Be a Hero: 7 Essentials for Saving America

~ Are you heroic enough, first and foremost, to do battle in your own heart? ~

I’ve learned a lot since I had it all figured out; since I tried to save America while working in Christian Media; since I promoted political activism and got arrested at abortion clinics. I was fully immersed in that early wave of Christian activists, newly awakened to the potential and power of our Christian crusade. My regrets and triumphs through that tangled maze of truth and deception taught me these seven essentials for being a hero and saving America:

1. Be more childlike, specifically by questioning your assumptions. If you are like I was, you are set in your opinions. You become defensive when you are challenged. There’s no hope for America if we refuse to expose our own faults. Jesus, who urged us to be childlike, knew that closed minds are open to deception. Being childlike means admitting that you might be wrong. If you can’t do that, you are part of the problem, not the answer.

2. Care about truth more than politics. And stop believing everything that aligns with your biases. Research shows that people on all sides of the issues tend to believe lies that align with their presuppositions.[1] Are you bold enough to cross-check the claims made by your sources? Learn to say to your own people, “I’m skeptical about that. I’ll have to check it out.” Develop critical thinking skills. Look at all the sources — not just your own — and do a fair analysis of the facts.
   Don’t be so eager to please the religious crowd. This is how mobs form. [If I just lost you, this is proof that you need this most of all!] I learned this while working in Christian radio. Media consumers react emotionally, in sync with the emotional appeal of a persuasive leader. If you follow the religious crowd, remember that religious people crucified  Jesus, allied with political power. Stop trusting everything you hear that aligns with your biases. Hate lies as much as your heavenly Father does (Proverbs 12:22). Stand for truth, not politics or religion.

3. Stop bearing false witness against your neighbor by repeating false claims from the media. This commandment (Exodus 20:16) applies to our media habits. Jesus called us to care for and protect strangers and enemies, not just family. My work in Christian media put me at the heart of this sin. I telegraphed lies about our opponents to millions of radio listeners, calling whole groups of people lazy, greedy, subversive and evil. As is common, these lies were built upon half-truths. I was too proud and religious to see how my unsubstantiated accusations did, in fact, bear false witness against my neighbors and cause them great harm.
   Only an honest pursuit of truth, aided by childlikeness, enabled me to understand how Christian media — partnered with rich, powerful and agenda-driven people — propagated half-truths and lies that hurt real people. I learned that I had been  breaking God’s command to love and protect the reputation of others.
   When people say you can’t trust “anything” said by Hillary, Trump, Biden, or whoever, this is a sin, like murder or theft. These kinds of lies hurt whole classes of people in egregious ways. We must oppose these ungodly claims. We must learn how to listen to all sides and seek to validate destructive claims. As Martin Luther wrote in his Small Catechism: “We should fear and love God so that we do not lie about, betray or slander our neighbor, but excuse him, speak well of him and put the best construction on everything.”[2]
   The harms of bearing false witness against people groups in the modern age are horrific. Half-truths and lies have persuaded “good people” to support genocide against Jews, Native Americans and many others. So seek truth and justice.

4. Stop allowing fear to lead. Stop being played by those who warn “They’re coming for you if you don’t do what I say.” Stop assuming that everyone you disagree with has a secret agenda to harm you. These expressions of fearfulness are often accompanied by a self-centered, self-protective lifestyle and the lack of demonstrable love toward anyone outside the trusted group. Too many Christians don’t even have a meaningful relationship with someone from the “other side.”
   Personally, it took great courage to leave my Christian bunker and begin spending time each week with marginalized people, many of whose beliefs and practices even now run contrary to my own. What a great joy it has been to see these strangers become friends. My stereotypes have been shattered. I have a deeper understanding of their challenges. Some of the poorest people I know demonstrate a Christlike love that puts me and my prosperous friends to shame.
   As you strengthen love and demolish fear, spend time with the people you have been avoiding. Speak with them, rather than about them.

5. Stop defining America’s issues in terms of battles and culture wars and the agendas of corrupt enemies who want to destroy us. Does this language come from Jesus? … or from Satan? Did Jesus teach his disciples to stockpile weapons against the “enemy”? Is it okay to support a “prolife” platform that hurts so many people at home and abroad?
   The Bible says we do not battle against flesh and blood. America may indeed be moving closer to physical conflict, but followers of Christ have no business taking sides. We are peacekeepers. We are truth-seekers. We are the Red Cross, binding up wounds and helping people at the street level. We need to be ambassadors who have friends on all sides of the issues, encouraging dialog, not dissension.
   Instead of drawing battle lines, learn to love those you are suspicious of, even at great cost to yourself. Stop bearing false witness against them. Stop pushing an unloving agenda in churches and legislation. Stop being so politically self-centered! Before saying one word of criticism against the people you don’t trust, shake their hands and share meals with them. Learn to love them, as Jesus commanded.
   Imagine the person you despise most coming to anoint Jesus’ feet with oil (Luke 7). He wouldn’t say “Don’t touch the Son of God! Go change your life first.” This is not God’s character, so don’t let it be yours. Jesus showed us how love embraces society’s outcasts and seeks to bring them into fellowship. This is how we save America, not with weapons of war.

6. Stop blaming people for their suffering, saying they are lazy, short-sighted or unchristian. We must stop patting ourselves on the back for taking care of our own families. The Bible says even pagans do that. God calls us to care for enemies and strangers. Stop criticizing the “secular media” for their “ungodly agenda” in helping people who suffer. This is worse than the pious priests who watched a beaten stranger bleed, while the reprobate Samaritan gave everything to help him. In demonstrable ways, the “secular media” has for decades been putting Christians to shame in its defense of people who are oppressed and suffering.

7. Question your interpretation of the Bible and end times prophecy. Modern predictions of doom, in particular, have caused believers to sin by neglect. Pious believers have allowed people to suffer under the assumption that they are damned and this suffering is somehow God’s plan. This is pure evil, to let people suffer and blame it on God. This was my sin, at a time in my life when I was so wrapped up in end times prophecy that I cared more for my own future than for the real and present sufferings of others.
   This lack of love comes from corrupt theology. With so many different denominations and theologies from Bible times until today, how can we be so arrogant as to say that ours alone is correct?
   Without question, one theology supersedes all others: God is agape, sacrificial love. Without question, one law supersedes all others: the command to sacrificially love others. Christian theologies and agendas that are unloving to enemies and strangers and the oppressed are simply wrong. If we have questions about how to express agape love toward those who “deserve” it least, just look to Jesus. He showed us how to love enemies and strangers.

Seek Truth — Expose Deception

Christians must not make the oft-repeated mistake of allying earthly power with misplaced morality, claiming they are acting in God’s name. This claim turns Christians into oppressors. We must stop being manipulated by the selfish threat: “They’re coming for you.” We must open our hearts to the people who are suffering and dying as a result of religion’s ungodly alliance with worldly wealth and power, at home and abroad. We must stop being deceived by politics spun with quasi-religious concepts.

There is no place among Christians for side-taking in this wicked conflict. There is no place for a self-protective, self-centered political agenda. There is no place for feeling good about helping some people while causing the suffering and death of others. There is no place for a pseudo-love that is not sacrificial, that only protects our people and our personal property. There is no place for fear.

I learned a lot since I promoted unloving half-truths at the highest level of Christian media in America. Jesus said love is the only law we need to know. Agape love is God’s complete nature. Jesus showed us exactly what love looks like. Love compels us to demolish all arguments, cross enemy lines and build relationships with enemies and strangers.

This is how to be a hero and save America.

For related articles, see:

Paul’s Epistle to the Church in America

The Problem with “Agreeing to Disagree”

Our Favorite Christian Deception, Easily Remedied

Image by Brad Ferguson, Flickr.

[1] Scott Barry Kaufman, “Liberals and Conservatives Are Both Susceptible to Fake News, but for Different Reasons,” Scientific American, https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/liberals-and-conservatives-are-both-susceptible-to-fake-news-but-for-different-reasons/.

[2] Martin Luther, The Small Catechism, written in 1529, https://blc.edu/comm/gargy/gargy1/elscatechism.htm.