So said Rodney King after the carnage of the race-related LA Riots in 1992 after the acquittal of police officers that had brutally handled his arrest. Scenes of a white trucker being pulled from his truck to be even more brutally beaten by angry young black men repulsed the world. Surely this reaction was even worse than the original offense. King’s words were meant to help calm an explosive situation, to defuse it with the realization we’re going where no one can want to go.

We’ve discussed, lamented, and despaired over the change in our current cultural moment that has sunken inexorably down in a vicious spiral. If you’re on the right, perhaps it was Mr. Obama’s rhetoric and policies that started the “Saul Alinsky” movement down, and if you’re on the left, Mr. Trump is the human personification of evil, and the lead actor in promoting hate in the world. But as the heat of the rhetoric spins up, and some of the inevitable carnage unfolds, whether the tragic death in Charlottesville from the alt-right car rampage, or the assassination attempt of congressional Republicans at a charity baseball game, we realize perhaps it’s going more than just a bit too far. Maybe we should collectively take a deep breath.

In our own Berean context, which happily is much less incendiary, we wonder how Christians can engage in cultural issues in a manner that is both true and loving. And as part of this, the goal is to get to a point where we at least can all “agree to disagree agreeably.” Can we get to some new cultural normal where everyone can declare a truce? There is also yet a further turn, sometimes explicit, and often implicit, that since none of us has a lock on the truth, we need to find the answer in the middle. Or better yet, declare there is no way to get to the answer because there isn’t one, or that there are multiple ones, or that our public concerns are disconnected from our private faith. So, you can be a Christian and a Trump or Sanders or Republican or Democrat or noneoftheabove supporter. There is no “Christian” answer to these questions. If this really were the case, I suppose we should all just stop reading and writing here or anywhere else.

But I think this is incorrect. I continue to assert that there is a distinctively Biblical way to think about political economy issues, and our challenge is to find out what that is. Further, to the extent that any of us finds that answer, the other side that disagrees with this approach is arguing for an unbiblical perspective. And the necessary implication is that if they are arguing against God, they are pursuing an evil agenda. As perhaps the strongest and easiest illustration, it should be obvious (but unfortunately it’s not), that arguing for the taking of an innocent life is evil, and that the protection of innocent life is good. Abortion is a monstrous evil in our country and our world, and those that promote it have been deceived into thinking that what is evil is good.

So let me summarize the case on why I do think there is a good vs evil going on, and why there are some that are going to be closer to the truth than others, even when we debate political economy. I realize this is quite unsettling for some, but it seems to me the Biblical reality. So here is what I see:

1. The Bible records only two broad categories of people–those that bow the knee to God, and those that do not.
2. Within the category of God followers, there are some that are true followers, and some that are self-deceived.
3. The God followers see complete truth dimly, as in a mirror, but their minds more accurately learn and understand God’s will for all of life the more they immerse themselves in God’s word with God’s people.
4. Those that do not follow God, will increasingly rebel and be resentful of anybody that claims that there is a higher authority that binds us.
5. As an implication of the preceding, there is no neutrality–you are either on God’s side or you are not.
6. If you are on God’s side, it is by His sheer grace, so there is no room for boasting. Further, your earnest desire must be that God in His mercy might enlighten those that are hostile toward God.
7. Those that are not followers of God can often be morally correct on an issue, even though they are personally hostile to God, to the extent that their thinking aligns with a Biblical worldview.
8. Conversely, those that are followers of God can be morally wrong on an issue, even though they personally love Jesus Christ, to the extent that their thinking is not consistent with a Biblical worldview.

I will defend this summary in the next post, and then in a final post, I will outline how I think we engage with culture in light of these realities, e.g., what is a biblical love for enemies.