Among the thinning list of vices still capable of generating unilateral outrage, bigotry remains at the top…with one exception. We have good reasons to hate bigotry. It is the judging, excluding, discriminating, and oppressing of a human being made in God’s image based on external differences. The seed of bigotry grows in the soil of hatred and pride, and blooms into some of the basest, most horrific atrocities that human beings commit.
Western society’s most laudable moral pivot in the past fifty years (one often glossed over in narratives chronicling our progressive degeneration) has been a burgeoning intolerance for bigotry. We have become adept (often overly so) at sniffing out the aromas of bigotry. This is generally a good thing. We’re willing to listen more. But there is one arena where we are proudly becoming less tolerant. Even as we strive to become better at appreciating diversity among backgrounds and cultures, a cancer of bigotry is growing that rivals our worst historical prejudices—a bigotry against political identity groups.
We might initially dismiss political bigotry as something categorically different. After all, politics are a matter of opinions and values, subject to change, progression, and correction. One’s opinion on political opponents has nothing to do with judging that person’s value or dignity.
If we suspend, for the moment, the challenging complexity of how our values often stem from our background and culture, I might accept political bigotry under those terms as something categorically different from, say, the bigotry of hating Irish people. But today’s political bigotry is precisely not that sort. It does not honor an opponent as respectable and intelligent, while disagreeing over a philosophy of governance.
Consider the program and aim of bigotry: it seeks to pigeonhole and caricature another group in order to disparage their dignity and worth. Bigotry flattens a person’s three-dimensionality. It is dismissive and intends to gain control. That sounds a lot like what passes for political discourse today. Whole groups of people, left and right, are summarily described and decried with one-word metonyms, as if once that part of their identity is known about them, well…what more needs to be said? We then produce ready-made stereotypes about that person, down to what music they must listen to and what they eat for breakfast.
Jesus shows his followers a different way. For Christians, the kingdom of God stakes a claim to every place and every conversation. And it provides a higher set of categories for understanding people and caring for them. Within Jesus’ own band of followers, he recruited a tax collector and a zealot—radically opposed sides of the Jewish political spectrum.
Jesus took it on himself to befriend and offer grace to a Samaritan woman. This was someone who was an outsider in every conceivable way: a woman, a person of moral scandal, and a Samaritan—a sect split from the Jews “with whom the Jews had no dealings” (Jn 4:9). Jesus repeatedly demonstrates that not only was he uninterested in currying favor with the powerful among his own party, but he also had a penchant for turning them down in favor of outsiders.
In Jesus’ most famous political test, where he is provoked to take sides on one of the most divisive issues of the day (Roman rule and whether to pay taxes), he flatly refuses to get sucked in. “Render to Caesar that which is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s,” Jesus answers them (Mt 22:21). In other words, you’re worried about the wrong thing. Your whole life belongs to God. Have you given any thought to that debt?
In Romans 13, Paul commands that we respect government authority. Peter gives us a condensed and uncomfortable version of the same: “Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor. Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the unjust” (I Pet 2:17). This is where we as Christians, frankly, have really fallen off. How many of us could say that we honor even the politicians we agree with, to say nothing of the spawn of Satan we vote against?
The kingdom of God uses a different strategy than any political party. When Jesus’ disciples approach him after his resurrection and ask, with evident impatience: “Will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6) Jesus responds that it’s not for them to know the time and seasons God has fixed, but they will receive power from the Holy Spirit and be his witnesses to the end of the earth.
The disciples wanted political action. They wanted to see this Jesus campaign finally gain some real traction. Jesus affirms that his side will win, but he redirects our political zeal: “Be my witnesses”, he commands us. That’s how the kingdom is going to come. It’s not that politics doesn’t matter; it’s just that the real progress we long to see comes through God’s Spirit and Word empowering God’s people as you live your life out as a witness.
