Unintended Consequences – Spiritual Edition

[Valin]

Hugh Hewitt Blog:

John Schroeder

December 7, 2016

 

So yesterday James Taranto entitled in his “Best of the Web” newsletter:

 

It’s Not You, It’s Trump

 

In it he recounts numerous stories showing up in various, primarily left-leaning, press outlets about how people are having severe mental and emotional trouble coping with the results of the election just past. One story Taranto shares is about a woman who decides she can no longer carry on a dating relationship she is in due to her angst at the outcome of the election. The title of the newsletter is Taranto’s quip to summarize the story. One’s initial reaction to these stories is to laugh.

 

But Taranto’s title is far deeper than I think even he suspects and I soon found myself quite melancholy. All the stories he tells, the stories I know personally, and the countless other stories that are simply not public are indicative of something very wrong in our nation. Should we not as individuals be sufficiently strong emotionally and mentally to withstand such blows without need to act out in any of the fashions Taranto describes? I think that in our efforts of the last several decades to “help people feel good about themselves” we have made them so dependent on outside stimulus for that affirmation that when it is withdrawn these reactions are actually quite natural. Does not “It’s not you, it’s Trump” perfectly summarize such a thing. No longer are we responsible for our well-being – mental, emotional or physical. Moreover it is not our friends and family that are responsible for our sense of well-being – it is the government. Let that sink in – it is both frightening and saddening.

 

This also marks one of the most fundamental places where the genuine Christian message has been lost in the country. Most people in the country now think of Christianity, if they think of it at all, as a force that tells them they are guilty of some transgression. And they are actually right about that, problem is they stop looking at Christianity at that point in a effort to find affirmation never understanding that the only true affirmation possible must begin with facing of our screw-ups. Fact of the matter is, we all have problems and most of them are of our own making. We think affirmation is someone telling us, “No, there is no screw-up there and if there is it is someone else’s fault.” But he who tells us such can take their affirmation away as fast as they give it to us. People who looked to the benevolent Obama and his chosen successor Hillary for such affirmation had it yanked away by the “cold, cruel, uncaring” voters of the nation and just like that they are in an emotional crisis.

 

(Snip)