In an engaging column in the 2009.11.16 print edition of Time magazine, James Poniewozik raises some thoughtful questions about our right-left take on politics: "Categories like Pew's 'liberal,' 'conservative,' and 'neither' imply that our society is as simplistic about media bias as we are about politics (when in fact both involve nuanced positions)."
Poniewozik goes on to speak of the unspoken bias of the moderate or centrist position and he concludes that when we speak of bias, there is a whole plethora of biases in society, right, left and even center. Moreover, there is, he says, no one conservative bias or one liberal bias or even one centrist bias, but all kinds of ranges and variations. Which makes the rantings of talk show hosts sound all the more incredible (as in absurd). Particularly disturbing in all the present polarization is the demonization of the opposition. If someone can never find anything good to say about those "on the other side", then I immediately question the rationality of the speaker's "reflections." (I put reflections in quotes because the word implies something far quieter than ranting provides.)
Which brings me to the point that there is little room in our current world for nuance of thought. And yet no two people are ever going to agree on everything, unless one of them is a master of mind control. But we generally do not acknowledge the existence of nuances or at the least assume that any differences are immaterial.
However, as I advance on what I trust is an authentic journey of faith, I realize that these subtleties do make a big difference. Friends have encouraged me to watch this video claiming that Obama is a Muslim. I guess it balances out videos friends on "the other side" have sent me. Otherwise I find nothing in it of value or truth. But I do note that the video makes a big deal of apparent nuances, such as word choices and posturings. It is what I wrote of a couple postings ago in this blog about "where there is smoke, there is not necessarily fire." Nuances are tricky things to differentiate.
This past weekend I got into a fun scrap with some FB friends over some political ramblings and one of those friends said that some position I had or he claimed I had was an oxymoron. My oldest son read that later and clarified that it was a paradox more than an oxymoron because too many words were involved. My investment in his education is proving useful.
What makes something oxymoronic or paradoxical (depending on how many words are involved)? Really it comes down to perspective. From one person's viewpoint a pro-life Democrat or a pro-environmental Republican is an oxymoron. If we look at these things on a right-left continuum, we are forced to conclude that the truth must lie somewhere on this continuum and the truth is that truth cannot therefore be oxymoronic.
Or can it? I take a fresh look at faith and realize that faith is always oxymoronic, paradoxical from a human perspective. God exists beyond the realm of human perspective. Somehow God the Infinite through Jesus the Revealer has invaded and inhabited our finite time-space dimension, but this God is not confined by that continuum as we are. Thus the biblical writer speaks of Jesus as being yesterday, today and forever the same. He is beyond our 3D universe.
If we can, in the same way, see the relationship between God and our finite world of politics and faith, then it gives us a fresh perspective. If there is a right-left continuum, there is no one point on the continuum that embodies truth. Truth is beyond our human reasoning, be it right, left or middle. Truth, in Jesus Christ, invades and inhabits our right-left continuum, but Truth is not confined by that continuum as we are. The truth, therefore, does not, as the saying goes, lie somewhere in the middle any more than it does on the right or on the left. It is much richer, more nuanced and far more dynamic than that. But what the truth of Jesus Christ reveals to us is that it can be known by us mere mortals, even in our one-dimensional political universe.
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