There are certain words and phrases used by our political class that I find particularly irksome. For example, a few years ago I began noticing virtually every politician and talking head on TV news programs would preface their remarks with the word: “Look.” Where to I’m never quite sure.
But by far the most annoying phrase I’ve heard over the last few years, from both the Left and the Right, is this little gem: “We need to get to the bottom of this!” What makes this phrase specially grating is that we almost never get to the bottom of anything.
Then again, getting to the bottom of things ought to be our primary objective whenever we assess any issue of our day, despite, as I say, the fact that we never actually seem to. Instead, we indulge in surface analyses, mindlessly refusing to investigate life at its depths, life at its core, and refusing to get to the “bottom” of anything. We simply take things at face value.
One obvious characteristic of the spiritual life, on the other hand, is seeing things not as does the “world,” i.e., superficially, but by means of eternal, abiding truths, those routinely drowned out by the world’s clamorous frivolities, perhaps especially by the ones dressed up as solemn and unquestioned. Spiritual discernment, in other words, by its very nature, requires we truly “get to the bottom of things.”
In observing the state of American society over the last few years, and especially after the political and social upheavals of the past year, I’ve been struck by how little self-examination or self-awareness has been in evidence. Beset by one crisis after another, society lurches from one outrage to the next. Blind rage and confusion is the order of the day. In this we learn nothing, nor does anyone ever seem to benefit.
Problems are identified, to be sure, and solutions proffered, yet all seem to lack, as I say, spiritual discernment, much less clarity of thought. They fail to “get to the bottom of things” precisely because they never take account of the realities of human nature or the underlying moral and spiritual truths that govern human behavior.
One such hairbrained, yet oddly popular, diagnosis of our current situation goes by the name of “identity politics.” Here large swathes of people are condemned and vilified for things over which they have absolutely no control, such as being born white, male, and/or heterosexual. Whole classes of people are tarred without recourse as “racist, fascist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, etc., etc. (The list keeps evolving – it’s hard to keep up!)
But, according to our “woke” overlords, not being responsible for such crimes matters little. Absolution is by definition impossible. So, too, forgiveness and mercy.
The guilty, in other words, are judged not according to their individual sins or particular transgressions, but as a group. Not even earnest confession can free them from being classified as irredeemable. There simply is no redemption.
In a thoughtful new book entitled American Awakening: Identity Politics and Other Afflictions of Our Time, Joshua Mitchell points to the unique history of American religion to help explain this altogether bizarre phenomenon.
America, he points out, was founded on Judeo-Christian principles. More specifically, it was founded (and is informed) by a particular brand of Protestant Christianity, one both Calvinist and Puritan. This branch of Protestantism stressed, almost to the extreme, Christianity’s understanding of sin and transgression on the one hand, and redemption and purity (innocence) on the other.
Mitchell argues that these themes are endemic to how we Americans think and act, even as we move steadily away from any explicit practice of Christianity. This urge to overcome sin and impurity is at the core of who we are, even if it is mostly unconscious.
Identity politics, on closer inspection, mimics its Christian parentage in lifting up the very same themes of sin and redemption. Where it differs is in how it seeks to resolve the matter.
In traditional Christianity, there exists a foundational belief in Original Sin, which insists that every single human being, without exception, is a sinner and transgressor. Redemption, broadly understood, requires that each individual work out his or her own salvation with “fear and trembling.”
The only path to redemption and a clear conscience is through repentance, itself premised on God’s offer of forgiveness and mercy. Christians understand that no one is capable of attaining righteousness on one’s own, for each of us is helpless against the power of sin.
Thus it is God and God alone who imputes grace to the repentant sinner, and a new life free from punishment and guilt. In this, salvation and redemption are received as pure gift.
Identity politics, on the other hand, omits divine grace altogether. Instead, purity is achieved by scapegoating those deemed responsible for all one’s personal failings and feelings of shame and guilt.
These are the true transgressors whose wanton sins have robbed the innocents of the life they rightly deserve – life as it ought to be. The redeemed are thus not responsible for the dark clouds that mar an otherwise sunny day, one to which they are duly entitled. Their conscience remains clear. In scapegoating others, the “victim” gains moral superiority and achieves status as one among the elect.
Absent the consolations of God, those who scapegoat depend on the scapegoated to feel good about themselves, to feel justified, to know purity in a fallen world prone to brokenness and anomie.
Of course, such an approach to redemption, aside from being false, does nothing to help bridge the divide that threatens to tear our nation apart. It offers only judgment without hope of forgiveness or reconciliation.
Moreover, it denies that each one of us, regardless of race, class, or gender, shares a common humanity and that part of being human is facing the inescapable fact that we are all sinners and suffer the same powerful, primordial yearning to know genuine grace and peace.
In order to truly “get to the bottom of things,” then, we first need to recover two basic truths born of our Judeo-Christian heritage: 1) that we are all sinners in need of God’s grace and 2) that because there is no perfection this side of heaven, we are simply incapable of saving ourselves, whether through identity politics or any other human scheme that falsely promises to achieve perfection in this world.
We would do well to consider Mitchell’s prescient assessment of the future here in America. Because, as he insists, we are unique among nations in our particular Puritan take on sin and redemption, we, perhaps especially, will not find peace unless we reclaim our Christian heritage.
This is because the Puritan dynamic of sin and redemption continues to play itself out within American society, whether we know it or not, and indeed whether we like it or not. It’s simply a part of who we are.
Thus, in the end, only Christianity offers us a way out of the endless cycle of sin and retribution. Only by means of divine grace shall we know peace with our neighbor.