{"id":36380,"date":"2024-03-05T15:02:12","date_gmt":"2024-03-05T23:02:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=36380"},"modified":"2024-03-05T15:19:00","modified_gmt":"2024-03-05T23:19:00","slug":"hate-never-wins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/hate-never-wins\/","title":{"rendered":"Hate Never Wins!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The year was 1995. I was 22 years old, and it was a regular Wednesday morning. Nothing was out of the ordinary. The skies were clear with a soft, cool April breeze. The typical rush hour traffic had subsided, and people had successfully shuffled themselves nicely into their cubicle workstations for the day.<\/p>\n

Tick tock it is 9:00 AM.<\/p>\n

Tick tock, it is 9:01 AM.<\/p>\n

Tick tock\u2026BOOM!<\/strong><\/p>\n

It is 9:02 AM and a Ryder truck filled with a deadly cocktail of fertilizer and other chemicals exploded at the Oklahoma City Murrah Building taking 168 souls including 19 children. More than 300 buildings were destroyed or sustained damage. Ten miles away, the windows in my childhood home inhaled and exhaled from the power of the blast, causing neighbors to run outside in a fit of confusion. This became the deadliest terror attack on U.S. soil at the time.<\/p>\n

Driven by perceived righteousness, 27-year-old, former Army soldier Timothy McVeigh believed it was time to go \u201con the offensive – to put a check on the [U.S.] government\u2019s abuse of power where others had failed in stopping the federal juggernaut run amok.\u201d[1]<\/a> Following his arrest, McVeigh repeatedly denied affiliation with any religious or separatist groups; however, FBI reports show strong connections to the Christian Identity movement, whose overarching ideology is an antisemitic, racist theology that believes \u201cWhite people, not Jewish people, are the true Israelites favored by God in the Bible.\u201d[2]<\/a><\/p>\n

Because of the labels we place upon people, it might be easy to think that McVeigh lacked education or was raised in a low-income household rooted in some form of faulty Christianity along with a deeply racist ideology.<\/p>\n

But what if our assumptions are wrong? <\/strong><\/p>\n

It is no secret that equality in America has never achieved the theology of universalism, which was designed to embrace a collective identity that focused more on the things that unified us than divided us. As poet Maya Angelou describes, \u201cWe are more alike, my friends, than unalike.\u201d[3]<\/a><\/p>\n

In his book, The Identity Trap<\/em>, author Yascha Mounk addresses the explosion of modern-day identity politics, which asserts an intersectional view that the world is divided by the \u201cOppressed and the oppressor.\u201d[4]<\/a> Years of persistent injustices have fueled anger, causing people to band together for comfort through ideological agreement, unity, and perhaps even personal safety.[5]<\/a><\/p>\n

However, the unintended consequences of remaining siloed in distinct groups are enormous.<\/strong> Doing so means we become stagnant and self-reliant rather than relying on God, who wants us to be uncomfortable so we can grow spiritually. James 1:2-3 says, \u201cConsider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.\u201d Otherwise, we surround ourselves with people who share our opinions, and we fall into the effects of an echo chamber, missing the richness of communal life together and building trust for one another. We become isolationists; driven by fear of the need to protect our identities and material belongings.<\/p>\n

People have a natural bias toward their own identity group while treating other groups with different standards. We tend to place a higher value on those who look, act, and think like us because we don\u2019t understand or connect with those who do not. The result is the creation of an \u201cus\u201d versus \u201cthem\u201d mentality.<\/p>\n

Timothy McVeigh was a skilled soldier with a promising career. But following his service in the Gulf War, he grew disillusioned by some of the more violent behavioral aspects of military culture.”[6]<\/a> His criticism of the government increased, unraveling extremist views adopted from the Christian Identity movement.<\/p>\n

McVeigh eventually became so blinded by hate, self-righteousness, and anger, that he was unable to recognize the humanity of the individuals who perished on the morning of April 19, 1995. He consulted his feelings and cultural standards to define his identity and direction, when all along, he needed to look to Christ.<\/p>\n

Our identities should never be about our shifting moods or family of origin. It should be about who God is and what God can do<\/strong>.[7]<\/a> May He continue to use this experience to teach us to love one another, because hate never wins.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> McVeigh, Tracy. \u201cThe McVeigh Letters: Why I Bombed Oklahoma.\u201d The Guardian<\/em>, 6 May 2001, https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2001\/may\/06\/mcveigh.usa.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> \u201cChristian Identity.\u201d Southern Poverty Law Center<\/em>, https:\/\/www.splcenter.org\/fighting-hate\/extremist-files\/ideology\/christian-identity. Accessed 3 Mar. 2024.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Family, Human. Human Family by Maya Angelou<\/em>. https:\/\/allpoetry.com\/Human-Family. Accessed 3 Mar. 2024.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Baucham, Voddie T. Fault Lines: The Social Justice Movement and Evangelicalism\u2019s Looming Catastrophe<\/em>. First trade paperback edition., Salem Books, 2022.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Mounk, Yascha. The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time<\/em>. Penguin Press, 2023.<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Terror on Trial: Who Was Timothy McVeigh? – CNN.Com<\/em>. https:\/\/edition.cnn.com\/2007\/US\/law\/12\/17\/court.archive.mcveigh2\/index.html. Accessed 3 Mar. 2024.<\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> Who Am I?<\/em> https:\/\/www.bible.com\/reading-plans\/42282-who-am-i. Accessed 4 Mar. 2024.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The year was 1995. I was 22 years old, and it was a regular Wednesday morning. Nothing was out of the ordinary. The skies were clear with a soft, cool April breeze. The typical rush hour traffic had subsided, and people had successfully shuffled themselves nicely into their cubicle workstations for the day. Tick tock […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":193,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3093],"class_list":["post-36380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dlpg03-mounk","cohort-dlgp03"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/193"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36380"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36380\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36388,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36380\/revisions\/36388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}