Shooting at the Peacemakers

Whenever there is an issue, one will usually find two issues. You believe, for instance, that it is immodest for a woman to wear pants. I believe, enlightened knight that I am, that it is not necessarily immodest. That’s an issue of disagreement. While it is certainly possible that it could go the other way, odds are that the second issue would work out this way. You believe it a grave problem that I don’t hold your view on women and pants. I, on the other hand, am profoundly indifferent to your view, quite content for you to go on holding it. Now we have a second disagreement. We differ on the relative importance of the first issue we differ on.

Shrewd politicians have learned how to use this to their advantage. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that you believe the federal government ought to spend more money on education. I, on the other hand, believe that no civil governments ought to spend any money on education. If you want to make progress, what do you do? Do you come after dangerous fanatics like me? No. I, you understand, am unlikely to budge and am unmoved by your attempts to marginalize me. You instead get after people between us, and charge them with failing to sufficiently condemn me. You accuse those who want the level of federal spending to remain constant of being soft on loonies like me. Why would you risk alienating those who are closer to you? To get them to move closer still. As you denounce them, they in turn will feel the need to prove their bona fides on the issue. Before this assault, my loonie views were a matter of indifference to these “moderates.” Now it is something they must loudly denounce, lest they get painted by you with my brush.

The strategy, of course, works for politicians of all kinds. It works in office politics. It works in family politics. And it works in church politics. It isn’t enough to disagree with theory A anymore. In order to avoid being tainted you have to stand up and declare theory A to be the very spawn of Satan. In some circles, for instance, it isn’t enough to believe in the five points of Calvinism. You must, in order to keep your Reformed credentials, believe that those who deny any of the five points of Calvinism go straight to hell when they die.

The world is full of issues, some of them subtle, all requiring wisdom. But the greatest wisdom is always needed for the second issue. The hard question is the proportion question. It is better, in the end, to enjoy the company of those who are wrong on a given issue, than those with whom we agree on the issue, but turn it into a matter of life and death when it need not be. Give me a peaceful Arminian any day over a fire-breathing Calvinist. Give me, on the other hand, a fire-breathing Calvinist any day over those Machiavellians who push their agenda by shooting at the peacemakers.