One Good Thing

The wise Anchoress had a thought provoking post Monday about the "theft" of the written prayer the Senator Obama left at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. See Obama’s prayer returned - humanity restored? During his visit to Jerusalem last week, the Senator left a written prayer at the Wall. The prayer was later "stolen," given to an Israeli paper and published worldwide. The Anchoress received criticism from "right-wing" commenters for accepting the story that the prayer had been stolen and for not seeing a conspiracy to manipulate public opinion. She stated that she wanted to believe the best, so as not to become like the haters.

We see it all the time, all over the blogosphere: repellent hate. It begins with calling someone a nasty name, which seems like nothing. But it is the beginning of the whole process of dehumanization, and it is why one of my rules about comments is that name-calling of presidents is off-limits. Bush becomes “Chimpy.” Obama becomes “O-Bambi.” Rosie O’ Donnell becomes “Rosie Oaf Donnell.” Cindy McCain becomes “the pill-addict Cheerleader,” (ah, the tolerant and compassionate!) and John McCain becomes “McShame,” and from there, it’s a very short walk onto the endless and descending pier of hate, which leads you to a place where we can no longer see anything good in “the other,” because you have made yourself willfully blind, and willfully hard-hearted.

When you reach that point, you are no better than the person you hate; you may be much worse.

I believed Obama’s prayer had been stolen and I would not give in to the easy suspicions of cynicism, because I realized that as long as I could name “one good thing,” about Obama - and in this case it would be that he left a real prayer, in real humility, at the wall - I could still see him as a real person and not an object of revilement.

And it would mean I hadn’t completely lost my humanity, either.

These are wise words! And what an improvement there would be in the Christian world if we all tried to find something, one thing, to praise in our theological opponents. What if the Todd Bentley haters took time to find points of commonality with him? What if Charismatics took time to really know some godly cessationists, and to celebrate their love for Jesus? What if Emergents and Reformed... Well, you get the idea.

The Anchoress later posted an update about further reports that the Obama camp may have released the prayer to the press and then kept silent when news reports said that it has been stolen. Perhaps all the facts are not yet in. Yet whatever the truth of this matter, her first instinct was still right. It is never good to dehumanize our "Enemies" - whether political, social or theological opponents.