We are what we do
I recently learned from a family member they’ve always supported Donald Trump because he’s part of the divine plan to bring about the Biblically foretold great sorting of evil from good. This reminded me of serving on a school board with two other deeply religious Christians. The eternal problem of unpaid lunches came up, and one of them suggested we just not feed kids whose accounts were empty. This would incentivize parents to pay up. The other believer, a pastor, objected to making children go hungry as a strategy. We found a much better solution.
The most basic characteristic of radical zealotry of all kinds is that the end justifies the means. It’s been used to excuse every kind of harm — torture, witch-burnings, cross-burnings, mass deportation, concentration camps, kidnapping, homicide and telling dehumanizing lies about how they deserved it — as long as it’s “for a good cause.”
To adopt this thinking is to inflict moral harm, whether it’s to ourselves as individuals, to a local school district or to our country. What kind of person deliberately harms innocent people? What kind of society tolerates the harm?
We aren’t the labels we adopt — we are what we do. The ways we choose to fight, who we fight and who we fight for will define each of us as humans and determine who we become as a people. The people of Minneapolis know that, and they’re showing us the way.