Conflict Avoidance
As I understand the human situation, no person is more or less political than anyone else. We’re all here, trying to get a life in one way or another, and hopefully paying attention to what our words and actions bring about. Neighborliness is good politics. Declining to view yourself as a human being among other human beings and behaving accordingly is bad politics.
I was recently moved to see that one of the most morally serious people I’ve ever known, my friend and mentor Anna Caudill, decided to publicly defend her family against an elected official who has—not for the first time—published what is arguably an incitement to racist violence:
Lifting her voice in this way involves certain risks. Anna is addressing a United States Senator, after all, and Anna’s own work of advocacy involves forming and sustaining certain alliances in Tennessee which could be threatened by daring to publicly demand baseline moral seriousness of Marsha Blackburn. But she showed courage anyway, addressing Marsha Blackburn like an adult and an equal, telling the truth and letting the chips fall where they may.
It would be wonderful if Tennessee voters and campaign donors and, perhaps most of all, those who have indicated to Marsha Blackburn that they think of her as a sister in Christ, made it clear to her that her behavior in regard to her fellow human beings is not acceptable. It would be good if Anna Caudill didn’t have to put herself in Marsha Blackburn’s path in this way to defend her family. But alas, a habitual conflict avoidance in many circles (local, state, & national) has yielded, with humiliating exactness, the world we’re in. Our Senator believes she can speak this way with impunity. What are we prepared to about it?
And….that may all I’ve got, except to say that Anna’s witness is exemplary and worth following. I don’t think deferential fear is a problem for her, but she’s shown us what overcoming it looks like. Others can speak up without risking as much. If that’s you, please apply her example to your own context and go for it.