Election Leftovers, Bad News and Good News

[HKHaugan]

Election Leftovers Follow-Up, Bad News and Good News

Actually it's all about attitude. Attitude is the heart in action. Attitude shapes the world. Attitude is invisible. Attitude is the conclusion the mind makes about what the heart experiences. Attitude motivates action. Attitude is the drawn arrow of emotional reaction. Attitude is the unstable nitroglycerin in the truck, its explosiveness challenged with every next road bump. Is it any wonder that “Attitude profiling has become the magic marker in social and political science, the core of demographic study, the means to win elections by appealing to visible categories like white male, black female, urban housewives, Latino workers, educated, uneducated, white collar, blue collar, blue states, red states, etc., etc., etc. While this is the driving political strategy in every election by political parties, it is also the direct opposite of what we as followers of Jesus are to avoid in every contact we have in the world (last article).”

Those categories do three things: alienate, condition and intimidate. First, they alienate, separate us from the hearts of others. We only look at the surface. Second, they condition us and our children to be judgmental by appearance, grouping others according to a category rather than by them being images of God, human beings like us with hearts, minds and unique individual value. Third, they intimidate, make us afraid and get us to operate by fear. It results in this: 'be suspicious of others on the basis of their thinking and appearance.....who really knows what's driving them or what they're liable to do?…..they're different, they might be a threat......avoid them.....they probably don't like us anyway.'

Attitudes in all people are plural. Most of us have an attitude we make up to meet the circumstance in which we may find ourselves. How we react in every situation where we feel that inner need to 'fit in' is what defines the attitude of the moment. How we respond in moments of embarrassment, confrontation, challenge, mood swings in self and others, tragedy, running into someone who is homeless, being the target of an insult. The self-made attitude is stored away to meet the moment that appears similar to why it was formed. We pull it out of storage when what we may feel is the moment of need. Think about how we are quick to react, make a judgment and profile when anything causing a particular fear faces us. 'Being on our best behavior' when being offered a job, facing the everyday routine, or figuring out how to dodge people you run into you want to avoid and on an on.

Of course there are those really positive attitudes, the moments of beauty in music, art, mountains, a walk by the ocean, at sunrise and sunset, a crying child, the cradled smiling baby, receiving a compliment, the ones that 'make our day.' As positive as they are they could also be the harbingers of making a bad decision, like moving to the mountains because vacations were so good there, or continually seeking only 'safe' people to associate with, or the 'perfect job.'

If you want to know the source for the above kind of thinking all you have to do is read Genesis 3 and how sin separates us. What makes that strategy so dangerous is the invisible forces behind it. The devil and his spirits exploit our weaknesses. They subtly attack vulnerable areas of human minds and hearts with major spirits that urge us to shape how we react in our self-centered aloneness; spirits of fear, pride, control, lust, anger, rage, greed. These touch the deepest of our heart needs. They are the attitudes we embrace to make it through the day. They get us to think defensively, hide and blame others when we don't get our way.

We have to fully realize the goal behind self-made attitudes and the spirits that haunt and taunt them. They want to make us hostages to our aloneness. Once they step in they encourage us to believe we are victims and react from a self protecting posture by emotional response. This in turn gets us to withdraw into ourselves and do what is necessary to survive by our own momentarily conceived actions. That's the devil's plan. He and his spirits work to get us to believe the world is overwhelming and as individuals we are defective, relationally ineffective and hopelessly stuck within it.

All of the above is where the political pundits and operatives, the categorizing of the populace, the office seeker and holder, the liberal and conservative media, take their cues. Categorize the populace into attitudinal groups, identify every human being having an attitude and exploit it. Get people to identify their opposite so that they become the enemy we have to vote against rather than vote for those who represent the national founding documents that protect and mature us. Keep the emphasis on the real and imagined flaws of political personalities rather than the attitudinal issues they represent. Keep publicizing the division, inflame hearts, exploit emotions and differences, make everyone involved feel like victims of one kind or another. Keep stoking the fire where everyone feels offended and reacts defensively.

What has been described here so far is sin at work.

But there is good news---the person of Jesus Christ and the special gift of the Holy Spirit He has given us through the Cross and Resurrection. Here was the person whose perfect humanity has one purpose: to live the will of His Father in every next moment. Now here is the good news in Him. While there are a multiplicity of attitudes, and the spirits that exploit them, the real truth is that God has provided this one singular Holy Spirit to replace them. His presence carries the one attitude that enables us to look forward to every next moment, faith not fear. Paul tells us in Philippians that we are to have the attitude, the mindset, the one Spirit-led consciousness of Jesus (Php.2:5). Having a personal relationship with God the Son, Jesus, starts our everyday experience in a tried and true spiritual frame of reference. That eliminates the need to have an attitude for every situation, every meeting, every event while we are on the way each day. The Holy Spirit brings the Jesus attitude into our heart and mind. Whether we are in a group of strangers, going for a job interview, dealing with hostile people, enjoying a vacation spot or in any unexpected next moment situation, we have a singular spiritual attitude, serving the Lord, in them. His Spirit is His presence guiding us.

While momentary emotional response and radical behavior may get a 15 second sound byte on TV, the disciple is moving in an eternal context. We are not having to frame an attitude for ourselves to meet the moment but His attitude empowered in us by the One Spirit. Did you ever think why prayer and patience are more powerful than provocation, love more efficient than loudness, reverence more than rioting, faith than fear? It all goes back to this statement: we are not human beings having a spiritual experience but spiritual beings having a human experience.

We have one more hurdle in this politicized atmosphere surrounding us, dealing with people who have been conditioned to think and act opposite of our way of life. These are radical people who see our point of view as weakness and whose goal is to defeat us through anger, division and terror manipulating the very system we hold as our way of life.