Reflections on an Attempted Assassination

#89

Friend,

I’m saddened and scared. The political chaos in our country feels overwhelming, and I have no idea what will happen next.

We should all be grateful that the assassination attempt on former President Trump was just that—an attempt. Trump is first and foremost made in the image of God, and secondly, his death would have plunged us into even more chaos. It’s tragic, horrific, and sickening.

As people of this world, we are tempted to turn against each other by pointing fingers and placing blame.

As people of faith, we are called to turn toward God in prayer and toward our neighbors and enemies with love. It is the sign of ultimate maturity in Christ if we, with strong and divergent political opinions, move towards each other with compassion and love instead of against one another.

Part of our ever-saddening reality is that this doesn’t feel like an isolated incident. Political violence is always the fruit of political rhetoric and anger. Even if this individual acted alone (and we will know much more in the weeks and months ahead about the shooter), he came out of an environment that was ripe for political violence.

We’ve now seen multiple instances of political violence including the former President and Republican Nominee for President having an assassination attempt, an insurrection in our capital, a plot to kidnap the Democratic Governor of Michigan, and an attack on the husband of the former Speaker of the House. The seeds of political anger are producing a fruit of political violence.

More than that, we are justifying violence as a means to our end. A recent survey found that “23% of Americans agree that 'because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country.'”¹ That includes 33% of Republicans, 22% of Independents, and 13% of Democrats.

And what is the root of all of this? Our dehumanizing of the other side:

“Both sides also expressed similarly high levels of dehumanizing thought: 39% of Democrats and 41% of Republicans saw the other side as 'downright evil,' and 16% of Democrats and 20% of Republicans said that their opponents were 'like animals.'”²

As I heard somebody say one time, “It used to be I thought ‘I was right, and you were wrong.’ It has now become ‘I am right, and you are evil.’”

Like most of us, I’m wondering what is next, and my brain is exhausted from running down all the doom trails in my mind. It’s easy to do that, so you have to choose differently.

So today, I am choosing the following:

• I am trusting that God is working even when I don’t see it.

• I am actively listening to people who might have fundamentally different politics and choosing to love them.

• I am adamantly repenting and rejecting any dehumanizing thoughts I’ve had of others and replacing those with a reminder that each of us is made in the image of God.

Because the truth is, if political anger is a seed that can produce political violence and chaos, then love is a seed that can produce grace and peace. Being a peacemaker is the high call of God for his followers, it’s following in the ways of Jesus, and it’s a central theory to the greatest religious text of all time: The Sermon on the Mount. Let’s embody it together.

Love,

Aaron

1. https://www.prri.org/research/threats-to-american-democracy-ahead-of-an-unprecedented-presidential-election/

2. https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/the-rise-of-political-violence-in-the-united-states/