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For some time, a growing polarization in politics has been creating deep, painful divisions that permeate every area of our lives. Competing political views on the current state of the world declare with certainty that we are living through a moral battle with only two sides: good and evil. In this binary framework, every idea and every person can only be one or the other – perfect or profane, hero or villain. This attitude affects how we relate to each other. We begin to see ourselves not as neighbors but as enemies. Those with whom we disagree are no longer people with a different approach to solving problems: They are the problem.
Yet this idea that half the country is good and the other half evil contradicts our Christian theological anthropology – our understanding of what it means to be human, in light of what we understand about God. It also goes against the Lutheran doctrine of simil justus et peccator, which reminds us that we are all “saint and sinner” at the same time, with the capacity for good and for harm.
This message is excerpted from the Bible study “After certainty” by Meghan Johnston Aelabouni in the July/August 2024 Gather magazine.