A Deo Lumen

Many citizens, including large numbers of Christians and conservatives, have spoken out extensively about the direction of morality in American culture. And many others have responded with aversion to these voices and any semblance of imposing Christian morality on America. Some have called this the culture war.

The easy thing for Christians to do is blast moral relativism in our culture and those who advocate so strongly for it (though relativism is typically advocated for negatively, as against intolerance). As I have said about Sarah Palin and the coverage of her in the news, I think the wise thing for all of us to do right now is take a fresh look at the culture wars in American politics, a step back to see beyond the conflict between liberal and conservative. Much more is at stake than we may think.

The present Internet-driven social network media ecology should make it clear that we are more connected and interdependent than ever, than we may have ever thought.

There is a critical need in today’s ecology for finding common ground to communicate effectively. This does not mean leaving our deepest convictions aside. As a student of communication and media ecology, I am convinced this discipline of stepping back indeed gives us new eyes to see, and to communicate together.

I am deeply concerned that if we each do not step back and learn to communicate together, we will not be able to withstand the subtle domestic threats within and the growing international threats abroad. I think Daniel Henninger gets it right when he insightfully called this the “Dumbing Down of Democracy,” with the stakes evident in the recent in the Iran election:

Letting genuine democratic aspirants in places like Iran and Honduras lose in front of a watching world will exact a price. The United States and the other John Locke democracies are in an active, long-term competition with fake democrats over whose politics governs the next century. And they will presume to choose which parties should run other countries.

Stepping Back

This stepping back that is required is not easy. In somewhat technical terms, it requires what I call Contextual Dexterity. Basically, this means humbling ourselves to listen to those of diverse worldviews, setting aside critical judgments, discerning the background context behind another person’s convictions, thinking critically about our own assumptions, and understanding others’ perspectives on their own terms. It is very similar to what Ken Sande has argued for in terms of charitable judgments, but this goes deeper still.

As I hope to describe here and in future works that elaborate on Contextual Dexterity within the context of The Handoff from Boomers to Gen X in American society, this idea of Contextual Dexterity connects directly into the traditional concept of prudence, which leads to conscientious, timely action (SO: JFV).

Action. That’s the key part. You need to be careful, circumspect, dispassionate when you act. It’s about the application of wisdom (great message here on King Solomon and wisdom by Joshua Harris). It’s the hard work of doing all you can to test your own biases and assumptions before acting. And it’s about not naval gazing all day analyzing. How do we do this? First, by stepping back.

Conscience is critical. For many on both sides of the so-called culture war are acting honestly on the basis of conscience. And this is a critical point of convergence that should not be overlooked in the pursuit of common ground. When we seek to impose our sense of conscience on another–even if there are legitimate grounds to do so–we run a great risk to effective communication. Contextual Dexterity for the preservation of conscientious common ground protects us at exactly this point, without personal compromise.

Is there not much room for common ground between liberals and conservatives? I believe there is, in what I call the “Solid Center,” and it is nothing new. It is diverse interests working together on the basis of conscience, unity, and love for the next generation. It is working against the forces of tyranny, division, and control–even if we disagree on certain key points. For from the Solid Center you can see the forces of division at work that make it very difficult to step back. You can begin to respond with prudence to those whose cries against intolerance aim to institutionalize a new intolerance.

These are times that try men’s souls. We need perspective to avoid fear and our own forms of sinful intolerance. We need others to help us look beyond this life, beyond the present challenges, to something and Someone transcendent, Someone involved in our community life.

Seeing as Bonhoeffer

One way to step back is to look at other cultures, leaders, and historical periods for a fresh perspective. And one character that emerges for us is Dietrich Bonhoeffer, lover of his German people and the community of faith around him. We can learn from his words in his book Life Together about true Christian community, specifically in how the sin in our hearts intends to isolate us from community (SO: BC):

Sin demands to have a man by himself. It withdraws him from the community. The more isolated a person is, the more destructive will be the power of sin over him, and the more deeply he becomes involved in it, the more disastrous is his isolation… This can happen even in the midst of a pious community. In confession the light of the Gospel breaks into the darkness and seclusion of the heart. The sin must be brought into the light. The unexpressed must be openly spoken and acknowledged. All that is secret and hidden is made manifest. It is a hard struggle until the sin is openly admitted. But God breaks gates of brass and bars of iron (Ps. 107:16).

Our own sin within us, not immorality outside of us, is the biggest problem facing our culture. That is the unique Christian perspective to the culture wars. And from this perspective, we critique both conservative and liberal outlooks at certain points, and we can at other points align with conservatives and liberals. For our point of contention is not with either system, but with sin, expressed in things like the idolatry of political power; the abdication of a leader’s sworn duty to the Constitution; tyranny against other nations, the individual, and the family. And what we uniquely offer as a remedy for sin is the gospel of Christ, which works its way through us in faith, obedience, and community life in the church.

It is crucial also that Christians call Christians in leadership to Christian standards of conduct. We need to be hardest on each other, not on the perceived immorality of others. And this too is fighting sin. Bonhoeffer is crucial here, showing how to fight the isolating power of sin in our lives. We fight by first recognizing what sin is at its most fundamental level and how it works within us, we can use the tool of humble, specific confession of sinful actions and habits to another trusted Christian:

The root of all sin is pride… I want to be my own law, I have a right to my self, my hatred and my desires, my life and my death. The mind and flesh of man are set on fire by pride; for it is precisely in his wickedness that man wants to be as God … In the confession of concrete sins the old man dies a painful, shameful death before the eyes of a brother. Because this humiliation is so hard we continually scheme to evade confessing to a brother. Our eyes are so blinded that they no longer see the promise and the glory in such abasement…Since the confession of sin is made in the presence of a Christian brother, the last stronghold of self-justification is abandoned. The sinner surrenders; he gives up all his evil. He gives his heart to God, and he finds the forgiveness of all his sin in the fellowship of Jesus Christ and his brother… Now he stands in the fellowship of sinners who live by the grace of God in the Cross of Jesus Christ.”

Sin is something that wants to possess us. When we sin, we pridefully reject God. We do not become neutral, but we give up our God-give freedom in exchange for a lie. Christian community in the church is God’s idea. Man did not devise it. And God promises us in Matthew 18 to be with us in this community life together, whenever even 2 or 3 of us are gathered together.

Community and Conscience

Community is powerful. It gives an individual a platform and a group of followers to accomplish broad social objectives. This is another reason why Bonhoeffer is such a crucial character for us today. In his love for community, he did not give up his individual conscience for groupthink. He saw that to outsource one’s own decision-making to the peer pressures of community is a grave error. Grave indeed.

Bonhoeffer’s clear conscience recognized what can happen when a community of people within a nation exercise sinful pride by seeking elevation over other nations. The rise of Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany happened. Bonhoeffer is crucial for conscientious people today because he saw the preconditions of this–the media ecology that allows this–starting not with the grievance of wrong done to you (as the Germans believed in the Treaty of Versailles following WW1), but with simple pride in the heart.

In seeing clearly the movings of pride in the German community, and by maintaining his own conscience as an individual before God, he could see the wolf in sheep’s clothing for what he was, the man preying on the pride of the German community promising to establish a new vision of the future that elevated the German people above the present shame.

Diabolical. And all of us have these same inclinations.

When pride is in the ascendancy, Nazi Germany shows us that even a historically religious people will suppress the truth and become “possessed” by those who tickle their ears. Do you see that?

Stepping Forward

We can be encouraged that Bonhoeffer recognized what was happening. He wrestled with the hard questions in his own conscience. From a Christian perspective, this discipline would involve looking at his own weak convictions and sinful shortcomings first and foremost. This discipline also means not first looking at the shortcomings of others, even Hitler. From that perspective, he could come to a conscientious decision, even as a pastor, that Romans 13 (the call to obey civic authorities) did not apply in this case. No doubt it took a great wrestling and conscientious decision to speak out against Hitler and be willing to give up his life in defense of freedom, against the tyranny of Hitlerian lies and Nazi controls.

All of us should be mindful of and inspired by his example. Bonhoeffer stepped back. He loved his community and preserved his conscience both from prideful isolation and abdication via groupthink. He sized up the risk. He consulted his Bible. He did not know what would happen. But when he knew he must, he acted. And he did so for others.

Christian or not, can I ask you to consider Dietrich Bonhoeffer? Get one of his books and read it. Start with Life Together. I will too. For I believe this especially applies to Christians like me, who love the life of my community. We all need to see beyond our present confines, especially to how the larger community of our nation effects ours and other local communities. Conscientious, self-sacrificial thought and action are needed more than railing against immorality by Christians (in my humble opinion).

Please watch the video below, an intro to the documentary Bonhoeffer, noting especially the speech of Bonhoeffer at the end, the generational shift entailed, and the reference to the notion of idols in his radio address against the Fuehrer:

May each of us, liberal and conservative, have a conscience like Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Updated 7/9/09