The videos are disturbing. You can watch from multiple angles as the horror unfolds and the crowd scatters in terror. Perhaps as disturbing as the images of death were the reactions on social media. The blood was still warm and people across the internet celebrated, cheered, and shared in the lust of another “bad guy” getting what he deserved.
The date was September 17th, 2024 and it wasn’t a famed Christian influencer’s death they were celebrating, but rather the death or injury of thousands of men, women, and children in Lebanon and Syria—victims of Israel’s infamous pager attack against suspected Hezbollah operatives…and anyone near them. More attacks followed the next day with handheld radios detonating, and the celebrations were equally joyful.
It’s okay though, because all of that happened to them, the bad guys, and they deserved it. Right?
Other videos of other bad guys get similar responses on social media. Videos of protesters getting run over by cars, shot in the face point-blank with tear gas canisters, or blasted off their feet by a 100psi water cannon to the head are shared in gleeful abundance across platforms, by conservatives.
FAFO, we say. But what does Jesus think about it? And more importantly, what does He tell us to do about it?
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?”
— Matthew 5:43-47
Is it okay to laugh at the pagans, though? Are they somehow worth less than us?
Dehumanization 101
“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.”
— Edward L. Bernays, Propaganda
I could give you a list of social media users and quote the vile things they’ve said over the past few years on all of those topics and many others. I’m choosing not to. For one thing, it’s depressing that so many on “our side” are situationally vicious, even professing Christians. It’s also not conducive to our purposes of doing what Jesus instructs us to do: have greater and more intentional love for others.
Another reason I choose not to list their comments is because people change, and it’s not necessarily fair to attribute someone’s misplaced emotional outburst to some kind of lifelong doctrine. Lord knows there are things I’ve said on social media that I regret.
But for the Holy Spirit, so too go I.
What it boils down to is our propensity to dehumanize those on the other side of the fence, whether it’s political, religious, or otherwise. If we see them as…Them, it’s easy to make fun of Them—even when their lifeless bodies are sprawled on the ground, even while their communities are being persecuted, even when their surviving family members are wracked with devastation and grief, and even though they too wrestle with trying to explain to their children why any of this happened.
We (all of us) are susceptible to falling into one of the demons’ greatest traps: dehumanizing others. The enemy of your soul doesn’t care what side of the fence you’re on. If we take our eyes off Jesus and cease listening to the Holy Spirit, Satan can make any one of us vicious about something.
I’ve seen people I’ve known and respected from church sneer at and justify atrocity. I know people who operate in the Holy Spirit on most issues, who love Jesus and pray passionately on behalf of others, set aside that compassion and openly and callously celebrate the death of innocent people…all depending on who they are.
How does that happen?
It happens when we adopt the language of the enemy. It happens when we lump whole populations of God’s children into undefined categories such as Them.
I’ve been guilty of this and so have you. We all have.
We need to face it, and face it quick, because for all of the psyops on social media decrying a coming battle between good versus evil, a battle designed to get us emotional and jumpy, they’re right about one thing: A battle is raging. What might not be clear to us (and especially to new believers) is that this battle is nothing new, it’s been raging forever, and it’s not going to let up until Jesus returns.
We need to learn how to fight not the enemies we perceive—lefties, right-wing extremists, jihadists, Zionists, trannies, evangelicals, commies, religious nuts, illegals, gangsters, pedos, or any of a thousand pejoratives we summarize as Them—but the true enemies of Jesus Christ, those who dance in the light of outrage on both sides, stoking the flames of division with new offenses and fears.
Those enemies are not flesh and blood, and they don’t care which side you fall on; they merely want us dehumanizing someone, anyone, from the tiniest baby in the womb to the most hardened, unrepentant killer. So long as we see them as anything less than an image bearer of the one true God, the enemy is cool with it.
The Bad Guys
When it came to morality I used to be a black and white kind of guy, and considered moderates to be fence-sitting cowards. But the older I get, the more I understand how insufficient our categories are; the term “good guys” is inadequate in almost any context because history is messy, and motivations vary with facts getting lost or diluted in the ether of time and nefarious intent.
But evil is real, and we need to confront it. No doubt about that.
My coming to Jesus is a direct result of my studies into the depravity of man. A group of people celebrating an influencer’s death on social media is evil, but relative to the unspoken horrors taking place right where you live, things that would so shock you that you might lose your lunch, it’s hardly even noteworthy.
Evil takes many forms, and the worst ones you’re better off not knowing about. I wish I didn’t.
And yet, here we are—commanded to show them mercy as we pray for them. It begins by recognizing that Jesus died for them, too. That’s something we’ll be wise to keep in mind the next time we take communion.
In my almost fifty years on Earth I’ve probably learned the most by being wrong. I used to support every war, ridicule the tree huggers, cheer the cruel and unusual punishment for those who “deserved it,” and never gave much thought to those on the other side.
They embraced evil and so now people on our side are openly claiming that we need to confront Them more vehemently and forcefully than ever — because they’ve rejected the confines of civilized society, and as a result they’ve forfeited rights reserved for people who have proper respect for others.
The only problem with that perspective is Jesus, who says our battle is not against flesh and blood, but rather against those in the heavenly realms. Unless we can see Them as human captives in a supernatural war, and unless we rise above flippant flesh responses to depraved words and deeds, and unless we can love others as ourselves, we’re better off shutting up until we can.
Or better yet, we can spend our time having face-to-face conversations, humanize the caricatures, get to know them, and perhaps learn what Jesus wants to do in and through them, too. And instead of fighting them, we can fight for them, whoever they might be. I’m so glad Jesus was patient and merciful with me, because I also used to be one of them.
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This is part of an ongoing series titled, The Bad Guys. Previous articles:
The Bad Guys I: History.
The Bad Guys II: Abortion…and Cobra Kai.
The Bad Guys III: The Feds
The Bad Guys IV: The Uniparty
The Bad Guys V: Intelligence Agencies
The Bad Guys VI: The Courts
The Bad Guys VII: Cops (part 1)
The Bad Guys VIII: Cops (part2)
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