The Race to the Edge

America has a problem. The problem is that we are racing to the edge. This manifests in leadership, but it’s driven by the average citizen. You can see it on display based on the leaders that we choose: leaders in our churches, and leaders in our government.

For a long time, the path to leadership was to be a ‘moderate.’ Moderates weren’t reactionaries; they were balanced, sensible people who would maintain the status quo. This went on for some time, until Americans began to wake up. They realized that the ‘status quo’ wasn’t heading in a positive direction. The ‘status quo’ in politics was leftism, and it was the same in the spiritual arena. The status quo got us Barack Obama, and it led to the liberalism of most of the major protestant denominations.

And so, thinking people started to abandon ‘moderates’ in favor of ‘real’ conservatives. (Obviously I’m looking at this from a conservative bent; but a very similar situation is also happening on the political and religious left). In the Southern Baptist Convention, this led to the birth of the Conservative Resurgence. Politically, this was the creation of the Tea Party. These are just examples of the sort of trend I’m talking about. I’m a big fan of these movements; even if there was some overcorrection, it was necessary to prevent the status quo from drifting ever leftward.

The problem is that the pendulum continued to swing, and it did lead to overcorrection. In an environment where it was important not to be a ‘moderate,’ everyone was now competing to be radical. But how do radicals compete with radicals? By becoming more radical. This means that to stand out in such a field, you have to do increasingly radical things, and advocate increasingly radical positions.

In my own state of Missouri, our now-disgraced ex-governor Eric Greitens gained prominence by shooting a gun in his election ads. To be clear, I voted for him because I liked his policies – but I have a nagging feeling that it was the radical image he presented that gave him such popularity among so many voters. Another individual, pastor Douglas Wilson, is someone who seems to be turning to this radicalism to attract attention. Again, I should specify that I enjoy much of his content. But his ‘No Quarter November’ is a perfect example. Wilson is a deep thinker and a nuanced pastor, but he freely admits that during this month,

“I have decided, I’ve determined, being nuanced and balanced like that, doesn’t do me any good at all. Nobody notices, nobody pays attention. So we decided, five years ago, that we’re going to start leaving the balance and the nuance and the subtlety out of it. We’re not going to qualify anything.” [1]

I understand the frustration. People don’t gravitate toward nuance and balance, they want something exciting. (This, of course, drives much of modern media coverage). But the world is fundamentally nuanced. While this manifests in increasingly radical leadership, much of the fault lies in the average person. We want leaders who are edgy, and we are tired of listening to nuance. It’s much easier (and more fun) to choose someone who rails against the opposition, than to trust someone who has carefully thought through the perspective from a variety of angles.

Compromise used to be a positive thing in politics. Of course it was overused, and unfortunately, much of the compromise happened on the wrong issues. (You can’t compromise on orthodox christology, for example!) But now compromise is out. Nobody wants to vote for a politician who is guilty of ‘compromise.’ Congressional deadlock is the unpleasant result. It’s increasingly hard to find shared common ground.

What we are doing is a race to the edge. It’s a race to select the most edgy, radical, no-holds-barred leader that we can. This is a recipe for disaster. What we need in leadership (in all spheres) is nuanced, principled leaders who have deep understanding of the issues, but still choose. We need citizens who are independently educated (rather than mere ingesters of Fox News). The problem with this race to the edge is that eventually…we fall off.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5j0AclzORA

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