Ideology battles against love

A mired stance of disagreements is happening between old friends. We’re slowly separating from each other. Once, we could skip certain subjects or simply tease each other with affection. Seldom are we able to do that now. More likely, ideological rifts have put our friendships in serious trouble.

Whether we chose them or not, the battle of ideologies subverts the previously assigned position of religion. Religion as ideology does not tolerate other ideologies. 

Instead, we have love.

Image by intographics

Friendships are being destroyed

By John Pearring


https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/090421.cfm
Colossians 1:21-23
Luke 6:1-5



Our friendships are in deep do-do. 

We stand in dueling hip-wader uniforms. We’re up to our waists in messy conflicts. Our uniform has been handed to us by authorities we’ve glommed onto, and we wear our body coverings with conviction. If our friend is wearing the wrong uniform, they’re an enemy.

This mired stance of disagreements is happening between old friends. We’re slowly separating from each other. Once, we could skip certain subjects or simply tease each other with affection. Seldom are we able to do that now. More likely, ideological rifts have put our friendships in serious trouble.

Fatal disagreements are not just between believers and unbelievers. Believers, too, have become ensconced in manure-laced positions that affect our friendships in Christ. Believers do not escape the division of ideologies any more than do non-believers. We may not insist upon an ideological position, but one is handed to us by a virulent ideology that we cannot accept. We are anti-this and anti-that members of ideologies and creeds we have no intentions of belonging to.

Whether we chose them or not, the battle of ideologies subverts the previously assigned position of religion. Religion as ideology does not tolerate other ideologies. 

Ideologies that vocally (and sometimes physically) butt heads include principles that refuse to accept others who challenge our glommed on dogmatism. In war, we soldier against our enemies. We’re engaged in so many wars today that are just ideological differences. Non-serious issues have become battlegrounds. Just review the following “trigger” words that snap us to attention:

  • Immigration
  • Energy 
  • Abortion
  • Media
  • Liberal & Conservative
  • God & Sin

These are not naturally organic, emotional subjects. They’re just subject matter that is poised for worthy debate. Yet, we lose our minds over them. Either our friends or we refuse to enter into any worthwhile discussion. Our ideologies have fixed us into warring positions.

This is not a new thing. Other areas of human frailty have destroyed friendships. 

  • Addictions destroy free will. Friendships suffer. 
  • Egregious sin destroys virtue. Friendships suffer. 
  • Trauma destroys stability. Friendships suffer.

And in a brand new way, a fundamental shift in principles affecting our entire society, we end up with ideologies displacing religious fundamentals. Ideologies, in a most heinous hacking at our lives, destroy love. Our friendships suffer.

I’m going to postpone the idea that believers must forgo ideologies if they want to be believers. It’s practically impossible to abandon political, cultural, entertainment, and social ideologies in today’s world. Something else needs to help out here. Something that allows us to accept each other as we are. 

We are members of all four arenas of awfulness — addictions, sin, traumas, and ideologies. We have to take another tack to wiggle our hip-wader-covered bodies out of this problem. Our friends need to know that we love them. We all are covered in addictions, sins, and ideologies. Our faith is what draws us together in the face of evil, obstinance, and hate. We must loudly proclaim faith is what matters. We will not shift to hate.

Because we believers project the ugly rash of ideologies, along with our other awful issues, we might be the only hope for our friendships. We lift love to the top of our presence among friends. Caring for each other remains necessary. Prayer, liturgy, and service still require our gathering together, and we must insist upon doing these things even as we exhibit trauma, sin, addiction, and ideology. 

St. Paul says Jesus presents us as holy, without blemish, and without reproach before him. We are all members of his body. 

I’d like to tell you that one ideology is better than another, and it’s the lousy ideology’s fault. That’s what all of us who are pinned to a set of worldly beliefs want to hear. That we’re right, and they’re wrong.

There are no good addictions. No good traumas. No good sin. Yet, we carry these with us in our faith. They have already been attended to by God. That’s what we must remember. 

St. Paul says that God has reconciled us. We’re already gathered by the Holy Spirit as friends in Christ. It’s done. This is not a work in progress. We, however, are the work in progress. He’s very clear about this.

God has reconciled you ….
provided that you persevere in the faith,
firmly grounded, stable,
and not shifting from the hope of the Gospel that you heard,
which has been preached to every creature under heaven … (Colossians 1:22-23)

Today’s Psalm provides the framework for how we are to persevere and how we remain fixed upon the hope of the Gospel. We must pray constantly.

O God, by your name save me,
  and by your might defend my cause.
O God, hear my prayer;
  hearken to the words of my mouth. (Psalm 54:3-4)

Pray, gather, and love each other. That’s more than a formula. It turns manure into fertilizer. It strips off the hip waders and makes everyone who hates us someone that we love.

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