Social Media and Polarization

It felt like somewhere around 10 years ago, facebook became a different animal. Facebook came into the mainstream when I was in high school. At that point in time, you had to take a picture of yourself with a digital camera, then upload the picture onto your computer using an SD card. Then upload it as your profile picture on Facebook. There were no smartphones. You got on facebook to post awkward but now humiliating comments on each other’s pages. At that point in time, there was no instant messaging component to it, there was no “news-feed,” you just jumped around to each other’s pages seeing if someone posted a comment about their everyday life.

As the feed developed, the purpose of facebook began to change. Around 2014 or so, I remember all of a sudden seeing more and more political posts, opinions, theological statements and controversial comments. All of a sudden I found myself in long arguments with people, and the sleepless nights that would happen after criticizing someone else’s comment. I remember feeling a sense of responsibility, that if I didn’t say something, who would?

If you didn’t feel the anxiety of facebook arguments during that time period, you probably spared yourself a few more years of life.

We have since become more and more polarized as a country. The algorithms of the internet have made more and more echo chambers, which make it more and more tempting to demonize the other side. As a result, common ground becomes harder and harder to find.

Today Polarization is everywhere. Facts seem to not matter, opposing views are evil, and the in-person spaces to have real conversations around differences seem few and far between.

What we need is wisdom. That’s my hot take for the day.

Today in this wisdom series, we are exploring the wisdom of Jesus, and I would like to explore how the wisdom of Jesus might help us in this polarized world we live in.

Jesus’s Path to Wisdom

There are many ways to read the gospel.

• You can read the story of Jesus looking for the liberation of the oppressed.
• You can read the story of Jesus looking for a sacrifice for the sins of humanity.
• You can read the story of Jesus searching for a simple way of life, free of possessions, and reliant on God.
• You can read the story of Jesus, looking for a rule book as to how to live a perfect life.
• You can read the story of Jesus, looking for clues as to what the authors of the gospel must have been experiencing at the time.
• You can read the story of Jesus looking for a way of peace in a violent world.

When looking for the wisdom of Jesus you can find his wisdom in any of these ways. Some of these ways may make us uncomfortable. Some of these ways might make us excited.

Today I am going to be coming to the story of Jesus looking for wisdom, and I will be joining the tradition of reading Jesus as though he is a wisdom teacher. A wisdom teacher not unlike Rumi, or Merton, or Ghandi or Thurman. To read Jesus as a wisdom teacher, as a master of consciousness, is to read the gospel in a way that may enlighten us.

A wisdom teacher is not a teacher that is filled with answers to tough questions, but notably responds to questions with pithy sayings, parables, and puzzles as opposed to divine decrees and absolute answers. A wisdom teacher uses story instead of holy laws and rules to guide the seeker.

Our passage today starts at the beginning of Jesus’ path towards becoming a teacher of wisdom. Jesus as a child goes to the synagogue to learn. When talking to Gloria Hernendez Boucher this week, she pointed out that she appreciates this passage because it shows us that wisdom is something that Jesus developed.

Wisdom is not something that some are ordained with and others are not. There is not a “wisdom” gene. I don’t know what exactly went into the education of Jesus, but for him to become someone skilled with pithy sayings, parables, puzzles, that would call people into deeper reflection for the next few millennia, Jesus probably learn wisdom from a long line of teachers of wisdom.

I am not going to dive into the history of this tradition today, but focus more on what Jesus’s wisdom may be inviting us towards.

Love your Enemies

Let’s look at the sermon on the mount – the collection of pithy sayings that have been core to the Mennonite tradition.

The sermon on the mount has sayings like, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” This is a classic wisdom saying. A saying like this will always challenge us. Who receives the kingdom of heaven? It’s not the folks that are confident. It’s not the folks who are in charge. It’s not the folks who look like they have their lives together. It is the poor in spirit – The humble, the down and out, the unsure, the struggling individuals who the kingdom of God belongs to. That is a direct challenge to those of us who struggle with the narrative that having power over others will make their life better.

Wisdom sayings are not words of knowledge, but are words that bring us into deeper reflection about our lives.

I would like to move on from this pithy Jesus saying to another one in the sermon on the Mount. One of the more famous sayings in peace church tradition.

From Matthew 5:43

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?

Like all wisdom sayings, there are so many levels to the meaning in this text. In the phrase “Love your enemies” most straightforward interpretation, it commands an action: love those who you claim to be your enemy. A radical and simple commandment, and yet a terribly difficult saying, one that is challenging no matter one politics, religion, or position in the world. We all have people we do not like – and we need to figure out how to be in relationship with them.

Polarization

I would like to explore this pithy wise saying of Jesus on another level – because I think it’s radicality is as relevant as ever in our polarized context..

When something is polarized in chemistry, it is when an object has a bunch of its electrons move to one end of it, so that one side of the object is negatively charged and the other side is positively charged.

A good example of this is a magnet. Magnets have a south and a north end. One end steals a bunch of electrons than the other. As a result, the north end is radically different from the south end. They become polarized opposites.

When we think about polarization in our context, our perspectives, beliefs, politics, and religion, separate us like a magnet, a north and a south. The ends of the magnet become so radically different that the other, that the other end can look like a different species. They may look so unhuman that one might start to believe that the other end of the magnet is actively trying to destroy their end of the magnet. How can you even sit with someone on the other end of the magnet, without looking like you are betraying your end of the magnet.

North south, black white, red blue, start to feel like they were never part of the same magnet in the first place.

Wouldn’t it be easier if you just cut the magnet down the middle? The north could be its own thing, and the south could be its own thing. Separate the differences. The haunting post civil war conclusion – separate but equal.

In wisdom traditions, this is called a dualism. Dual – meaning two. For something to be dualistic, a whole is cut in two. Like trying to cut the magnet in half. Ying and Yang. Cold Hot, Woman and Man. Sacred and Profane. Good and evil. Nature and Machine, Atheist and Thiest, Us and them.

When someone is thinking dualisticly, one begins to separate the world out into these extremes. One begins to see the world separated into these opposites of sorts. Begins to see friends and enemies.

Thinking Dialectically

In many wisdom traditions, dualisms are something to be worked through. Wisdom teachers tell their stories, parables, pithy sayings, riddles and puzzles, to encourage those around them to break out of dualistic thinking.

There are several different ways to think non-dualisticly. The way that I interpret Jesus calling us when he says, “Love your enemies,” is something called a dialectic.

To think dialectically, is to consider how two things that seem like opposites – that seem like contradictions, like you and your enemies, are actually intimately connected and intertwined at their roots. Let me give you an example of how to think dialectically.

There are many debates that happen between atheists and theists. They are usually seen as opposites, even antagonisms. When someone says they are an atheist they claim they do not believe in God. A theist believes in a God. Surely they can’t coexist, right?

Theist and Atheists are always twisted together like strands of a rope, forever tied to each other focusing on the same question, does God exist?

For atheists, I am often curious which God they do not believe in. Which image of God does not exist?

For theists, I am curious what they do with the spaces where they do not experience God. Theism can try to come up with all kinds of excuses for the moments where God isn’t there.

God’s presence and absence are bound together. Theism and Atheism are the two sides of the same magnet.

To think dialectically, is to recognize how opposites are bound.

Is it not more true that we float somewhere in between theism and atheism throughout our lives. The Bible is a bunch of stories of humans struggling to have faith. So why should belief and doubt be polarized?

Jesus’ dialectical commandment to love one’s enemies is so powerful, because this type of love is an embrace of contradiction. It is love for the opposite.

In loving the contradiction, in loving your enemies, you are getting rid of the us vs them attitude, and you are opening yourself up to how you are part of the opposite. In fact, you have helped create your opposite. The church community that has strictest rules around beliefs is a church that creates atheists. The electrons move to one end of the bar, polarizing the bar, and creating a magnet, forever tied to each other.

Thinking dialectically recognizes how the opposites are actually part of the same thing. Thinking dialectically, invites us to explore how these seemingly contradictory things are actually tied together.

To follow in the wisdom of Jesus, is to love what seems like the opposite. Instead of banishing what seems evil, we are invited to sit in the contradiction, because there is part of us in that opposite. The opposite has its roots in us. And so the only way to create transformation and to ultimately heal the dualism, is to walk in this dialectal way.

It’s easy to love the things that fit into your world view. To love the people that don’t irritate you. But that’s just maintaining the polarized magnet.

Love in the most radical form seeks love the opposite, the contradiction, the enemy.

When we love the contradiction, we open ourselves and our community to transformation.

Loving Contradiction – Mandela

I think a great modern example of this is Nelson Mandela, in South Africa. Mandela was imprisoned for 27 years by the apartheid regime because he was the leader of the African National Congress (also known as the ANC), who opposed the racist and oppressive apartheid government.

When he was released from prison 1990, despite Mandela’s repeated calls for peace, there were fears that there would be a violent revolution because, well, the apartheid government was violent. But instead, the ANC, and Mandela were able to negotiate peacefully and abolish the apartheid legislation in 1991.

In 1994, the ANC won in the election, placing Mandela as the president. He worked tirelessly to bring about healing rather than revenge on the white minority who oppressed his people. He spearheaded the truth and reconciliation commission – a body that sought to address the crimes of apartheid by offering amnesty to those who confessed the harm they committed publicly.

Mandela could have sought revenge. He could have banished the white South Africans. On the opposite extreme, he could have also just ignored the past and pretend harm and violence never happened. Both options would have been polarized or dualistic thinking.

Instead, Mandela sought how the opposites, the enemies were really part of the same thing – they were all part of South Africa. He sought to work through their histories that were all tied together at the roots. To name the harms that created who they all were today, so that South Africa may be transformed. Mandela embodied loving contradiction, the dialectical thinking and wisdom, that Jesus invites us to in his pithy saying, “Love your enemies.”

Today we face dualism and polarization everywhere. We refuse to see how we are all part of the same magnet. We refuse to see how we create our enemies.

The way forward is not to cut the magnet in half. It is actually the case that when you cut a magnet in half, it becomes two smaller magnets, each with their own polarity, which I think is great imagery because it points to how if cut off the polar opposite, the new space that is created will inevitably become polarized about another issue. Polarization begets polarization.

The harder work is the way of Jesus. The wisdom of Jesus, which calls us towards love for the contradiction. Towards love for our enemies.

Living dialectically does not mean you need to sacrifice your beliefs so that you can work together with others. It means that you must do the hard work of understanding the other and in good faith find new ways forward together. We need each other for the transformation of the magnet we are all bound to.

As Nelson Mandela said after he was released from prison:

“As I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn’t leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I’d still be in prison.”

May the wisdom of Jesus help us find true freedom from the prison of polarization, and guide us as we work to love the other side of our magnet.

Go, release from the prison of polarization, seeking to follow in the difficult wisdom of Jesus, and loving your enemies. Go loving the other side of the magnet.