The latest embarrassing eruption of incivility in the public eye has been reported recently including several people in President Trump’s administration being harassed by those holding different political views. But it has been escalating for some time with multiple universities shutting down divergent political voices that might question the prevailing sexual revolution’s agenda.

Late night TV is rife with vitriol, and public dialogue is becoming more difficult each day. Many are uncomfortable with what is going on, but mostly we shrug it off as a sign of the times. Bad mistake! What we are seeing is more dangerous than just a disturbing trend.

Like children caught by their parents in a disruptive shoving match, both sides are saying, “He started it.” Democrats blame President Trump for making the election campaign about personalities and referring to other candidates by negative monikers. His personal tweets have undoubtedly added to the furor. 

Republicans tend to blame the Obama administration and the biased Media. They still smart from the Saturday Night Live episode mocking Governor Sarah Palin and other personal attacks by the Hollywood elite who leverage their stage for their often ill-informed agendas.

But, it goes back farther than either. It was the problem of the first family, but not the one in the White House. It was Adam and Eve’s boys: Cain and Abel.

Cain Listens to the Lies

Both had brought an offering to the Lord. Abel was into livestock, while Cain was a farmer. Their offerings reflected their vocations, but God accepted Abel’s offering while rejecting Cain’s.

There has been much discussion of why God accepted one and not the other, but the point is that Abel’s offering reflected a good heart, and Cain’s did not. Being rebuked by the Lord, his countenance fell. The Lord confronted the disappointed, distressed, downcast Cain with a choice that would either bring life or destruction.

The Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.”

Genesis 4:7

The rest of the story is a tragedy. Cain chose to be the victim. He listened to the lies about being treated unfairly; that a conspiratorial oppressor was making his life harder than others. In refusing to confront the crouching sin, he gave in.

Under the impression that he was fighting for his own justice, he was oppressed by the Liar whose purpose is to destroy. Obsessed by his cause, his anger boiled into hatred for his brother. He felt no responsibility for him and effectively shut him down. It was murder.

The Poisoned Fruit of Victimization

It is the story of the inevitable fruit of victimization. Those who are convinced that they are oppressed, when fueled by irresponsible anger, will become the oppressor.

There can be no meaningful dialogue with someone we have dehumanized.

It was the story of Karl Marx, Joseph Stalin, and many other dictators who killed millions of people to justify their theory of social justice. It could happen again. 

Our society is being divided into competing oppressed minorities. Those perceived as oppressors are enemies and must be shut down, or eliminated. There can be no meaningful dialogue with someone we have dehumanized. They have nothing to add to our conversation. They are only obstacles to our ideology and must be removed.

This can only end badly unless someone makes the choice Cain could have made but didn’t. The lies that promote victimization must be actively confronted with the truth. Things won’t get better without such a choice. It is a false hope that we will eventually grow tired of the vitriol and return to civility. Anger fueled by victimization is not rational and will not subside on its own.

We Too Have Choices

The Lord reminded Cain that he knew the right thing to do and that by choosing to do it, the crouching evil would be thwarted. We too have choices. We can make an acceptable offering to God. We do that by trusting the offering that our representative, Jesus made in our stead. He alone qualifies with a pure heart and an adequate sacrifice to truly honor God.

When we are “in Christ” we will never hear God rejecting us. Then, we can accept responsibility for where we are. We didn’t have a choice in so many factors that led to where we are, but we do have a choice now in how we respond.

Without doubt, some of our angst is the results of injustice. Some are the results of our own decisions. But, regardless of how we got here, our choices must start now from where we are to move forward.

Next, we can accept the revelation of who we are. Our identity is not derived from our membership in an oppressed group. We are humans, created in God’s image with the privilege of making decisions that matter.

We are not the creator, but his creatures. That is, we were not designed to know everything, and possess ultimate power. We are limited and therefore need each other. We can’t afford to demonize those who are different. We need them to provide perspective and motivation. Just like Adam needed Eve, we need those who aren’t just like us but have a common mission.

We are Agents, Not Victims

We know what to do. It is time to do it. The destroyer is crouching at the door of our decision. We can reject the lie that what we do doesn’t matter. It does.

We are God’s agents in his creation, and every decision we make affects the whole. We can make sure that each decision we make today will help make the world better rather than worse.

We can decide that each word we say today will build and bless rather than demean and destroy.

We can, as light-reflectors, push back the darkness one decision at a time. We are not on the defensive.

There has never been a confrontation between light and darkness when darkness won. We are not victims of anything. We are agents of light and darkness is on the run.