On the Road to the American Genocide

I've been quite alarmed by the type of speech that has surrounded our culture since the election. If we keep going the way that we have, this speech will not evaporate in the air but solidify in the actions of horror. Words have great power. They can turn into beautiful things, but they also have the ability to become very ugly things, perhaps, much uglier than their original speakers intended.

I study genocides quite a bit, more in terms of how they begin. I do this largely because I'm curious how what seems to be a somewhat organized and civilized society can suddenly turn into one that condones and practices the mass murder of others. From what I can tell, it begins with a single sentiment:

Resentment toward a perceived or real oppressor.

One may think that it is the oppressor who often brings genocide, but in the mind of those committing genocide, they are actually the freedom fighters. They are the ones who are fighting to make their way to peace, and the main obstacles in the way of utopia are the oppressors who have stolen something or preventing a certain condition or environment that would bring in this utopian bliss. Whether it is prevention of wealth, health, equality, etc. the oppressors must be moved out of the way or this nirvana, where the oppressed are on top will never occur.

This resentment, then, begins to emerge in speech that degrades the humanity of the perceived oppressor. After all, anyone who would oppress others is a "monster," a "rat," a "dog," a "cockroach," a "Nazi." The terms are largely irrelevant. It's simply necessary to use some term that describes another human as less than human, or rather, not deserving of their humanity due to their perceived oppressive behavior.

Speech then turns into action as these oppressors are put in their place by the heroes of the resistance. Social shunning, job loss, defamation of one's character and name, laws created to protect the oppressed by limiting the rights of the oppressor are all justified as the oppressors are moved out of positions of influence and power and shamed into being subordinates.

At this point, violence is justified. A monster should be vanquished. A rat should be exterminated. A dog can be beaten. A cockroach should be killed. A Nazi should be punched in the face.

The final step, then, is simply to remove the oppressors from society physically. This can mean prison or death. As Oprah Winfrey said of old white people who are still racist, "Those people just need to die." There is no tolerance of those who cannot be re-educated quickly. They just need to die, and the wolf will lay down with the lamb, the new world will begin. And what a beautiful world it will be once all of that grass grows over all of the dead bodies of men, women, and children who were in the way of the visions of the KKK, Young Turks, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, the Hutu, ISIS, the ANC Youth League, ANTIFA.

The oppressed become the oppressors. They look much more like monsters and sub-human creatures seeking the blood of their victims than their perceived oppressors ever did. Like T'Challa says to his cousin in "The Black Panther," when his cousin's solution is to subdue the oppressors via war and genocide, "You have become them."

But it's OK, you see, they're making the world a better place. They just have to terrorize and slaughter a few million people like pigs first in order to get there.

The United States has sat comfortably for around 150 years now without a war on its own soil. That's quite a few generations that know nothing of the terrors of war. What this has created is a sort of obliviousness to the fact that such horrors are coming, and an unwillingness to entertain the idea that genocide could ever take place in our society. Yet, the resentment, and the verbal manifestations of the beginning stages of genocide, are already here.

The world can only bring solutions that end in murder because it has no basis to forgive. Even when it attempts to superficially forget about wrongs done, it holds them down deep within, unsatisfied and unplacated by a calm brought about by mere words. Furthermore, even when wrongs have not been done, but are perceived as existing, there is no basis for giving another the benefit of the doubt. Why be generous to a Nazi?

The church's responsibility is to give the world a basis for forgiveness, and that can only be brought about in the proclamation of the cross. Only then can wrongs be justly punished without the murder of so many. Only viewing people in Christ as new creations will bring peace, as only Christ can bring peace. Humanity must first be reconciled to God, become His life-giving images again, and then they will be able to be reconciled to one another.

But have no doubt, we are on the road to civil war and genocide. The resentment that has been fostered, and the words that have begun to form reality, have set our culture on that path. And there is now only one force powerful enough to stop it.

The rhetoric of murder has, and will never, become the utopia of radicals. It will instead create the ugliness of a bloody and destroyed world, and they will simply replace one oppressive regime with another; but the words of the gospel will become the beauty of paradise.