I used to try to make sense of my place in the world by categorizing my beliefs. What group believes what I believe, or rather what group should I adopt the beliefs of? What key demographic am I a part of?
The problem is, I don’t 100% agree with all of the ideological points in any one group. God gave me a brain and the ability to think critically, and that means I can look at things issue by issue, examine the context in which it exists and how it relates to my core belief system, and make a decision on my stance from there.
Yes, it’s extra work, but it feels like a necessary thing to do. More than ever, it feels like Someones and Somethings are trying to shove us into ideological boxes. Maybe so they can advertise to us on the internet, because the internet needs algorithms based on checkboxes. Maybe so they can draw us into pressure to conform or evangelize or choose this or that so they can sell things or gain power. I don’t want to mindlessly follow.
When groups live by ideologies, they dilute and even erase humanity. Things like empathy, community, the ability to see an individual apart from an ideological matrix are erased. Communities suffer. Once, the person you used to see and love to have a conversation with at a local coffee shop is now somehow the enemy. The person who looks different than you, who thinks differently than you, is now a threat. Instead of civil conversation and the ability to maintain relationships in disagreements, there is debate and argument and destruction of “the other side.”
Ideologies often push us to identify who and what we are against, instead of what we are for. Ideologies do not allow for gray area, they grow fundamentalism and tribalism in the worst ways. And yet so many things exist in the gray area in the middle.
Right now, I am trying very hard to choose loving God and loving people over following an ideology. While the media works hard to tell me who and what to hate, and the only way to avoid it is to be all-in for such and such a group, I want to remember to see the good.
In the apostle Paul’s letter to the Philippians, he concludes by writing this:
“Finally brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things.”
I pray for wisdom and strength to be able to do this. Some will call me naive, but my mind recalls the story in which Jesus says that to enter the kingdom of heaven, one should be like a little child. While a child could be called naive, the innocence and goodness in which they view the world is beautiful. Everything is exciting, everything is a wonder; the smallest things are the biggest things and every new person is a friend.
I can’t help but savor the idea of a place where people adopt first the joy of thinking the world is beautiful, everything is exciting, everything is a wonder, the smallest things are the biggest things, and every new person is a friend.
Sindy Hankins 