Surge Summary: Ending marriages, familial connections, even lifelong friendships over political disagreements? This is an alarming trend … it spells trouble for America and is bad for people’s souls.
by Peter Heck
There is a trend that is as distressing to me as it is dangerous to our republic. Just the other day, I saw a public statement on social media from a former student of mine that broke my heart. In so many words, the student declared that if you disagreed with them politically, that told them all they needed to know about who you are, and that they could never be friends with you.
I felt a sense of failure as their government teacher, having so ineffectively instilled in them any sense that a person is more than their politics. And given that their take was accompanied by the terribly mistaken belief that our national politics has “never been so divided” as it is today, I felt pretty badly about how poorly I taught them U.S. history as well.
Obviously, I know this is the type of nonsense that college breeds these days. And I know that this bad take is echoed by far more people in our culture than any of us care to believe. People like this:
And this:
Of course a country so divided doesn’t survive. But it’s worse than that. It’s not just a symptom of a nation convulsing in death throes, but it’s a clear demonstration that Satan has successfully penetrated your heart with something as temporal as politics.
After all, when allegiance to your political tribe is stronger than the bond of your wedding vows, when the kinship you experience with your political allies is stronger than blood, when newly adopted partisan ideals allow you to discount and dismiss lifelong friendships, it’s not just that your priorities are distorted. It’s that your soul is adrift in moral confusion.
It’s the one thing I wish everyone – right, left, and anywhere in between – could appreciate about the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg. You can’t find a justice more aligned with radical progressivism. And yet for a significant portion of her professional life, her best friend remained perhaps the most conservative voice on the U.S. Supreme Court in modern history, Antonin Scalia.
Hats off to CNN’s Chris Cuomo for hosting that segment. We need more of it. As Christopher Scalia wrote elsewhere,
“A healthy society needs citizens to remember that political disagreement need not turn friends into enemies. My father and Justice Ginsburg mastered this balance. We’ll all need to do the same in the difficult months before us.”
Amen. I’m praying that we can – not just for the survival of our civilization, but for the state of our own souls.
The views here are those of the author and not necessarily Daily Surge.
This article originally appeared at TheResurgent.com.
Image: Tumisu’s picture on Pixabay.
Images: Screen Shots: https://theresurgent.com/2020/10/01/friendship-must-always-trump-politics/
Peter Heck is a teacher, preacher, speaker, author, and servant of Jesus living in Kokomo, Indiana with his wife and three children.
Surge Summary: Ending marriages, familial connections, even lifelong friendships over political disagreements? This is an alarming trend … it spells trouble for America and is bad for people’s souls.
by Peter HeckThere is a trend that is as distressing to me as it is dangerous to our republic. Just the other day, I saw a public statement on social media from a former student of mine that broke my heart. In so many words, the student declared that if you disagreed with them politically, that told them all they needed to know about who you are, and that they could never be friends with you.
I felt a sense of failure as their government teacher, having so ineffectively instilled in them any sense that a person is more than their politics. And given that their take was accompanied by the terribly mistaken belief that our national politics has “never been so divided” as it is today, I felt pretty badly about how poorly I taught them U.S. history as well.
Obviously, I know this is the type of nonsense that college breeds these days. And I know that this bad take is echoed by far more people in our culture than any of us care to believe. People like this:
And this:
Of course a country so divided doesn’t survive. But it’s worse than that. It’s not just a symptom of a nation convulsing in death throes, but it’s a clear demonstration that Satan has successfully penetrated your heart with something as temporal as politics.
After all, when allegiance to your political tribe is stronger than the bond of your wedding vows, when the kinship you experience with your political allies is stronger than blood, when newly adopted partisan ideals allow you to discount and dismiss lifelong friendships, it’s not just that your priorities are distorted. It’s that your soul is adrift in moral confusion.
It’s the one thing I wish everyone – right, left, and anywhere in between – could appreciate about the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg. You can’t find a justice more aligned with radical progressivism. And yet for a significant portion of her professional life, her best friend remained perhaps the most conservative voice on the U.S. Supreme Court in modern history, Antonin Scalia.Hats off to CNN’s Chris Cuomo for hosting that segment. We need more of it. As Christopher Scalia wrote elsewhere,
Amen. I’m praying that we can – not just for the survival of our civilization, but for the state of our own souls.The views here are those of the author and not necessarily Daily Surge.
This article originally appeared at TheResurgent.com.
Image: Tumisu’s picture on Pixabay.
Images: Screen Shots: https://theresurgent.com/2020/10/01/friendship-must-always-trump-politics/
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