in step with the party OR ELSE. The “vote him out” vitriol resounding from the online mob served only to reinforce what I had already thought to be true: In our country, you sell out to the party or you commit political suicide.
Gone are the days (if there ever were any) where we elected folks because we trusted in the fortitude of their character that we hoped would enable them to continually practice wisdom and discernment, and when necessary, go against the flow.
History is full of examples of abuse being interrupted, corruption being exposed, oppression being halted, because one person stepped out of line and said “No. Not here. Not today. Not as long as I’m in town.” In recent history we have examples like MLK, or Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Or in biblical history there is the wildly empowering story of a woman leveraging her position to save an entire people group AT THE RISK OF LOSING HER LIFE.
We don't like that as much in 2020.
This should come as no great surprise. Fellow followers of Jesus Christ, my heart is for you as I write this, and you’re who I’m talking to.
Jesus talked about it.
When he dared to take on the establishment and confront the religiosity that oppressed and disempowered rather than set free and raised up the marginalized, he was called a drunk. He was called demon possessed. He was called a glutton. Ultimately he was crucified. He famously said “"A prophet is not without honor except in his own town, among his relatives and in his own home.”
Well, what is a prophet? It’s someone who speaks the truth and does the right thing, empowered by the knowledge of God, even at great cost to themselves. It almost always moves against groupthink, and frequently enrages those who are in silos of power.
Later this morning as I was reading a book by Dallas Willard, I came across this line, and it is ever so timely:
“The prophetic witness from God must throw itself against the massive weight of group and individual denial, often institutionalized and subtly built into our customary ways of speaking and interacting”
Basically, prophetic witness will typically cause a disturbance. We love denial. We love lies. We love self-protection. Prophetic witness seeks to undo all of those things because none of those things carries the essence of Jesus Christ and His Kingdom.
Some of my friends will say “But he’s Mormon!” I did not write this in order to have a theological debate. I have many friends who are Mormon and though we may not theologically match, that does not negate love and goodwill. It’s not my job to judge the theology of another person’s heart. What is evident though, is the fruit of Mitt Romney’s character. He acted in good faith to make a very hard decision that will likely cost him his career and may even put him in danger. I have massive respect for that.
I want my kids to know what he did. I want this country to be a land full of people who are willing to dissent because they possess integrity and hold honesty in high regard.
The kind of blind allegiance to party and individual that would lead people to devote themselves to an ideology even when that ideology begins to crack is the kind of thing that causes societal collapse.
It’s not too late to do better! For the sake of our kids, we have to do better. Question everything. Be willing to think for yourself and entertain hard questions about what you believe so you know WHY you believe it. Be less afraid of people than you are of God. God’s truth is ultimate truth, so the fear that drives us to continue looking to man-centric systems to protect us is absolutely baseless.
I want my kids to be brave. I want them to do things because they believe that to do anything else would be acting in disobedience to their Creator. I want them to have the integrity to be the outcast.
Traitors & Outcasts are welcome here.
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