A couple days after Christmas, Politico ran a story detailing the complications ABC producers at "The View" are encountering as they seek to nail down a permanent co-host to fill the seat vacated by conservative writer Meghan McCain. According to the report, the 3 permanent liberal hosts, Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar, and Sunny Hostin, have a set of criteria:
- Can't dispute the 2020 election results
- Can't sympathize or be seen as offering justification for the January 6th riot
- Can't appeal too strongly to the MAGA wing of the Republican Party
- Can't be seen as "Never-Trump" and thus alienate the majority of the Republican base
Some might say they are looking for a unicorn, but I don't think that's necessarily the case. I think there are a number of Republican women who fit that description perfectly. What Politico hinted at, but didn't spend enough time exposing, was The View's real problem. It's not that reasonable, rational, conservative women don't exist, it's that none of them want to work with three unreasonable, irrational liberal women who have a penchant for shallow thinking and emotional tirades.
To that end, The Babylon Bee offered more insight into the real issue than Politico did:
To be fair to ABC, this problem isn't isolated to their grating morning gabfest. It's an issue that is being reflected across the breadth of our political landscape, with an ever-increasing portion of the population asking if there's any place left that doesn't traffic in moral outrage, obsess over extremes, delight in dehumanization, over-amplify the fringe, seek to radicalize, or simply exist for the seemingly sole purpose of inflaming passions and anger?
If there are ears for all voices and a place for all perspectives in our pluralistic society, it seems like that should include those who: (1) Were embarrassed by the January 6th spectacle and don't think Trump's populism represents the future, but also (2) find Biden's progressive handlers to be inept oligarchs pulling the strings of a disastrous presidency, and (3) think corporate, exploitative media and morally corrosive academia are the twin dangers ripping our social fabric to shreds. Is there a place for us?
I ask because even places that seem to appeal to those very values consistently disappoint. Take the newly created "American Values Coalition" whose mission is to grow "a community of Americans empowered to lead with truth, reject misinformation and extremism, and defend democracy."
To someone concerned about the noise and tribalism that infests the near-totality of our political, social, and religious discourse today, that sounds promising. Yet the same day I see that, I'm forced to recoil when the group's executive director, former Christian Post editor Napp Nazworth, tweeted this:
Despite the quotation marks, Donald Trump, Jr. never said those words, and if given the opportunity, would likely repudiate them. To be clear, Junior isn't my go-to for sound political philosophy, ethics, or biblical exegesis. But there's no question that Nazworth's tweet was crafted in a way that leads the reader to falsely conclude Trump Jr. said the Bible was for "suckers."
To be fair, Nazworth did follow up his initial inflammatory tweet with one that explained the insidious anti-Jesus quote was from the article's author channeling what he thought the president's son believed, not what Don Jr. actually said. And Nazworth was gracious enough to respond to me when I questioned him about it all, expressing his desire was to get people to click on the article and read it.
But treading that closely to the very "misinformation" label his group is designed to combat highlights the frustrating reality that honest and earnest Christians face in our current political climate.
It's yet another reason to remember that being a believer living in the shadow of an empire is fraught with distraction and temptation, and must be met with a double dose of discernment guided by the Word of God, and a constant awareness that our purpose is Kingdom-consumed, not power-preoccupied.
British missionary and theologian Lesslie Newbigin expressed it this way:
The task of the Church in relation to the events of world history is not to be the governor and controller of them, but to be the suffering servant and witness of the Lord, manifesting in its witness the true meaning of these events.
That certainly doesn't mean we Christians don't engage politics. It does mean that when we do, our primary motivation is to bear witness to something bigger than earthly power, shrewdly enticing men away from the futility of political empire and attracting them to the incorruptible, eternal Kingdom of Jesus.
No matter how lonely that feels at times, we press on.
