Why do we no longer get along with each other? Why is there such bitter polarization inside of our countries, our neighborhoods, our churches, and even in our families? In the Hebrew scriptures, the prophet Malachi offers us this insight on the origins of polarization, division, and hatred. Echoing the voice of God, he writes: “Therefore, I have made you contemptible and base before all the people, since you do not keep my ways, but show partiality in your decisions. Have we not all the one Father? Has not the one God created us? Why do we break faith with one another?”
Isn’t this particularly apropos for us today, given all the polarization and hatred in our houses of government, our churches, our communities, and our families, where for the most part we no longer respect each other and struggle even to be civil with each other? We have broken faith with each other. Civility has left the building.
Someone once said, not everything can be fixed or cured, but it should be named properly. That’s the case here. We need to name this. We need to say out loud, this is wrong. We need to say out loud that none of this can be done in the name of love. And we need to say out loud that we may never rationalize hatred and disrespect in the name of God, the Bible, truth, moral cause, freedom, enlightenment, or anything else.
We are pathologically complex as human persons, and the quest for sincerity is the quest of a lifetime. The biblical prophet Malachi names one of them: “Do not show partiality in your decisions and do not break faith with each other”. When we parse that out, what is it saying? Among other things, this: You have a right to struggle, to disagree with others, to be passionate for truth, to be angry sometimes, and (yes) even to feel hateful occasionally (since hate is not the opposite of love, indifference is).
But you may never preach hatred and division or advocate for them in the name of goodness; instead, in that place inside you where sincerity resides, you need to nurse a congenital distrust of anyone who does proactively advocate for hatred and division. [Excerpt from Ron Rolheiser’s “Civility Has Left the Building” April 2024]