Polarization

Farid, our older son, was a boarding student for six years at Black Forest academy (BFA) in Germany during our years in Egypt. BFA was a school for sons and daughters of mostly Evangelical, American Christian missionaries. Upon graduating from that high school, almost all of those students ended up in America. Farid has a shepherd’s heart for his classmates and friends from school days who are supposed to have critical, thoughtful and independent minds especially when it comes to politics because of their faith in Christ. Furthermore, they are supposed to be broader than typical Americans who have not lived abroad. He is having a ministry of influence on Facebook with some of his friends and uses their language. The man who was his dorm parent at BFA commented on Farid’s latest Facebook post by saying: “Well done. How much does it cost to subscribe to the Farid Feed of Weekly Wisdom Writings? I’m in. Keep it coming.”

Here is Farid’s Facebook post that he wrote. It is about a World Cup in soccer and American politics.

If you are an avid soccer fan you will be well aware of the World Cup clash in 2006 between Portugal and Holland. If you are not familiar with that game you can look it up, it has its own Wikipedia entry. It’s under “Battle of Nuremberg” and also can be found under “Massacre of Nuremberg”.

To summarize, the match turned into a contest of who could inflict the most pain on their opponent. There were multiple fights, dirty tackles galore, 16 yellow cards and 4 red cards. One of the coaches justified a head butt delivered by his team captain by saying "Jesus Christ may be able to turn the other cheek but Luís Figo isn't Jesus Christ." Towards the end of the game there was an interesting shot of two of the ejected Dutch players sitting and calmly watching the game with a Portuguese player who had also been tossed out. The irony being that the two opposing players played for the same club. They would return from one of the most violent games in soccer history to be teammates!

In the last 6 months, I have watched my Facebook feed with the same horror as that soccer match. Politically there is much on the line and at some point winning seems to have taken a backseat to inflicting the most damage on our political foes. I’m told that one side is keen on destroying America and ushering in Communism and the other side is both racist and deplorable.

The victimhood is also on full display; soccer players are well known for turning minor contact into a dramatic death blow. My feed is full with people lamenting being mistreated for the color of their skin (white) to people decrying the demonization of their political idol while simultaneously calling the opposing politician a demon.

While we have passed 500,000 deaths in our country from a worldwide pandemic that has ripped families apart and destroyed careers; people are instead aghast that Mr. Potato-head may lose his Mr. designation. How will kids survive without knowing if their Potato-head is a man or a woman? Dr. Seuss was left off of a Presidential proclamation and some libraries have stopped carrying his books. This slight coming on the heels of Starbucks not putting “Merry Christmas” on coffee cups and people attacking Christmas by uttering the malicious “Happy Holidays”. Meanwhile about half the nation feels betrayed by an election they feel was stolen and feel betrayed and attacked by their own countrymen.

I guess I feel pretty powerless to stop a lot of what I see on my feed and what I see people say in message boards and forums. I hesitated to post this because I don’t want people to feel like they can’t share what bothers them. It’s fine to have fears, it’s fine to acknowledge hurt done to you or to a group you associate with. The only thing I can control is how I react to others and if I decide to lash out. Lashing out feels great in the moment but leaves me with lasting regret. I would venture some no longer experience regret when they mock others, they feel they are operating under a type of holy rage that justifies their rage. Like the coach said, we shouldn’t have to act like Jesus and turn the other cheek. It’s now “do unto others before they can do it to you.”

I hope we realize that in the end, we will be equally remembered for how we responded to others and how we treat our own teammates.

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A seminary professor who is a good friend of mine, responded to Farid's post with this statement. He gave me the permission to use it.

You have a wise son Nabeel! I love it, particularly the way he interweaves the soccer match metaphor! How sad it is to see brothers and sisters, who are known as Christ's followers because of their love for one another, ripping each other apart over politics in public forums. Unfortunately, the political match will not come to an end like the soccer match eventually did. It begs the question as to when, if ever, American evangelicals will return to playing together on the same team. I think it worth noting that most of us forgot that we are supposed to be on a global team a long time ago. Most evangelicals have only thought about the American players and maybe this current division is the natural consequence of American evangelical exceptionalism. God has a way of dividing up and scattering kingdoms when they choose to be rulers of nations rather than priests to nations.