In America today, we continue to see regular public shootings. Schools, malls, places of worship…all have become frequent targets. In recent days, in addition to mass murder evens, we’ve also seen several instances where a person mistakenly drove up the wrong driveway or knocked on the wrong door and were shot as a result.
Anyone who is surprised by this simply isn’t paying attention. Over the past several decades, 24 hour propaganda channels like Fox News and MSNBC (among many others), have filled homes with increasingly angry words, and the echo chambers of social media have cultivated those angry words into rage and fear, which has led to an increase of violent action.
Here’s why it will not only continue but will get worse: tell me what we’re doing to disrupt this process. I’ll wait.
The answer is “nothing.”
Corporations that profit from cultivating fear and hate for profit are not being held accountable.
Spiritual, mental and emotional health problems are not being adequately addressed.
Ethical subjectivism (i.e. “find your own truth”, which leads to everyone doing what is right in their own eyes) is still running rampant with no end in sight.
Political leaders continue to pursue their own self interest.
Churches get sucked into political arguments instead of offering something better.
…and if you don’t change a system, it will inevitably continue to provide the same results. If anything, we are increasing the system with even more extreme channels and voices. Republicans are getting more and more sanctimonious, and democrats are mocking with more and more condescension.
Who should be responsible for doing something? Clearly it’s those who are in leadership. But in America, we no longer value good leaders. The mass populace only cares about giving power to people who they ideologically agree with.
Our last two presidents demonstrate this. Donald Trump and Joe Biden are, to any rational observer, horribly incompetent leaders. When something bad happens, they immediately get to work blaming the other political party instead of providing true leadership. If you go on social media after a tragedy, you’ll find republicans and democrats accusing each other of being responsible.
People who are more concerned with winning arguments than fixing problems will never, ever bring improvements to any situation.
There’s a reason Plato was against democracy. He felt that mob rule was guaranteed to fail, because unless you had a class of leadership dedicated to seeking wisdom, a nation would be a place of injustice.
America has been a democracy since 1972, when we implemented open primaries. It took us less than 50 years to end up with Trump and Biden, so I’d say we proved Plato’s concerns were valid.
Bad leadership kills any organization. In an excellent book about this called Derailed by Tim Irwin, the author observed that arrogance, more than any other trait, kills culture in an organization. In our world today, I think arrogance is often mistaken for confidence.
For those of us who follow Jesus, we know that the church is supposed to have the healthy alternative to this. In fact, Jesus commanded us to that effect, saying:
“You know that the rulers in this world lord it over their people, and officials flaunt their authority over those under them. But among you it will be different. Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must become your slave. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Matthew 20:25-28)
However, I know, from personal experience, that the church in America is largely failing at this. Some of the most arrogant people I’ve met are pastors. It’s not very surprising, as we have a system which creates the problem: churches find a good speaker and let/ask that person to be the leader of an organization. This is as stupid as a band finding a good lead singer and asking him or her to be the business manager of the band as well.
This is why I can’t pretend to be surprised that, having working in the corporate world, academic world and church world each for more than a decade, 5 of the 6 worst leaders I’ve ever personally worked with were in the church world. (The other was in the corporate world.)
This is even ignoring regular implosions of church leaders such as recent examples like Carl Lentz and Brian Houston.
Jesus showed up to a society in great turmoil and he intentionally stayed outside the systems of power in his day, choosing to lead differently. If you find yourself at a church where the leaders sound more and more like MSNBC or Fox News, you need to run away.
Further, I believe that the American political and governmental system has become so irredeemably toxic that Christians should fully disconnect. You will not be able to point people to Jesus if you are part of a system that categorizes and dismisses the “other” so emphatically. Jesus could impact anyone because Jesus belonged to no one.
When the crowds wanted to either kill Jesus or crown Jesus, he walked away from them. As John tells us, “Jesus didn’t trust them, because he knew all about people.” (John 2:24)
The best leadership you can provide is to point yourself toward Jesus first and foremost, to disconnect and disengage with toxic people and systems, and to hold fast to the truth. Know that toxic people and systems will fight you. In our world, we kill those who won’t support powerful and toxic systems. Bu you’re in good company: Jesus, Socrates, and Martin Luther King Jr. among them. You’ll be ostracized, criticized, insulted, threatened and belittled. But that’s the part of someone who truly seeks to follow Jesus. He told us specifically, “If the world hates you, remember that it hated me first.” (John 15:18)
This may seem to be a hopeless approach: stepping aside and letting the world go to hell in a hand basket; but in reality, disengaging with these systems is a necessary step one before you can have any positive impact. Without this step, you will only contribute to making things worse. Once you have taken the first step, you can look for ways to make a positive impact — following in the footsteps of Jesus and 1st century believers.
Disconnecting from toxic systems and bad leaders simply acknowledging what’s true — that you and I cannot fix this world. In fact, the ONLY hope of this world is that the God who promises to restore all that has gone off the rails will live up to his promise. And surely he will do exactly that. Only once we recognize this truth do we have a chance to be part of the solution, even if that means we will be rejected by a world (and often a church) that doesn’t want to get well.
And if this doesn’t particularly sound like fun, I assure you it isn’t meant to be. Jesus didn’t hide it, saying “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me. If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it.” (Matthew 16:24-25)
So do you want the world to be comfortable with you, so you avoid dealing with rejection and setbacks? Or do you want to learn to value the only real hope and fight for it? As the shootings get worse, work hard to make sure you’re not part of the systems which are leading to these results, so that you can find ways to be about the business of the Kingdom of hope.