Whose side are you on? As polarized as our world now is, there is considerable pressure to choose a side. And of course, the side that we do choose must not be just any side, but the right side. Surely there are moments in history that pose the question regarding sides more urgently than others, and this feels like one. The importance of aligning ourself with one side and rejecting the other seems of late to have consequences that are increasingly more important. I recognize that some historical moments ask the question about whose side you’re on at times and in ways that could be described as existentially critical but, to be sure, taking sides is required of us daily. The need, or desire to choose sides has created a political landscape that is more than simply hazardous to our friendships. Liberals and conservatives have tacked further left and right, opening a vast gulf between large portions of our country’s population that seems to grow wider by the hour. Intolerance blossoms and one side cannot stand to be around the other so much so that The New York Times published a piece on the number of people that are moving from red states to blue (and vice versa) to create distance between those whose political, ethical, and educational viewpoints are so powerfully at odds with their own it becomes intolerable to be in close proximity to one another. If you have siblings, of course you remember the tactic embraced by your parents of sending you to your respective rooms when the tension became close to unmanageable. Generally, cooling off periods worked when the consequences of one’s “side” seemed less…well, consequential. Now, we are pulling up stakes and moving to be in the company of like-minded and righteous people. Listen, it’s a big deal to move. I know this from having just done it. But yet, here we are.
Hamas jihadists poured over the Gaza border into Israel a few days ago killing hundreds of Israelis (and it turns out some American s as well). A year and a half ago, Russia rumbled into Ukraine “to liberate the Ukrainians from the Fascists” … or, reclaim territories that have historically been Russia’s…or, to satisfy Putin’s fantasy that he is somehow a manifestation of Peter the Great and destined to preside over what was once a vast empire. As long as you align with Putin, any one of these justifications will do.
The polarization of Americans around certain issues, the attack on Israel, and the war in Ukraine reflect a startling and unusually concentrated collection of historical events that have stirred the populations of some of the world’s most powerful countries. People are distressed, their TV sets tuned to CNN as opinions are shaped and harden finally spilling over into their day to day discourse with family, friends, colleagues, acquaintances, and the vast collections of others with whom we all must regularly interact .
Have you chosen a position? Whose side are you on?
“The Israeli’s have oppressed the Palestinians for years. Of course they are enraged and you would expect…..
“Wait right there! Israel has an historical claim to…”
“Give the Russians Crimea…and well, part of the Donbas.” So says (said) Macron and Musk.
“Are you kidding me! They invaded a peaceful independent…”
And the politician who inwardly contemplates: “Well, let’s see. How can I put this another way? What side should I choose to be re-elected?” Then quietly, they wonder. (Wait, did I really say that?” then shrug it off with, “I’d never say that publicly!”)
My son and I have been going back and forth about this business of choosing sides, most poignantly over the Hamas/Israel conflict. We are not arguing for one side or the other but more accurately discussing the seeming necessity to align with one side or the other. As is often the case with my son, the issue broadened to ethical alignments, in general. Choosing sides, of course is partly an effort to reduce moral ambiguity. Most moral conflicts where harm is inflicted require a blame object. I have written about this before. A blame object is much like a scapegoat in the sense that it is an object/subject onto which we can fix blame therefore reducing moral ambiguity and offering moral certainty. After all, determining who is the enemy, the object of blame just kind of clears up the messiness of a “well, we all bear some blame” approach. Indeed the proposers of such an approach are often likely to become the blame object themselves for what is framed as their gutless neutrality. It is a peculiar thing, but finding someone or something to blame for some ill, makes us feel better.
When I was ordained a deacon in 1976 and priest in 1977, the Episcopal Church was impacted by several divisive issues that seemed to require taking sides. One was the ordination of women to the priesthood. At the time, a collection of Episcopal Churches in the Diocese of Los Angeles where I was ordained decided they had been abandoned by the Church when they decided women could be ordained. It was a difficult time because the two sides saw the matter so very differently. One saw it as a gender equality issue while the other saw it as a fidelity to the actions of Jesus issue (who chose men to be his apostles). Yes, the arguments on either side are nuanced and it is not my intent to explore these now. What I do think is interesting is that in the few years preceding the ordination of women issue, a movement known as the charismatic movement seized hold of the church. The charismatic movement seemed more especially to impact most profoundly the so-called liturgical churches That is, those whose rituals are fairly prescriptive and whose congregations seemed enchanted by both the beauty and predictability of what happens during a worship service. The charismatic movement embraced the notion that those who were inspired ie: possessed by the holy spirit were granted certain gifts such as speaking in tongues, the interpretation of tongues, and prophesying. They championed spontaneity in worship as opposed to prescriptive texts, they believed effusive and emotional expressions of one’s belief were central to real worship. If you know the Episcopal Church, (“the frozen chosen”) you can only imagine how distressing this was for those who had done the same thing over and over for countless Sundays. In any case, the charismatic movement and fundamentalism became intertwined and biblical literalism was embraced by a large number of formerly traditional Episcopalians.
It divided the Church, it divided congregations, it divided families. Biblical fundamentalism often coupled with the charismatic movement took on an increasingly important role for many traditional Episcopalians and soon people were demanded to choose a side.
What strikes me as relevant and why I even raise this issue is how little tolerance there was for ambiguity and/or uncertainty. Apologizing in advance for the invariable offense I will inflict, the Fundamentalists had no tolerance for uncertainty, ambiguity, the gray areas. The Bible was/is clear and demands you align your views with it or put your salvation at risk.
At the root of so much of our current discord is a fundamentalistic approach whose purpose is the elimination of moral uncertainty. Moral certainty is what gives one the courage and sense of righteousness to behead a so-called “infidel” while you shout “God is great”. A sort of fundamentalist certainty is what allows many Israeli’s to claim that they are without a doubt God’s chosen people to whom this land was given. This is what allows Church leaders to claim that because in the Christian stories, Jesus never said that women could be ordained, they must be relegated to other roles forever. This is what allows Constitutional fundamentalists to read the second amendment as a license for all to possess whatever firearms they wish. In almost all cases, you can hear the retort to any critical question-“Look, it says so right here in this book… this document…this commandment.”
I believe fundamentalism, literalism, and/or fanaticism of any sort generally requires the relinquishment of one’s critical thinking skills and the adoption of a static set of principles or precepts that defy the dynamic forces of time.
The notion that God, morality, our constitution, relationships…the notion that anything is static and beyond the impact of time and history fails to recognize what has been embraced by the world of science, philosophy, literature, politics, and much of theology which, in large part has abandoned the notion of God as the ‘unmoved mover’. The cosmos is dynamic- constantly changing and evolving with the passage of time… what is now is constantly passing away, so we are in many ways adrift in the uncertainty of a dynamic existence. This doesn’t mean we are condemned to a world dominated by the anxiety engendered by such uncertainty, leaving us desperate to find anything that remains unchanged. It means we must stop fighting time with intransigent and static rules. We must be attuned to the direction of the current and float along with it embracing the inevitability of change and the futility of fighting it. Change is neither right or wrong- good nor bad. It is simply the way things are. Before we are disposed to lop our brother or sister’s head off for some moral failing, let’s not defer to some rule a thousand years old, but consider it in the light of the present moment.
Peter the Great is no more. The promise of a land filled with milk and honey did not exclude the potential for peaceful coexistence. Jesus may have never mentioned that women could be called to the priesthood but neither did he say that only men could be. Indeed, one could well imagine Jesus finding himself something of a stranger in most any church.
Still, we are not incapable of sound moral decisions in a complex world. But decisions such as those mentioned above are complex. These are not decisions whose rightness or wrongness can be held up against the template of some document or event thousands of years old. These are not decisions that can be responsibly made by asking “what would Jesus do?” A good deal of the gospel stories are devoted to dispelling the idea that anyone knew what Jesus would do. The anxiety of uncertainty is a disturbing reality of our existence. Moral decisions that impact others and soothe the conscience should never be easily made. They are hard and must be hammered out by deeply probing our own soul and testing them against robust critical thinking. In such a complex world with uncertainty written into every aspect of our life, what right have we to believe that moral certainty belongs to us or is that to which we are entitled. There is no certainty. And that is the only certainty we have to embrace. The moral path is blazed across reality’s pervasive uncertainty but can only be lived out as an act of faith.