It occurred to me today that we’re going the wrong way.

I posted the first part of this two-parter on Monday morning, but I actually finished writing it Sunday afternoon. Not more than a couple of hours after that, on Sunday evening, my family and I went to our evening church service. During the sermon that evening, the pastor used the term ‘radical’, and I snickered to myself.

But, as I got to thinking about it, I started thinking about the very early church –> Jesus and the disciples and the early converts following The Way. As I was thinking about them, during the church service –totally not paying as much attention to the sermon as I should have been– I realized that the early church probably had a bit of a ‘radical’ feel to it.

Sitting in the church on Sunday evening, I was left to try to reconcile that understanding with what I’d written, with what I’d come to understand, about radicals.

More on that in a moment…

* * *

The voices that we listen to, in the world around us, have a way of convincing us that things are a certain way. When ALL WE LISTEN TO are those certain voices, we lose touch with reality, because reality contains many, many voices — many, many points of view. Radicalization is the process by which people come to adopt extreme positions on political or social issues, and that process usually is the result of the programming that we allow into our minds.

Maybe, it’s talk radio. That used to be a big one, and I suspect that it still is for some people, but even bigger these days is probably social media. I’ve had a hard time with that one, in particular, over the last several months. When it comes to social media, the voices that we hear tend to be the voices of our choosing, and then we end up with slanted points of view that don’t reflect a reality where other perspectives are also valid and logical.

Wherever the voices comes from, and whatever they tend to tell us, we have to understand that they only represent a small section of available opinions on any particular subject. If we aren’t getting information from a variety of different sources, then we end up becoming radicalized. The worst part of this process, I think, is that it is happening to people, all over the world, and they don’t even realize it.

It’s a loss of perspective, really, on such a large scale that it carries us away from relatively moderate viewpoints, to the land of the radical thoughts.

* * *

During the immediate period of time after September 11th, 2001, I remember that we, as a nation, started to learn about the Taliban, and about Al Qaeda,  and about ISIS. In fact, I remember that there were many Muslims –peaceful, patriotic, America-loving Muslims, living in America in the fall of 2001, who were starting to get stereotypically lumped in with these extremist groups, quite unfairly.

I remember feeling badly for those Americans who were being treated unfairly because we, as a country, didn’t understand enough about them. No group of American citizens should ever suffer because of the ignorance of the masses; unfortunately, however, this tends to be a large part of the American historical narrative. 

News coverage of these radical terrorist organizations, during the first decade of the twenty-first century, skyrocketed, as Americans came to understand that these extremist groups were indoctrinating their members, that they were being radicalized, and that such radicalization could lead people to board a plane with the intentions of committing terrible acts of violence against others, and it could lead them to sacrifice their own lives in the process. I remember that it wasn’t too long ago when ISIS was recording the beheadings of American citizens and posting the videos on-line, to the disgust of the U.S. of A., but also for the pleasure of their own extremist membership.

America was outraged when this was happening.

But just look at what’s happened to us.

A decade ago, we were thinking about how horrible it was that these extremists were poisoning our world. Since then, we’ve started growing these extremists, these radicals, right in our own backyard. The difference between the terrorist extremist groups that would attack us from the outside, and the terrorist extremist groups that are now attacking us from within, is NO DIFFERENCE AT ALL.

We should be ashamed of ourselves.

* * *

I’ve often wondered what causes people to become extremists, and I can say that I am sure that part of the equation is the company that we keep. On Monday, I posted about the foiled plot to kidnap the governor of my home state; I am convinced, from what I’ve read, that the members of that particular group were all drinking out of the same pitcher of Kool-Aid, to be sure.

Another dangerous part of this complicated formula is the degree to which societal leaders seem to condone radical and extremist behavior, since these societal leaders tend to have a lot of clout with those members of society who would be easier to radicalize, especially since those same people tend not to have a strong moral compass.

I was reading yesterday that the terrorist group that was planning on kidnapping the governor have received in the past, and are receiving now, support from leaders in different positions of power in this state, and across the nation. When leaders in society appear to condone inappropriate behavior, with their words –or worse– their actions, the underlings of these corrupt societal leaders are left to try to figure out what their leaders are actually approving of.

Without the strong moral compass that I described above, their struggles to make decisions about the appropriateness of their choices are bound to be extremist.

* * *

I started this second post of the series talking about the Sunday sermon, and the mention of the word ‘radical’ in that sermon. In thinking about Jesus and the early church, and the extent to which they would have been considered radicals, it occurred to me that some people are going out on a limb, going to the extremes, for all of the right reasons.

Others, however… not so much.

On Monday, when I discussed the chemical understanding of the term ‘radical’, I didn’t discuss what radicals are capable of producing. As it turns out, radicals are responsible for some of the most important chemical reactions that we are aware of. They are, however, also active in some of the most destructive chemical reactions in the natural world.

Going out on a limb and adopting a radical, extremist position is dangerous inasmuch as there is always the chance that we might be wrong. But, if we are cognizant of our choices, and we measure them against the yard sticks of productivity, and of love, then I’m certain that it’s possible that we could be radicals of the most important kind.

Jesus was most certainly a radical, and His type of extremism is sadly missing from much of the world these days –extreme love– replaced with a radical hate and a radical destructiveness that is tearing our world apart.