In case you haven’t noticed, it seems that everything – from professional sports to friendships and even our workplace – has become politicized. This trend has been accompanied by high anxiety and deep polarization, and it shows few signs of letting up.
How did it get so bad?
The answer to that question is a simple one.
It’s just that few people want to face it or talk about it.
And here it is…
We have needs, and we are unable to meet all those needs on our own. And thus we must all choose where to go and what to focus on when it comes to the fulfillment of those needs.
We are mortal human beings with limited capacities and lifespans. And yet we have needs — physical needs, emotional needs, and spiritual needs. See Maslow’s Hierarchy for an overview of those needs. They include not only our basic needs for life, but our needs for stability, dignity, happiness, and actualization.
Where do we look for the satisfaction of our needs and the fulfillment of our desires and dreams?
For a time, we may look only to ourselves, but we quickly realize this is problematic and ultimately doomed to failure. Again, we are mortal. And we are limited in what we can accomplish alone and what we can unilaterally provide.
With this realization, many look to others (family, friends, society), but sooner or later, we recognize that our family and friends are in the same boat. And in some cases, our family may be in disarray and our friends may be no better.
And thus, many people look to government — what is seen as the most tangible, most significant, and most empowered representation or manifestation of the greater society.
Government has more resources and a greater capacity than any person or group we know. So why not look to government to meet our needs?
This is where most people are today, and THIS is why everything has become political.
My purpose isn’t to argue that government serves no purpose. When someone is breaking into your house, it’s good to be able to call 911.
We need civil government. And we should all be informed, responsible citizens.
But government is limited in what it can provide, and the crisis we’re facing today is largely due to the fact that we neither understand, nor agree upon, those limitations.
Unfortunately, when people demand that government provide for not only the public safety and general welfare, but also their individual and perpetual protection and safety, their rights, their needs, and even many of their wants, the result is that government expands in its scope and its power.
And the people become more dependent on and obsessed with their government.
And before you know it, not only has everything become politicized, but the government soon exceeds its capacity. There is only so much money at its disposal and only so many people in the country it oversees.
Toss in growing secularization, confusion over the nature of truth, the widespread breakdown of the family, diminished trust in or relevance of or access to various cultural institutions (church, schools, news media, etc)…
And, well, you get the United States of America in 2020.
That, Ladies and Gentlemen, is where we are.
That is why things are so bad.
Government has become our national provider. Government is today quite literally our legal guardian — our collective parent.
For some, government has (for all intents and purposes) become our “god.”
Two thousand years ago, the Apostle Paul told the church in Corinth that “faith, hope, and love” were the most abiding and important virtues — “but the greatest of these is love.” (I Corinthians 13:13)
In other words, what people need in order to both survive and flourish is…
Faith – Hope – Love
Without these three things, people flounder and suffer. And ultimately, they wither and die — that is, if they don’t destroy themselves more abruptly.
No election, no President, no political party, no Supreme Court Justice, no public policy can bring about “faith, hope, and love.”
And no society can survive without those three virtues.
And so… here we are.
We have a choice to make.
Since we can’t fulfill our needs (at least not most of them) on our own, to what or to whom will we look to meet our needs, especially faith, hope, and love?
On what or on who will we place our faith?
On what or on who will we pin our hope?
And who do we choose to love?
And will we receive the love that we need?
Personal experience and human history both tell us (or at least, to those of us with a sane mind receptive to facts and capable of reason) that we can’t source our faith, hope, and love in ourselves or in other people – or in government.
What will we do with that knowledge?
I know my answer.
What’s yours?
