Keep on being kind

A friend encouraged me yesterday to re-post something from just before the General Election in 2015.  Back then, I just wanted to encourage people to be kind.  Think the best of people.  Don't assume that others have terrible motives.  Speak well of one another.  That was all I was after.

Honestly, I couldn't simply re-post it.  Go back and read it, and see how far things have deteriorated over the last four years.  Look at the picture of Dave, and Ed, and Nick; three men with very different politics but obvious mutual respect.  It was a more elegant blogpost, for a more civilised age.

Nowadays I really couldn't encourage you to assume the best of everyone in politics.  It would be naive, even negligent, to do so.  There is, I am convinced, real evil at work in our politics.  When parties are going into a general election pledged to decriminalise murder in the womb; when a major party in British politics has been named the number one existential threat to Jews around the world; when politicians are pledged to enshrine corrupt gender politics into our laws; when at least one political party is led by someone with a proven track record of lies and deceit...  No, I can't tell you to assume the best.  There is evil at work here.

But here's a thing I can say on apostolic authority: if evil is not to overcome us all, and is instead itself to be overcome, it is to be overcome by doing good.

So I think we can - must - keep on being kind.  That in no way means failing to call out evil where we see it.  But it does mean recognising that there is no righteous choice here, and if others are making different choices from us - choices we can't understand or see the moral justification for - we can be generous and humble in the way we think, and gentle in the way we speak.  We might want to challenge people to change their minds; but we do it with kindness.

We Christians need to look to the model of Jesus, and model a robust kindness, a kindness which doesn't brush over evil, but looks it squarely in the eye and is nonetheless powerfully gentle, confidently humble.

However you vote, or whether perhaps you don't feel you can morally justify voting at all, keep on being kind.