*This article first appeared at Christiantoday.com.au
When unprecedented bushfires ravaged the Australian
landscape, I didn’t expect what happened next. Social media went into meltdown. The Prime Minister
was excommunicated for having a holiday and not showing ‘real leadership’ in a
time of crisis. The Greens were lambasted for not allowing enough controlled
burning. The gloves were out. We needed someone to blame. We were angry. We
are frustrated.
One journalist called it, ‘The
fires dividing the nation’.
Some shouted so loud about climate change, that I
think extra carbon emissions were unintentionally spread into the atmosphere.
On the other hand, others dug their heels in; they denied a link between
climate change and bushfires. They wanted people to cut the Prime Minister some
slack. Some felt their buttons pushed and went into defence mode, simply
perpetuating their climate-denying rhetoric, but this time with irrational
memes and a little added aggression than normal.
Wow.
Just wow.
I didn’t think 2020 would start like I was in the
middle of a boxing match between the left and right of an opinionated Australia.
I wasn’t intending to even be in the ring, but it
looks like I got a couple of left and right hooks to the cheek nonetheless.
If Madonna wrote a song today
If Madonna re-wrote her 1984 classic, Material Girl, I think she would write,
‘We are living in a polarised world, and I am a polarised girl.’ While
materialism, capitalism, communism and all those –isms still rock our society
today, I can’t help but think, that within the next decade, above many other
things, one of the greatest threats on Australian culture will be polarisation.
We are living in a polarised world. And I am a
polarised man. The forces of polarisation are forcing me into a corner.
Pete, what’s your view on same-sex marriage?
Pete, what’s your thoughts about climate change?
Pete, do you watch the ABC, or do you have Sky
News?
Pete, do you read Rubert Murdoch or Fairfax?
Are you AFL or NRL?
Are you Labor or Liberal? Or do you vote for a
minor party? Tell me, tell me, tell me.
You cannot help but feel the forces of
polarisation!
It’s
everywhere
Glance beyond Australia and you hear the trade
tensions between the United States and China. You hear about the possibility of
a new Cold War emerging between Russia and the United States.
You wake up one morning and you see Boris Johnson
elected with a thumping majority, knowing he’ll finally, ‘Get Brexit Done!’ You
wonder what world you now live in. This whole Brexit thing may be in full swing, but then the Scottish people will have their say. The Scots don’t
want to leave the EU. And so the perpetual cycle of polarisation continues.
Take a look at the British Royal Family. Meghan and
Harry announce their split from the Royals, and the Brits are more divided now
than before the Brexit referendum. ‘They’re
a bunch of spoilt brats!’ one keyboard warrior writes.
I think someone
wrote that under the pseudonym:‘The
Queen’.
Polarisation is everywhere. It divides. It can
hurt. It separates. It corners people. It creates boxes of exclusion.
Moving on
from polarisation
As I reflect on this global phenomenon, I am drawn
to a different way of thinking. What if polarisation wasn’t the only way? What
if we didn’t have to simply divide and conquer all the time?
Let me persuade you to move towards a view
expressed in the Bible in 2 Corinthians
chapter 5, verse 18, namely that Christ has given us a ministry of
reconciliation.
That’s right: Reconciliation.
That’s huge. Let’s make reconciliation great again.
That’s my new political slogan.
A move from polarisation
to reconciliation is critical in this
next season of our lives. When our first response is anger and disbelief, we
take a deep breath.
We ask ourselves: How can I bring reconciliation
into this discussion? How would I behave right now, if I was intent on
reconciling the brokenness, rather than pressing buttons that ignite backlash?
How would Jesus respond right now? What’s the best response that brings peace
and love into this situation?
Reconciliation brings healing. And it’s worth the
effort.
It was the vision of people like Martin Luther King
Jr. He longed for reconciliation in a society that was racially divided. In his
I have a Dream speech, he bellowed
out, ‘I have a dream that one day in
Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping
with the words of interposition and nullification, one day right there in
Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with
little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.’
Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream is still unrealised.
The call of God to work for peace in this world is
still there for the taking.
One last
word
Friends, we’re living in a polarised world. There’s
no escaping that. And the polarisation existed well before fires raged across
the Australian landscape.
I just hope we can all choose to have a little more
patience and a little more grace as we aim to be ministers of reconciliation.
* Pete
Brookshaw, along with his wife Jo, are the Corps Officers (Senior Ministers) of The Salvation Army Craigieburn. He has a
Bachelor of both Business and Theology and is passionate about the church being
dynamic and effective in the world and creating communities of faith that are
outward-focused, innovative, passionate about the lost and committed to
societal change. He has been blogging since 2006 at http://www.petebrookshaw.com about leadership and faith and you can find him on:
