Personal confession in a time of national sin

It’s a weird time to wrestle with personal sin.

The lion’s share of American cultural energy points the accusatory finger outward, not inward. The spirit of our age is propelled by fierce external criticism, and with good reason. Never have I seen such a legitimate need to evaluate political and religious culture with discernment, critiquing false teaching and claims, and exposing deep wrongs like I have the past few years.

Believers who are wired as shepherds, full of the fire to protect others, feel a constant sense of alertness. The wolves stalk the flock. They attack the innocent and the naive every single day. Someone must stand against them.

So often these days, I’ve thought of bits and pieces of stories my grandfather told me—a WWII combat veteran. Treks through bogs full of bloated, decomposing soldier bodies that would roll and bob as his company marched through. Implications of weekends of sordid, carnal relief in little European villages, young men taking in the escapes common to those who know they might die tomorrow. Moments of disrespect, rebellion, violence, indulgence all wrapped up inside of a context of giving one’s life for the freedom of others. Even as a child, I felt the morality of wartime somehow existed within a pocket of grace. These men were only human, after all.

Yet, holiness isn’t a sliding scale. We don’t trade small indulgences for large sacrifices like Monopoly houses for hotels. The purity of a single heart matters, even in the midst of a savage battle.

This premise drives my favorite television series, Foyle’s War—a British detective series about a small town policeman trying to maintain micro-morality in the context of the global strife of WWII. Episode after episode, Foyle faces questions of individual ethics, these dilemmas sometimes intersecting with threats to national security. Does it REALLY matter if a single individual cheated, stole, killed, if ultimately a greater cause was served?

The viewer is often challenged by the question, “Do the ends justify the means?”—ultimately reminded that if micro matters of goodness and truth are forfeited for the Almighty Cause, in the end, there would be no base culture left worth defending, for the bad guys and the good guys would become one in the same.

I feel a similar struggle in 2020.

I have no doubt that wicked—even satanic forces—are working in America right now. I see two great evil ideologies, one on the political right and one on the political left, striving for control.

The former bastardizes Christianity in an attempt to gain worldly power, promises to give safety in exchange for moral dishonesty, and dresses up greed in affectations of false patriotism. It excuses longstanding abuses of race and social class with blame and pride—feeding the public with propaganda and conspiracy.

The latter elevates human autonomy as the ultimate solution for the problems of humankind, promising to be trustworthy with the distribution of resources, assuring humanity that it has the capability to identify and enforce ultimate moral truth. It offers to function like man-god on earth, glossing over longstanding, inevitable human realities about greed and corruption. It is unquestioningly confident about its own moral conclusions while standing fiercely opposed to the possibility of contradicting truths.

While the right claims, “We own God!” the left claims, “We are God!” It is so easy for me to see what is wrong with both extremes—easy to see how they are simultaneously roaring, speeding like two trains toward a broken track over a precipice.

I could spend every hour of every day (and sometimes nearly do) trying to drive my Gandalf staff into the earth with utter confidence, unflinchingly staring down the Balrog of either side, declaring, “None shall pass.” However reality is, I’m not Gandalf. I’m more of a Boromir—a mix of wound, and noble intentions, and resentment, and fatal flaw.

And in the midst of this epic battle, I have to admit that I’m making mistakes that require grace.

Every day, I try to wake up and choose ferocious courage, even though I struggle with all the emotions many other Americans are experiencing right now. I feel homeless politically and spiritually. I feel some fear about how the next few weeks may play out. I limp because of core relational wounds that have resulted over the past few years, several of which I cannot mention in public writing. Just saying this much will resonate with some of you, though. You’re living in that tension as well.

All of these present pains sit upon a larger and older context of disappointment—stories of betrayal and dishonesty within communities I once trusted that have now fallen to bits. A lot of those old disasters were never resolved. And I’ll admit, I tried harder for resolution in some situations than others. If you’re into the Myers Briggs, I’m INFJ, and we have an infamous “door slam”—a moment of finality that comes after years of attempting to make an impossible relationship work—an almost involuntary resignation to a lack of resolution. We care too much, it nearly kills us, then our hearts give up—and as I look over my past, I see a trail of critical moments in which this happened.

But sometimes those lost situations resurrect like ghosts, faces flashing, heartbreak hovering anew, questions rising about what might have been done to prevent it all, and guilt for whatever emerged from my own heartache that should have been more measured, more patient, more forgiving.

Aside from all these conflicts, looking back over my life, I also see moments of unholy indulgence, a soldier’s weekend attempt to run away from reality that was too severe, too lonely, too violent, too disappointing, too hopeless. I see the weight of cynicism and despair pressing me down with whispers of, “Nothing is true, nothing is good, just give up.”

I see my own terror at the prospect of meaninglessness and solitude, and intermittent but desperate attempts to scramble into an imaginary or alternate reality in which I could be small, safe, surrounded by tenderness and comforts. I wasted money purchasing of objects that connoted security because I wanted to hold something in my hands that felt beautiful or protective. I fluctuated between charging into unbearable pain for the sake of an eternally-good cause and retreating hard into the pleasures of earth when martyrdom grew too difficult. Back and forth. Deep sacrifice and hedonistic respite.

I don’t know what it’s like to be a person of inherently mild manner—one who naturally deflects and pacifies, never touching extremes of any sort. I imagine the regrets of that temperament feel more like a dull ache, heavy, like a weight hanging from inside of a chest. For someone like me, though, regret feels like looking back over a vast expanse of sea wreckage, horrible memories bobbing like shards in the waves.

Even the suggestion of personal sin feels primitive this days. Not only have we abandoned the prospect of divine holiness because it doesn’t jibe with our assumptions of justice (How dare God be other. How dare he be pure in a way that is beyond us? How dare the Creator of the universe insist upon moral reality that comes hard for me?), but also we have greater enemies to resist beside that which lives inside us.

The great THEY threaten the great US. We can focus on our own failures when the battle is over. I have no doubt that they are so wrong. They are so dangerous. They need to be held to account. They need to be resisted.

However, sometimes your spirit moves where it wills.

Last night I couldn’t sleep, hit with the micro context of my own failures inside of the macro context of wars we all must fight right now. It was horrific, heavy, dark, exhausting.

For those long hours, I forgot all about the sins of both the political right and the political left and stood facing the errors of one human being who has stumbled along a broken road, failing over and over again.

Like those terrible but powerful last four chapters of C.S. Lewis’s Till We Have Faces, I felt like I found the enemy staring into a mirror instead through the rifle scope. And so, I was thankful when dear friend sent me this video after hearing about my need to be reminded of this fundamental truth.

"They" are bad. There's no denying it. Sometimes so are we.

And yet, we are loved. So dearly loved. The warriors. The wimps. The careful. The cavalier. Oh Come, All You Unfaithful.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-QHbpYjuIg