In the Gospel narratives, a gaggle of soldiers got here to arrest Jesus before his crucifixion. Trying to stop them, the apostle Peter brandished a sword to defend Jesus from danger but missed his goal, striking one in all the soldiers—mockingly enough—on the ear. Jesus responded through the use of one in all his final moments in person together with his followers to show them concerning the dangers of political and spiritual violence.
Jesus rebuked Peter with a much-quoted line: “Put your sword back instead … for all who draw the sword will die by the sword” (Matt. 26:52). Violence, Jesus taught, only begets more violence, making a spiral that may eat individuals, movements, and sometimes even republics.
But Jesus did greater than issue a policy statement. He healed the soldier who had come to do him harm (Luke 22:51).
This same soldier and his fellow combatants would proceed with the arrest, and Jesus would turn out to be a victim of state-sponsored torture and death. The healing, then, was not a commentary on the soldier’s politics. Jesus didn’t heal because he believed the actions against him were just. The healing was a recognition of his enemy’s humanity, for there are moments to put aside politics and to see our opponents as fellow bearers of the image of God.
In the aftermath of the attempted assassination of former president Donald Trump, we discover ourselves in one in all those moments. Regardless of our party affiliation, it is acceptable to lament the attack, to grieve the passing of the daddy in the gang who died defending his family, and to hope for all those impacted by this unjustifiable act of violence.
But for Christians, prayers are the simple part. Being honest concerning the state of our nation is harder.
It is disingenuous for us to pretend that this was unimaginable. We have seen an excessive amount of death on this country to act as if anything is beyond comprehension: We have endured gunmen shooting at college children and at worshippers in churches and synagogues; at people in night clubs, grocery stores, and college campuses; and at young Black boys out for a jog. We have lost the precise to pretend that it’s unthinkable that somebody would aim at a politician. There is a dangerous rage that has been bubbling over in every corner of this country, and, in Pennsylvania, it overflowed on the campaign trail, with tragic results.
Political violence has long been in our rhetoric as well. Our discourse on social media is a wasteland. Talk of civil war is in every single place within the background as we view fellow residents who disagree with us as downright evil. We’ve learned to see our political rivals as an undifferentiated mass of misfits who threaten all we hold dear—as dangers to the republic.
Do not misunderstand my point. There are high stakes in politics. There are dangerous political ideas. There are some among the many populace who wish to undermine democracy. Policies have real-world consequences, and now just isn’t the time to pretend otherwise.
But not every divergent opinion rises to that level. Our friends and neighbors who disagree with us are greater than a group of all of the worst ideas from the opposite side. Yet we’ve turn out to be strangers to at least one one other, and in our separation, discord has flourished. It is straightforward to denounce violence when it finally erupts; it’s harder to confess that it has been throughout us for quite a while, growing within the gaps made by our alienation.
It just isn’t easy to put the start of the fear that I now feel for our country. I do recall a primary stirring of it while watching the inauguration of former president Barack Obama in 2009. My now-teenage son was an infant on the time, but I woke him and placed him in front of the tv. I desired to have the option to say that we watched the installation of our nation’s first Black president together. I used to be hopeful, but in addition afraid that he is likely to be assassinated.
When Obama got out of the automotive to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue, I kept pondering, Get back in that automobile. It just isn’t protected. That feeling of fear returned to me after I first heard the news of the attempt on Trump’s life. Things should not protected on this country and haven’t been for a very long time. Each election has felt more fraught, divisive, and even dangerous.
Is there a path out of this deadly spiral? Yes. We must resign the violence that endangers all the social fabric. Jesus was correct in Gethsemane when he described hatred and murder as a social contagion that spreads from individual to individual. It is silly to think that a disease that infects the remaining of our lives together won’t make its method to our elections. A nation that can’t protect its school-age children cannot protect its presidential candidates. A nation that can’t control its virtual rage won’t control its rage within the flesh.
Words should not at all times violence. Violence is violence, but a “good man brings good things out of the great stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the center is filled with” (Luke 6:45).
We must begin to act like a people able to holding free and clear elections rooted in principle and respectful, good-faith argument. All candidates must conduct the remaining of their campaigns with an eye fixed to restoring public trust. Every election is very important, but the previous few months of this particular race can set the tone for a long time to return.
Trump, president Joe Biden, and every other third-party candidates should hold one other debate in the approaching weeks to present the United States the possibility to see them present their vision for America. They should outline their actual plans for the country and make a case for why they deserve our votes. No more debates about who’s higher at golf. The way forward for the republic is at stake.
Every American who cares concerning the way forward for democracy should vote, whether for one in all these two or for a third-party candidate. A record turnout would reaffirm our commitment to the principles we hold dear. Even at this late stage, it will be a pledge to search out a greater way.
Peter was not the one early believer who used violence. Paul, who wrote 1 / 4 of the New Testament, was involved within the killing of the primary Christian martyr, Stephen (Acts 7). Paul’s change of heart occurred while he was on the method to arrest and jail much more of his then-opponents. His encounter with Jesus caused him to reject violence as a way of getting his way, and he spent the remaining of his life traveling the Roman Empire to alter lives without assistance from human weapons. He never converted a single person through the ability of the sword. Instead, he made arguments. We must make America argue with civility again, using data and reason—and love.
In one in all Paul’s most famous passages, 1 Corinthians 13, he described love as a thing that’s patient, kind, not self-seeking or boastful, not easily angered. He spoke of a love that keeps no record of wrongs. He called it the best of all virtues, and he had in mind the love that we’d show one another as Christians (Gal. 6:10, John 13:35).
Nonetheless, love for others stays a central element of Christian teachings (Luke 10:25–37). Given the ever-rising atmosphere of hate, we’d do well to get well this love as an operating principle throughout the church and to permit that like to spill out into the world. It is likely to be our most vital witness on this moment.
Esau McCaulley (@esaumccaulley) is the creator of How Far to the Promised Land: One Black Family’s Story of Hope and Survival within the American South and the kids’s book Andy Johnson and the March for Justice. He is an associate professor of New Testament and public theology at Wheaton College.
