Bipartisan Authoritarianism

 Both parties are guilty of creating the difficulties our nation is now facing. Both exhibiting increasing authoritarian tendencies for decades, as predicted by modern day prophets since the 1960’s. Progressives like to point out examples of how winner-take-all politics push the U.S. further toward the authoritarian end of the spectrum, yet, in their own way, have become so disillusioned with "the system" that they too demand radical changes to civic institutions, which they view as tools of oppression. Like the right, they are willing to work around, alter or ignore those institutions to get what they want. This is our current dilemma.

The reasons for this threat are varied. For one, a rapidly decreasing interest in mutually beneficial compromise, replaced by a desire on both left and right to utterly defeat and dominate the other at any cost equals an "us-vs-them" framing easily manipulated by aspiring authoritarians.

Hyper-polarization destroys civility and paves the way for authoritarianism. When Democrats and Republicans increasingly view the other as not merely wrong but evil, both become willing to justify coercive and violent behavior. Each side downplays their party’s willingness to subvert policies and procedures that contribute to the common good, while vastly overestimating the likelihood that their opponents would, and believes that if the other side acts that way, they have no choice but to respond in kind.

The best solution? Adjust our expectations and divest ourselves of the belief that the state, courts, or carceral systems are the primary agents in producing safety and health. Encourage more faith based and non-partisan civic organizations to experiment in imagining and crafting alternative, consensus based, holistic solutions, encouraging neighbors to work together to solve problems, make meaning and shape their own future in their local community. Suggestions are initiatives such as restorative justice focused on fostering accountability for the accused of crimes and healing for their victims; reentry and recidivism reduction; free health clinics; and more. The thread connecting all of these is anchoring those capacities in local communities focused on relationship, participation, mutual aid and spiritual formation.

A Vision for Community Transformation

 

I strongly believe Faith-based and non-partisan civic organizations are uniquely positioned to lead the way in imagining and building alternative, holistic solutions to the hyper-polarization of our country and the challenges facing individual communities. I also believe they are a better alternative to building bridges to restore the status quo. They have in the past, as Robert Putnam illustrated so well in his book, The Upswing. Rather than patiently waiting for or actively forcing top-down political change, we should begin constructing a better society now, locally, from the ground up.

Meaningful transformation does not come through partnering with or replacing governmental power. Real change happens when people simply begin living differently, forming new relationships, new networks, and new ways of organizing communal life.

At the heart of this vision is the development of local, grassroot community networks, webs of relationships focused on improving the quality of life for everyone. These networks are not defined by bureaucratic institutions or centralized planning, but by local, voluntary participation, mutual aid, direct action, consensus decision-making, decentralization and relating to each other through solidarity, shared interests, and shared commitment.

When the local community genuinely embraces the vision outlined above, it naturally subverts governmental bureaucracies and partisan politics by rendering them, and by extension hyper-polarization, irrelevant, offering a vibrant, flexible alternatives in their place.

It is not necessary to go out and create organizations from scratch. There are many faith-based and non-partisan civic organizations out there looking for volunteers. However, local communities may be presented with unique challenges requiring imagination and creativity to craft unique solutions, requiring one to embark on a new journey.

If you feel called to faithful, creative, and courageous community-building, don’t wait for permission or the perfect moment, but seek out an existing organization or chart a new path and begin living today as though a better way of life is already breaking through. In this sense, a healthy community is not a future event to be seized, it is a present reality to be practiced, one relationship, one network, and one community at a time.

“…One Nation, Under God…”?

 

It has long been my conviction the United States has replaced the Church as the primary sacred community, functioning not merely as a government but as a rival religion. Every time I am in a public space and am called on to recite for the Pledge of Allegiance, I am heavily conflicted for two reasons. First, it is in violation of Jesus’ command on giving oaths. Second, the phrase, “…one nation, under God…”, is blatantly not true. It seems I am not alone.

Scholars attempting to isolate what makes religion uniquely prone to violence — its absolutism, irrationality, and divisiveness — keep identifying those same qualities in secular ideologies like nationalism, capitalism, consumerism, Marxism, etc. When scholars adopt a functionalist definition of religion (anything that provides ultimate meaning, generates myths and rituals, and demands sacrifice), those same ideologies become religion by definition.

The nation has obviously absorbed roles once belonging to the Church; soteriological and liturgical functions expressed through myth (stories of the Founding Fathers, national heroes, etc), ceremonies, speeches, rallies, symbols (flags, war memorials, etc), and national holidays. These demand a loyalty functionally indistinguishable from religious devotion. Nationalism, in thus defined, is not a secular phenomenon but a theology, and the nation-state a rival religion.

The secular/religious divide is a theological and ideological arrangement that advantages the nation from the start. Within it, the nation occupies the universal, public, meaning-giving role, while the Church is relegated to the private sphere, one competing voice among many. When the Church does make claims on public life, it trespasses onto the state’s domain, because the state has seized that sacred ground and declared it sovereign.

The Church's marginalization by our nation is intentional and leads to the deepest contradiction: religion is treated as dangerous in public life precisely because it claims ultimate transcendence over the individual, yet fervent, lethal devotion of the individual to the nation is considered the highest civic virtue. In the end, only one sovereign is tolerated, and the Church is expected to step aside.

To whom should we owe our ultimate allegiance?