Everybody Wants to Rule the World

Aaaand there’s another popular song title hijacked. 🙂

Okay, I know I said I wasn’t going to write a post about Chick-Fil-A (insinuated is more what I did)–and technically, this post isn’t about Chick-Fil-A, so I’m (sort of) keeping my word. Or my insinuation. Whatever.

But now that the uproar has died down a little bit, I feel like that whole ordeal showed us something about humanity in general–something that if we’re serious about living what we say we believe, and practicing what we preach, we should not overlook:

As a species overall, we’re not always as interested in the value of equal rights as we claim to be.

Yes, I know some people personally for whom equality for all is a legitimate value, and I respect that in them. But not everyone who preaches equal rights actually wants equal rights. For many of the people preaching equality the loudest, equality is a actually politically correct cover to push their own agenda upon others. If you weigh their words against their actions, they don’t actually want equality. They want to win. They want to dominate.

Hence the title of this post: everybody wants to rule the world. Maybe not “everybody,” but certainly more people than we’d care to admit.

There’s a blog post by Matt over at The Church Of No People (whom I seem to be gleaning a lot from these days) where he makes the very insightful observation that our cultural definition of tolerance is changing. Tolerance was a catch-word throughout the last decade of the last century; we needed to tolerate people who were different than we were, who believed differently, who behaved differently. Live and let live. That kind of thing. Now that our culture is a lot more tolerant, tolerance is no longer enough; now we must validate. We must celebrate whatever cause for “equality” is currently p.c., and anyone who does not join the celebration is instantly assumed to be a bigot. Even if publicly celebrating that cause is a violation of one’s personal conscience.

And suddenly and ironically, tolerance becomes a thing of the past. We’re now intolerant again, just in a different direction.

Now to be clear here, I’m not talking about my personal opinion about gay rights, marriage equality, or anything like that. In fact, I’m only using the gay rights issue as a relevant example of something that happens all the time with many other issues. I’m talking about the way people of different beliefs, opinions and ideologies dance around each other, trying to shame one another into a change of opinion in the name of “equality.” In most cases, neither side is very interested in equality. Both sides want to rule the day, and words like equality and tolerance are just the playing cards that are used for the purpose of manipulating the game board.

I know that sounds a bit jaded, but look at what just happened with Chick-Fil-A. To my knowledge, the owner of that company violated no one else’s rights. He was simply asked a question about his opinion of gay marriage, and he gave an honest answer–which is his constitutional right. Even in his response, he did not verbally attack anyone who was gay. But because it was not the right answer in the eyes of some, and because some of his wording was perhaps a bit incendiary, he was essentially crucified in the media. My Facebook newsfeed was filled with vitriol for weeks after that incident, to the point that I was concerned that if I visited Chick-Fil-A for lunch sometime, I would be labeled a bigot. Among those who promote tolerance, I didn’t hear very much in the way of tolerance at all.

And by the way, I don’t think “Chick-Fil-A Appreciation Day” helped matters much. It just added to the polarization. Just saying.

What am I saying? I’m saying that the true motives of many (not all) were exposed in this transaction. They weren’t interested in promoting “equal” rights for gays. They were interested in forcing people to accept something that violates their personal consciences, at the risk of their reputations, jobs and careers–not just Dan Cathey’s, but really everyone who makes their living at Chick-Fil-A. In that moment, it became clear that certain people had no problem with trampling on others’ rights in the name of promoting their own. That is not equality. It’s just the oppressed becoming the oppressor. How is this okay?

Now, when I point this out, let me be clear that I’m not singling out the gay rights agenda, because they certainly aren’t the only ones who are guilty. The church has been pulling this same kind of crap for centuries. We called it “Christendom.” From the days of Constantine, the church has mistakenly adopted a view that somehow the Great Commission included world domination, that somehow it was our job to establish the kingdom of God on earth by exerting influence on earthly governments and legislating morality. Never mind that Jesus never actually taught that; it has been assumed for centuries, and has caused all kinds of atrocities over the years as a result.

Even though America was formed in part for the purpose of escaping the bigotry caused by the linking of church and state, this thinking is still prevalent within the western church. How many times growing up did I hear phrases like “take the city” and “God has given us the land,” all in the name of Christ? I have lived in towns in the south where people are proud of the fact that their legislative bodies are dominated by a Christian worldview (and not really a “Christian” worldview, but more like the doctrinal statement of that town’s most prevalent denomination). This all stems from the Christendom mentality, the mistaken belief that evangelism should ultimately lead to the domination of the church within a society. As a result, time after time, we have created oppression in the name of Christ, against what Christ wanted, thinking that enforcing our will upon others was the right thing to do.

For that matter, look at the ways that many in the church are currently waging the so-called “culture war.” Look at organizations like American Family Association, who regularly go on the offensive against businesses who promote gay rights or other issues that don’t line up with the traditional Christian agenda, trying to apply financial pressure on them through various sanctions or boycotts. How is this any different from the pressure that was recently applied to Chick-Fil-A because of the statements made by its corporate head?

It reinforces my point: in far too many cases, we aren’t actually defending our rights or someone else’s rights with these actions. We’re trying to push our agenda through at someone else’s expense. We want to win; we want to rule. We don’t really care if the other guy’s rights are violated, as long as our rights are upheld. And it seems to hold true on both sides of just about any issue where equality is in question.

I guess what I’m saying by this is that with all the talk of equality and equal rights these days, it’s important for all of us to check our motives, no matter which side of the issue we happen to fall on. Are we really promoting the value of equal rights, or are we just using that as an excuse to promote our own agenda? Do we really believe it’s right to demonize someone for exercising their right of free speech, just because it doesn’t line up with popular opinion? And is it right to exploit that dynamic to promote a particular cause?

If we really believe equality and tolerance are the answer, then equality and tolerance must be practiced across the board–even if we sharply disagree with someone else’s viewpoint. Anything less is simply dishonest. If all we really want is to dominate, to enforce our will upon others and have our way, then we are at heart no different than those we may feel have oppressed us.