As many here know, I am a Convinced Friend, someone who is a Quaker by choice.
If I have a mantra it is the words of George Fox that we should walk gladly across the earth (and that is hard enough for me) answering that of God in each person we encounter
answer that of God
Before I address the dilemma in which that places me, let me share an old tale with a Quaker focus. Trust me, it is relevant.
Once upon a time a City Slicker (CS) was traveling in the countryside and encountered a Quaker Farmer (QF), plowing his fields with a mule. The following occurred:
CS — Hey, you are a Quaker. Does that mean you believe in turning the other cheek when struck?
QF -Yes, Friend, that is what the Bible instructs us to do.
Whereupon CS struck QF on the left cheek. QF turned his face and CS struck him on the right cheek.
Whereupon QF dropped the reins to the mule, and proceeded to role up his sleeves and move toward CS.
CS — What are you doing? You said you would turn the other cheek, like the Bible says!!!
QF — Yes Friend, I did. But the Bible gives no further instruction as to what we should do when the other cheek is struck. And now I will properly chastise you for being an obnoxious oaf.
Please keep reading.
I attempt to be non-violent, as much as I can, but decided long ago I was prepared to use deadly force to protect the children entrusted to my care, even if I might choose not to defend myself in other circumstances.
answer that of God
But what if I can find nothing of God to answer in a person I encounter? In the past I might have said I see few people other than the odd Stalin, Hitler, or Pol Pot.
But if we will know people by their fruits, I am increasingly seeing people in public life, in positions of authority, who seem to have deliberately extinguished that of God that might previously have existed within them.
I cannot judge their hearts.
I can only judge the moral corruptness of their actions.
Of course I cannot help but put Trump in the category. But I see far too many about whom the best I can see is that I have serious doubts that there is that of God left in them.
A list that immediately comes to mind would include Rudy Giuliani, Devin Nunes, Mitch McConnell, Joe DiGenova, and one or more the Trump offspring, more than few members of the House and Senate, and more than a few major media figures, starting with Sean Hannity.
When one abandons all principle or morality for political advantage, where is that of God remaining.
How then am I suppose to act and speak towards them?
I believe it was in the powerful novel by the Inkling Charles Williams, The Descent Into Hell, that we find Williams writing of a man that his final condemnation to hell was a small selfish decision: he was advising a group on historical military dress on which he was an expert, was asked about something that he could see in an instant was wrong, that his assistant could easily fix it, but he said it was okay because he did not want to be bothered.
When we fail to confront immorality, when we do not challenge deliberate lies and deceptions, perhaps because of political inconvenience, or for any reason, do we not become that man who said the uniforms were all right, simply because we don’t want to be inconvenience, or perhaps we wish to avoid conflict.
Sometimes conflict is unavoidable, or even worse, our attempts to avoid necessary conflict only make things worse.
Here I ponder several statements of Martin Luther King, Jr., specifically these two:
from Strength to Love:
The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy."
and from Letter from Birmingham Jail:
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly
Perhaps this may seem like a rationalization, but I believe that in confronting injustice and immorality, in calling out lies for being lies, for insisting on a moral approach not being subservient to political ends, we in fact might be abiding by the principle to answer that of God in other persons, in the society in which we find ourselves.
Perhaps it is because I believe that to totally abandon the principle I derive from George Fox I thereby become complicit in a descent to a Hobbesian dystopia in which the lives of too many will be solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.
Perhaps what I still must do is to answer that of God that SHOULD be in the other person.
Some may not be capable of shame, or of hearing that truth.
And how I do it may have to be fairly confrontational.
But then remember CS, the City Slicker. He needed to be properly chastised for being an obnoxious oaf. And he was in far less need of such chastisement than are Trump and his minions and his enablers.
So there’s my dilemma, my problem.
I don’t have a clear answer.
I do think about moral consequences, about impacts of my words and actions upon others than myself, in part because that is how I answer that of God in myself.
If you prefer to avoid the use of a term identifying a deity, think instead of the basic good that should exist in very person, even though many of us have encountered those in whom it is difficult if not impossible to discern that good.
Make of this what you will.