May 17, 2022
Writing for The Atlantic, Quinta Jurecic argues the politics of rage are “seeping into every corner of life.”
The New York Times, for example, reported that over 500 health officials had quit their jobs since the pandemic, many citing threats and intimidation. According to an Education Week survey, 60% of school administrators say their employees were threatened with violence over the schools’ handling of COVID. In 2021, the FAA logged over 6,000 reports of “unruly passengers,” as opposed to just 150 in 2019.
To be sure, Jurecic’s political bias is obvious—but the problem she describes is real.
During the cultural hostility of the first centuries, the Apostles said to let our words “be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.” That’s not advice, that’s instruction.
In today’s world, we won’t be able to avoid conflict, but these stands we take have to be the right ones and how we take them will reflect who we really serve.
People, to paraphrase Paul, are not our adversaries. They are our objective.