People vs. Principles

I'm struggling to figure this one out

One of my oldest and dearest friends isn’t speaking to me.

And I’ll be honest, I don’t know what I should do.

I posted a rant on Facebook, directly calling out those who had voted for Trump. In hindsight, I don’t regret my words—I meant them, they were true, and they weren’t rude—but I do second guess the wisdom of my approach and particularly my choice of venue.

Nor were they really aimed at her. I actually didn’t know she voted for Trump. She did in 2016, but I’m pretty sure she didn’t in 2020. This time, though, from what I can piece together, she was drawn in by RFK Jr.

Whose ideas are dangerous and insane, let’s just be clear. But I also understand why they are appealing to my friend, given her particular history. Both she and one of her children have chronic medical conditions without cures or surefire treatments. Her child’s is very, very serious. Debilitating. She has been in and out of hospitals and doctor’s offices for decades now. She has been disappointed by the traditional medical community over and over. So I can see the appeal of someone who paints that group of people as the enemy and offers other solutions.

She’s not a bad person. She’s not a dumb person. She’s a bruised and beaten up person.

Who nonetheless has empowered an evil person and fueled a destructive movement with her vote.

But she still means a lot to me.

It’s just one of the many principles vs. people conundrums the Trump era has delivered to my doorstep, along with many dozens of packages from his new friend Jeff Bezos. There will be many more. Conundrums, that is. And let’s be honest, Amazon packages.

I’m even worse at solving these puzzles than I am at Connections (what sociopath makes those insanity traps? and why do I still attempt them daily? Clearly I am not very bright).

One of the things that repeatedly upset me about evangelicalism was its insistence that these conundrums don’t exist at all. People always, always come second to belief. There’s not even a question. Your gay child is trumped by your biblical interpretation of the handful of verses that mention homosexuality.

“Love the sinner, hate the sin,” you are told. Which usually translates to, “Preach a sermon at someone struggling with things you know nothing about.” Or make the “sinner” feel like absolute garbage until they agree with your point of view. Kick them out of the house/church/community if you have to. Threaten them with hell. Better that than they actually go there. Far better than you bearing any responsibility for that by failing to tell them what’s what in no uncertain terms.

I hated that. I hated it when I got divorced. I hated it when loved ones awkwardly preached their obligatory sermons that they had been told were “love.” I hated it the numerous times I witnessed people confront friends, family, even perfect strangers over their failings and wrong beliefs, driving wedges into the tiniest spaces.

That’s the tragedy of rigid belief systems. They aren’t completely hollow; they give their inhabitants meaning, comfort, and security. But they are also tyrants and thieves. As they impose order on the world, they crush and exclude those who won’t cooperate. They cheat people out of deeper, more sacred connection.

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My dad is a Vietnam veteran. I’ve always felt pride at his service, even as I studied history and learned more about the moral complexities of that war. The complexities have given me a lot of compassion for him, too. The antiwar activists who mistreated veterans upon their return also had rigid beliefs. And maybe those beliefs were right, at least in part. But they hurt people with them.

Because my dad is a thoughtful, principled person, he expended a lot of mental and emotional energy getting to a place where he was certain he was right about the war. I understand why. War is hard enough without wondering if it’s worth it.

I’ve had the luxury of distance as I’ve studied the Vietnam War. I watched Ken Burns’s excellent Vietnam documentary with those wide-angle eyes when it came out. But with enormous compassion for my dad in my heart. Dad started watching it, too, and we chatted a bit about it as it went along. But eventually he found Burns’s presentation of the multiple viewpoints and moral ambiguities upsetting. So he quit. I kept watching.

As I finished the last episode one afternoon, I was overcome. I wept for the pain the war caused so many. I wept for the suffering, the loss, the guilt, the alienation, the anger and division. And I wept for my dad, that he didn’t get the happy ending and the triumphant return that warriors dream about. So I called him, still crying.

My parents and I are not close. We haven’t ever been. I went to boarding school so young and hid so much. A shared, deeply held world view masked that for a time. But as I have discarded it and they’ve clung to it ever more tightly, the distance has grown.

But I called him, crying. Vulnerable. He was touched. I thanked him for his service. He was moved.

And then I said, “You know, next time you’re in DC, I’d love to go down to the memorial with you.” I have walked or run by it many, many times. I never fail to be affected by the people rubbing etchings of the names on the wall or the gatherings of now elderly veterans alongside it. To me, it seems a sacred place.

But not to my dad. I could hear him bristle over the phone. And then he said, with a tinge of anger, “I will NEVER go to that memorial. That is an anti-war memorial.”

I was flummoxed. I quickly made some apology, saying I didn’t know he felt that way, and got off the phone.

And I was sad. Sad more than hurt, because his response was predictable, knowing him at all, if I had given it more thought. In hindsight, I walked right into it. Stupid me.

I was sad more for him than for myself. I haven’t needed my parents for a long time. For my own sake, I don’t need a closer or better relationship with them in order to be fulfilled and happy. Honestly, I don’t think I even want that at this point, because it would require more emotional energy than I have in me. I am content with how things are between us.

But as a parent, it took my breath away to think that one of my kids might extend their hand to me and offer me a pathway to a deeper connection, even if for a moment, only to slap it away because the approach offended my beliefs. Even if those beliefs are correct, and who is to say that my dad’s views on the war and the memorial aren’t. Certainly he’s earned the right to hold them. I didn’t fight in a war. I just read some books and watched a documentary.

But are his beliefs about the memorial and what it says about the war worth missing a chance to share a meaningful experience with his child? He made his decision.

We all have to make such decisions.

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Here’s the uncomfortable question—Am I making wrong decisions?

Is my current posture on what I consider issues of great consequence needlessly, pointlessly putting principles over people? In rejecting a rigid belief system, have I simply transferred of kind of fanaticism to a new context? Am I condescendingly and disingenuously “loving the sinner” because I so hate the sin? Am I crushing those who don’t cooperate with my beliefs under my foot?

Have I done this to my old, dear friend.

I keep asking myself these same questions, over and over and over. In the wake of angry outbursts, which feel so good in the moment (for the record, I still don’t regret this post). With every word I wrote of my book, the tone of which isn’t angry, but it is pointed. It will cause anger. It will risk some of my relationships. It will make me some enemies. The Theobros will probably come for me (Charlie Kirk already came for me this week, but that’s a whole other story).

Have Bible, will beat you with it.

I don’t relish any of that. Really, I don’t.

On the other hand, I keep thinking about 1930’s Germany or the Jim Crow South. Wouldn’t I hope to be a complete nightmare to live with in standing up against racism and fascism? Wouldn’t I walk out of relationships and communities with those who go along?

I think it depends on the belief itself. How certain and knowable is it, for one thing. And then, how harmful is it.

Religious beliefs are unknowable and uncertain, if anyone is being honest. No one can really know what exactly God is, why we’re here, what this life is all about, and what happens to us when we die. There’s no way to prove if the Bible is really sacred and/or how it should be interpreted and applied. These are not things for which we can find definite answers and explanations.

What is at least observable, and even provable and knowable in some cases, is the flourishing of lives nourished with love and acceptance. The beauty of mutuality and equality and opportunity. The harm of abuse and exploitation. The poison of racism and sexism and bigotry. The devastation and destruction of autocracy. The futility of control for its own sake. The gifts and revelations of science. The overall net positive of freedom, of allowing people to live as they see fit, as long as it isn’t harming others.

And, because I am married to an economist—the absolutely bone-headedness, proven over and over and over, of tariffs, protectionism, nativism, and both unfettered and over-regulated markets. (Kevin, you’re welcome)

So for me, it’s not worth sacrificing relationships and offending people to tell them they are going to hell when they die and their God isn’t real and their interpretation of the Bible is wrong. What do I know? What do you know. What can any of us possibly know. We can be interested and respectful of each others’ beliefs. We should not beat anyone over the head with them.

Similarly, in more normal times, we may disagree on complex, real-world issues, like what kind of healthcare system America needs. And we both might be a little right and a little wrong and neither of us can see into the future and predict the outcome or our preferred policy. I won’t die on that kind of hill ever again.

But when your beliefs about God and your interpretation of the Bible produce harm and abuse and dysfunction and bigotry and now political instability, and when your interpretation of real world issues is based on provable, pernicious lies—and when your economic policy includes tariffs¹—I think calling that stuff out is worth it. These principles are worth standing up for, even if it bends and breaks relationships with some people. Because ultimately, these principles are in defense of more people, and the common good.

Do I know this for certain? Man, I don’t know anything anymore. This world is a crazy, complicated place. I do believe very much that my principles are correct in this moment. I just don’t always know how to reconcile them with real people.

And I am still sad about my friend.

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Still, even when you’re certain of your beliefs and even if you are countering those that are demonstrably harmful, there are more or less effective approaches of engaging with those who disagree.

Maybe you don’t even have to choose between principles and people? Hmmm.

And that brings me to the book study I am leading for my church this month (that some of you attended tonight, thanks!) of Caleb Campbell’s Disarming Leviathan: Loving Your Christian Nationalist Neighbor. Caleb is the pastor of an evangelical church and constantly confronts the pernicious religion that undergirds the MAGA movement.

Our natural instinct when we encounter misinformation, bigotry, and other dangerous beliefs—or even if someone just disagrees with us— is to go into attack mode. We start hurling facts and sources and information and arguments and logic like we’re some kind of intellectual ninja.

More realistic

This is a natural human reaction to what we perceive as a threat. We go into fight or flight mode. Our brain function physically shifts from the prefrontal cortex to the amygdala.

And when we do that, guess what? The other person responds in kind. They also go into amygdala mode.

And that is how you start a war, if you aren’t careful. It’s certainly not how you have a productive conversation or get anyone to change their mind. You can short-circuit your brain’s response, but it takes conscious, deliberate effort and advance preparation.

There’s science on this, but Pastor Caleb persuasively argues the case for non-amygdala interaction from the perspective of Christian ethics and scripture. He says it’s both more productive and more Christ-like to shun a frontal attack in favor of engagement, relationship, empathy, conversation. It’s better to ask “humbly subversive” questions or tell personal stories than to fire bomb them with arguments. Jesus was the all-time champion of subversive questions and stories.

In fact—You might change someone’s mind at the same time as building a better relationship with them.

Now, this is no easy thing, which Caleb acknowledges. It requires enormous patience and forbearance and the guarding of one’s own mental health. But he makes a compelling case that it can be done. And should be, if we’re going to beat this stuff back.

I still have some questions, and maybe I’ll get to ask Caleb himself, because he may drop by our group. Mainly I want to ask if there are moral lines in the sand that need to be drawn.

If you’re in Nazi Germany, say, and your brother enthusiastically joins the SS and goes on and on about how all the Jews need to die every time you see him, maybe that’s a relationship you need to end?

I have more thoughts and feelings and another whole tangent to explore, but this is already super long so I’ll leave it here.

If you want to attend the book group for our two remaining sessions (Jan 14 and 21, 7 pm EST), send me an email at holly_berkley@yahoo.com.

1. I’m joking. Sort of. Kevin’s not joking though. He’d divorce me if I started believing in tariffs.