A Country With A Conscience

This is a story which is relevant to the gun control debate, but deals very little with guns.

In order to understand where this is going, you need to start with a little political history, arrive at some conscious realizations about journalism, gain an awareness of religion's place in developing whole persons, and then make larger connections among different components of American life.

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Religion is complicated. Christianity, as Jesus could tell you, is not for the faint of heart -- it caused the carpenter's son to be nailed to a cross.

How complicated is religion? The Reverend Billy Graham, who died on Wednesday at the age of 99, was a Baptist. That Baptist denominational experience was shared by two other old Americans who will not be with us much longer, former President Jimmy Carter and longtime journalist Bill Moyers.

Even within specific Christian denominations, in America and elsewhere, you will find important or memorable figures whose life paths led to very different worldviews, conflicts, hardships and outcomes.

This reality of life is not particular to the early 21st century or to the balance of the 20th century, in which Billy Graham lived. The difference between Graham's lifetime and previous centuries is that the emergence of mass media (20th century) and social media (21st century) enabled so many more individual people to see or learn about public figures and the messages they put forth.

This wider awareness of information, perspectives, and human activity should be a good thing for society. Access to more information, combined with greater exposure to a fuller range of human events, can only help human persons, right?

It has not worked out that way in America.

Though many facets of our society are undeniably improving -- medical technology, rapid communications, light rail, online shopping and payment services -- the way Americans process, litigate and digest political debate is getting much worse.

Sure, political debate has always been contentious and cutthroat. Think of Lee Atwater in 1988 or Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton having a duel (which meant the death of one man) over 150 years before. Think of the Civil War. Think of the Civil Rights Era. Politics has plummeted to very low levels at more distant points in our nation's history, so I do not mean to say that our polity has steadily declined without interruption for the past 50 years. The 1970s, for example, demonstrated the resilience and strength of our political system. When Republicans saw that Richard Nixon had disgraced himself and the Presidency, they acted accordingly. Figures such as Sam Ervin, Howard Baker, Peter Rodino, and Elliot Richardson transcended party affiliation (Ervin and Rodino were Democrats, Baker and Richardson Republicans) in service of higher goals, acting the way citizens hope public officials would act in a time of crisis.

In the 1980s, the United States Senate was populated by men with prodigious intellects and fertile minds who did not fit into very convenient ideological boxes. Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Warren Rudman weren't impressive politicians because of where they stood on the political spectrum -- Moynihan, a Democrat, and Rudman, a Republican, would both disappoint their parties' most dedicated voters if they ran for office today. What made them stand out was that they put intellectual heft behind their positions and regarded opponents with respect. Politics was a battle for them, but it was a battle for ideas. Richard Lugar, Sam Nunn, George Mitchell -- these and other figures have positions on various issues that I strongly disagree(d) with, but they were formidable elected officials. I always got the sense that they cared about the material they were discussing. They might not have arrived at the most enlightened conclusion according to my political framework and worldview, but they sincerely pursued what they felt was the best course of action. They did not severely shift their points of emphasis depending on who was in or out of power.

Those kinds of Senators -- those kinds of public servants, in mindset and temperament if not in their ultimate policy recommendations -- are increasingly rare.

In the 1990s, political hot-take shows such as Crossfire and The McLaughlin Group began to take off in popularity. The O.J. Simpson chase occurred in 1994 and showed that news networks could grab eyeballs with a helicopter camera and talking heads. News organizations -- part of media companies publicly traded on the stock market -- realized how cheaply they could produce hour-long blocks of programming instead of investing large sums of money in the kind of enterprise reporting which produced Edward R. Murrow's seminal 1960 CBS News documentary, "Harvest of Shame."

The road to 2018 began -- for journalism, yes, but also for the theater of politics journalists were ostensibly supposed to cover. Politics has become more and more of a shouting match, with cable "news" shows populated almost entirely by talking heads, to the near-total exclusion of enterprise reporting in the vein of Murrow. Only 60 Minutes carries on the Murrow (and Don Hewitt) legacy among non-PBS mainstream outlets. Good reporting on non-PBS American TV (in other words, what you don't see on Frontline, Nova, or other programs) is largely the province of fringe/niche outlets.

What we have as a result is a fragmented society in which access to information merely means "access to information from ideologically friendly and emotionally convenient sources," not from any outlet which might challenge the mind or offer inconvenient truths.

What facet of human experience is SUPPOSED to confront the mind with inconvenient truths, even more than journalism? Religion is not the only answer, but it is an answer for many, and -- in its best moments -- has often been the best answer throughout the centuries.

I can't speak for Muslim or Jewish brothers and sisters, but the Christian message is not a convenient one at all. The central figure of Christianity was nailed to a piece of wood and crowned with thorns. He is celebrated even today at Christmas -- in kids' pageants you might have attended, and at the Vatican's midnight papal mass -- as being born in a manger, outdoors in the cold, with farm animals, a product of being given no indoor place to sleep. The story of Jesus -- called Christ by Christians -- is an enormous overturning of linear human expectations.

Christians believe Jesus is the Son of God. Linear human expectations would embrace the idea that if a being was the Son of God, He would be omnipotent and dominate the world. Jesus, though, flips everything upside-down and turns it inside-out. "Though being in nature God, he did not deem equality with God something to be clung to," a quote from Scripture in Paul's Letter to the Philippians. Jesus is the humble child born with no crib for a bed -- he is ignored by the world in birth and, decades later, hated by the world in his public and humiliating death, led to say, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." Jesus dies alone, misunderstood, naked, in immense suffering... some Son of God.

That, however, IS the point of Christianity. It is a message of humility and suffering -- not for the sake of suffering itself, but because that is the way to holiness... not to violence. Leadership is servanthood. Power is magnified not by accumulating it, but by giving it away. "I am in your midst as One who serves," Jesus said.

Peter cut off the ear of the servant of the high priest in the hours before Jesus's death. Jesus saw this and told Peter to put his sword away, because those who live by the sword will also perish by it.

Jesus is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and yet he succinctly uttered words of nonviolence to Peter -- an enduring expression of anti-war, anti-retaliation principles -- precisely before he himself was going to be violently put to death by an oppressive government in a community where the religious leaders were all too happy to see him die.

It is true that today is very different from Jesus's time in so many ways -- too many ways to count. While certain aspects of Jesus's life and the Gospel stories contain a timeless and unchanging resonance, the particular complexities and difficulties of modern life are profound, and not always easily reconciled with the past. We can't retro-fit the Bible to claim that Jesus had a direct, exact answer for every political issue under the sun.

Yet... even the most liberal and conservative people -- either within Christianity or outside it -- could reasonably agree on this much: Jesus did not condone physical violence as a general way of life. This didn't mean he didn't get angry. It didn't even mean he was incapable of physical violence against an inanimate object -- the tables he overturned in the temple when he saw the moneychangers disgracing a holy place. However, Jesus was and is consistent in speaking against committing physical harm to other human persons.

Even in a context of self-defense -- when it is acknowledged that a person can kill another person without moral stain or guilt -- taking the step of ending another human life should never be taken lightly. Phrased differently, one must identify or conclude that all reasonable options other than killing the person have been exhausted or do not credibly exist. Taking a life must be a last resort, not a first inclination.

Any competent and historically aware teacher of Christianity will uphold this.

I am now ready to offer a few words on guns, the topic consuming our nation's politics after the Parkland (Florida) shooting earlier this month.

Some people (liberals, generally) think the age for legal gun ownership should be moved to 21. Others (conservatives, generally) think the age for legal gun ownership should remain at 18, and that the legal drinking age should also be lowered to 18. Most Americans agree (though not on the same terms) that entrusting an American with a beer should not come later than trusting an American with a firearm.

I have my own opinions on policy recommendations such as these -- along with many other aspects of the issue of gun control -- but those opinions are irrelevant.

What I care to stress, on this day of Billy Graham's death, and in a time when American religion is torn apart from both ends of our polity -- secular liberals spitting on and insulting Christians and/or religious people; conservative evangelicals supporting Donald Trump in large numbers despite everything they knew about him on Election Day 2016 -- is something which is simple on a conceptual level, but hard to live out in practice.

Surely, Billy Graham would note -- if he had the chance to preach to one more stadium full of people, some staunchly conservative and others devotedly liberal -- that regardless of one's stance on guns, it is important that anyone who picks up a gun must cultivate and acquire a well-developed conscience.

We can agree on this, right? I sure hope we can.

Yes, I have my opinions on what sensible gun policies should be, and to be sure, formulating good policy on guns is hardly an irrelevant or minimally important consideration in American life right now. It's a very big deal.

Yet, it is -- in a powerful and permanent sense -- secondary to something else: conscience formation.

I realize our nation is not at a point where conscience formation is taught particularly well, or pervasively, or carefully, or with general freedom from a strong ideological influence. Nevertheless -- speaking purely on a conceptual level -- it should be unassailable that if a person has a well-formed conscience rooted in moral discipline and the self-control of impulses, s/he will not carelessly use a gun or go on the kind of rampage we have seen all too often in the past 20 years in the United States.

Let me reiterate one more time: I am NOT saying that religious faith is the only thing which matters here, to the exclusion of any considerations about gun reform legislation. No, the policy component of this topic is hugely important. Moreover, the 2018 elections will put this topic front and center, especially if the Parkland students are savvy and resourceful in carrying out their activism.

What I AM saying -- in a spirit of trying to bring our fractured country together -- is to tell both liberals and conservatives that no matter what we do in realms of policy, we need to be more conscious of the need to educate our children in the ways of conscience formation, moral and ethical decision making, dealing with pain, and befriending the stranger or loner who carries -- and conveys, in his/her eyes, face, and gait -- great sadness or hurt.

Our society needs to confront guns and take concrete steps to limit the ability of guns to spray large numbers of bullets in a very short period of time, which enables a lot of lives to be wiped out in seconds. Yet, in a context of "first things" -- the most central way to heal a problem -- Americans have to know how to display self-control (so that teenagers realize shooting up a classroom is never the answer to their pain). Americans also have to realize, in looking at other people, that the frustrated or lonely person "over there" is not someone they don't have to care about. That person "over there" in the corner could be tomorrow's next shooter if he doesn't know how to handle his pain or sadness or confusion.

Conscience formation is not just about the internal management of emotions, but about obligations to a community, to one's brother and sister, to one's neighbor... which, Jesus said, represents everyone, not just our family or the people we know really well... OR, for that matter, the people only WE agree with under the same political banner or within the same political tribe.

On the day when Billy Graham died, Americans on my Twitter feed continued the very familiar process of political mortal combat on both sides of the gun control issue. No one person committed a grave sin, or any sin for that matter. Good people on both sides (I hate to use the Trumpian term, but it is true -- there ARE good people on both sides of this) reiterated their positions, generally expressing the familiar exasperation with the opposing side's stance.

Gun-control advocates on the left and second-amendment defenders on the right are not about to agree on everything, or even most things... but in honor of Billy Graham, a man who sincerely tried to preach the Gospel of Jesus for everyone, can we at least agree that regardless of our positions on guns, we need greater conscience formation in American life, so that our young people are more equipped to handle difficult interpersonal realities and heavy emotional burdens... and so that they won't be as easily inclined to kill someone, even if their emotions might be tearing them apart? (It can't go without saying that while these shootings happen, law enforcement captures other would-be shooters before they carry out attacks. One stockpiler of weapons was apprehended earlier this month.)

Without litigating the gun-control issue here -- or on Twitter -- can we work through our grief and our shared dismay to be more attentive to the pain and alienation in the lives of young people, and to make moral and emotional education -- not just textbook education -- a centerpiece of how we walk with our children during a very emotionally volatile and delicate period in their lives?

Surely we can agree on that.

I hope that in this context of withering contempt and increasingly bitter divisions in our political culture, Americans can find this shared common project of improved moral education and emotional self-management for their children and grandchildren.

Billy Graham would certainly think we need it.