COMMENTARY
Can we start a new conversation? IN THE LATTER HALF OF 2022, IT’S TIME TO HAVE A SERIOUS TALK AMONGST OURSELVES ABOUT THE PATH FORWARD FOR AMERICA. By Robin Meyers
For more than a decade I wrote a regular column for Oklahoma Gazette. It was a progressive second opinion for those who needed something other than the suf focating or thodox y of a s t r a i g ht , w h it e , B a p t i s t , Republican Jesus. Based on the letters to the editor that always followed those columns, I was often accused of Oklahomabashing. If I didn’t appreciate the so-called Oklahoma Standard, some readers opined, then why didn’t I just move to California and sip wine with Nancy Pelosi? But looking back now, I realize that all those commentaries were really meant to post a warning about the dark clouds that were already forming on the body politic of both the state where I was born and the country that I love. Those clouds are no longer on the horizon. For the first time in American history, a twice-impeached oneterm president who lost the popular vote in two elections was able to nominate three far-right anti-choice justices to the Supreme Court. They delivered on what they promised to resist (also known as lying) by overturning Roe v. Wade. For half a century, women had been given the power of a choice that nobody else should ever make, but now all the Jesus-loving states can criminalize abortion and return women to the status of secondclass incubators without moral autonomy. Now a 10-year-old girl can be raped and forced to bear that child. If it doesn’t kill her physically, it will simply destroy her as a human being. What in God’s name have we done. On Jan. 6, 2021, an armed mob summoned by the aforementioned president attacked our Capitol and tried to overturn the results of a free and fair election. Carrying crosses and guillotines for the Prince of Peace, they were duped into fighting for a pathological narcissist and compulsive
liar. Republicans, 147 of whom voted to overturn the election results, refused to even participate in hearings about the wor st at t ac k on American democracy in American history. Now we know how close we came to The Rev. Dr. Robin Meyers, photo provided. losing our country. In each case where the separagranted cannot be taken away, or tion of church and state might be that there is something inevitable preserved, the court moved to about human progress, is a myth. compromise it, advancing the We could lose access to birth dream of Christian nationalists control, the rights of all people to for an American theocracy. In marry, the genius of religious pluwhat we have always assumed was ralism, and any hope that our the enduring genius of the foundchildren will not suffer the ers for giving us both freedom of ravages of climate disaster. religion and freedom from reliFor progressives, this would be gion, the center cannot hold. Six a good time to confess that we are of the nine Supreme Court juslosing, and that no amount of sotices are Catholic, even though phisticated condemnation will only one in five Americans are. change anything. This crisis is Why is it that those of us who bigger than hashtags or the narbelieve in plurality are now forced cissism of do-gooders who take to live in a country ruled by those selfies at fundraisers so they can who do not? Put simply, when it post a curated version of their comes to the unyielding moral awesomeness. We’ve got to stop dilemmas of our time, why do we sipping white wine and reminding eliminate choice instead of preeach other how smart we are and serving it? If you do not believe how dumb those “other people” in abortion, then don’t have one. are. Democrats must admit that Likewise, if you oppose same-sex we sold out to Wall Street, that we marriage, then just refrain from abandoned the working class and marrying someone of your own that when “deplorables” don’t sex. Just say no. vote for us, it might be our fault. When it comes to the climate The pandemic exposed a deeply crisis, the greatest threat facing broken, deeply divided, post-truth the human species, the court nation that can’t even communilim ited t he power of t he cate its shared values because E nv i r on ment a l P r ot e c t ion there is no shared understanding Agency to regulate carbon emisof the truth to begin with. sions and gave it to Congress (who The world will not be saved by had given it to the EPA to begin people who watch Tik-Tok videos with since that’s where the actual all day and don’t vote. It will not scientists work). Now the likes of be saved by preachers who value Marjorie Taylor Greene will help popularity more than the risks guide us into a sustainable future, required to tell the hard truth so no worries. In fact, and this about our greed and apathy. It must be said, we are now at an will not be saved by men who inflection point for women, for value masculinity over virtue, or democracy, for religious freedom by women who think feminism and for the future of the planet and lying are compatible. It will itself. The belief that rights once not be saved by celebrities who
masquerade as heroes or by athletes who are all body and no soul. But most of all, it will not be saved by people who refuse to think, to value evidence, to question authority, to expose the hypocrisy of religion or just to get over themselves. Let’s restart the conversation about how to create the kind of world we all want to live in, but keep it positive and practical, local and lively. Perhaps you truly believe that more guns will make us safer, that wealth trickles down and that the marketplace can solve all the problems of life. Or perhaps you think we have all been lied to, and somebody needs to tell us that the emperor has no clothes. Either way, bring it on. But hurry, because we are running out of time. The Rev. Dr. Robin Meyers is pastor of First Congregational Church UCC in Norman and retired senior minister of Mayf lower Congregational UCC in Oklahoma City. He is currently Professor of Public Speaking, and Distinguished Professor of Social Justice Emeritus in the Philosophy Department at Oklahoma City University, and the author of eight books on religion and American culture, the most recent of which is, Saving God from Religion: A Minister’s Search for Faith in a Skeptical Age. Visit robinmeyers.com
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