What is it about people who look different that makes people so afraid that they will take a gun and kill them? The young man who murdered ten people in Buffalo was in some ways a logical result of hate filled pseudo-Christian rhetoric. This week, the group that claims to be the voice of American conservatism is meeting in all places, Budapest.
Making Victor Orban the voice of American conservatism would make William Buckley roll over in his grave. Even David Brooks, a conservative thinker and writer, is appalled at what has become of the conservative movement in America: Fox news and voter suppression – the fear that perhaps they can’t win in the marketplace of ideas, so let’s shrink the marketplace.
Brooks recognizes that the true conservative, like the liberal, is open to ideas and is not reduced to mass brutalism as we now witness. Murders like Buffalo or Atlanta have little to do with the values we claim we live by. What is it that we really are? We need to do a lot of soul-searching.
Prayer for the Day
Looking in the mirror, we don’t see ourselves as the Buffalo killer,
But as a people wanting to stand aside from such violence;
The reflections show more than we want to see, O God,
For we have not done enough to counter such hate.
Help us, O God who opens minds, to see beyond the narrow
And into the broad so we can move us from hate to love.
In the name of the One who confronted hate,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
Life is essentially a moral enterprise, and the health of your community will depend on how well it does moral formation—how well it nurtures ordered inner lives and helps balance sentiments, desires, and motivations.
- David Brooks, from “What Happened to American Conservatism?”