This week, I feel a strong need to return once again to some serious reflections about authoritarianism in very contemporary form. Many scholars observe that, around the globe, we are now experiencing a competitive authoritarianism where democratic institutions are being tested and eroded.
Authoritarianism has always bothered me because it uses and abuses people. It destroys human freedom to think, act, and live. It manipulates people and often destroys the “undesirables.”
The historical Jesus stressed that human greatness is based on compassion and service. His life story and teachings were used to motivate and guide people, to heal, support, and call to conversion. Some self-proclaimed “Christian leaders” today still do not get the message.
In contemporary political and religious life, we are confronted with a creeping virus of authoritarianism that seeks to dominate and control – and often displace and destroy. A very unhealthy kind of leadership. Honesty and integrity are replaced by self-promoting deceit and dishonesty.
Some symptoms of contemporary authoritarianism:
1. Ongoing efforts to intimidate and discredit the media, except for Fox News. The distinction between information and misinformation disappears.
2. Truth becomes fake news….and the actual fake news becomes the to-be-accepted real news. As George Orwell (1903-1950) predicted years ago: “War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.”
3. Police surveillance and violence against ideological “enemies” is accepted as a contemporary and necessary public safety necessity.
4. Foreigners are arrested, families are torn apart, and children and adults are incarcerated for indefinite amounts of time in military camps. Right now, in Utah, on the outskirts of Salt Lake City the state plans to place as many as 1,300 homeless people in what supporters call a “services campus.”
Authoritarian “leaders” can only succeed because because authoritarian followers applaud and support them. Much more so than the average person, authoritarian followers go through life with impaired thinking. Their reasoning is often sloppy and based on prejudiced beliefs and a fierce dogmatism, that rejects evidence and logic.
So what does one do?
- We must first of all acknowledge that authoritarian followers are extremely resistant to change. The more one learns about authoritarianism, the more one realizes how difficult it will be to reach people who are so ferociously aggressive and fiercely defensive.
- We need to educate and promote a balanced education which hands on authentic information, tells people where to find correct information, and gives people the skills to be well-informed critical thinkers.
- Our Christian communities, more than ever, must become, compassionate and supportive gatherings of multicultural, multi-ethnic, and all-gender, brothers and sisters.
- We need to courageously speak out and we need to help other people courageously speak out. If something is wrong or something untrue, people need to strongly and clearly state that it is wrong or untrue.
- Those who courageously speak out need the strong support of friends gathered around them. Going alone is increasingly difficult if not impossible in our cyber-linked world.
- We need to be on guard, as well, that we do not become promoters of polarization and vicious partisanship. We need to learn how to work together for the common good. As Jesus says in Matthew (chapter 12): “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided against itself will not stand.”
- Jack
Another Voice 
Thank you for another very timely reflection with the wisdom for giving the appropriate responses!
Thanks again, Dr. Jack, for your evocative reflections, especially on the day after bi-elections here in Virginia and elsewhere. Stubborn politicization and drum-beating is provocative but not pragmatic. Possibly we can evolve to historically fact-based arguments instead of the ludicrously binary, left-brain /right brain bicameralism.
Collaborating in thinking-through the ethics and morality of our struggles reflectively is the preferential option, a more compassionate mode of bridging differences, rather than simply sloganeering and proof-texting reflexively to besmirch those whom we perceive judgmentally as “the oppo.”
Proof-texting is not stylistically harmonious with the tone of Yeshua in the gospels, so I don’t usually sit there for long. However, today, if I let just the sound of the Master’s voice reside within, by shutting out the voices of stealthy thieves trying to break down the door of my heart, I think I can hear His grief in passages from John 8: “Nor do I condemn you; carry on…” (vs. 11); “I do not judge anyone…” (vs.15); and “you don’t recognize my voice [‘lalian’ in the Greek] because you can’t hear my word [‘logon’]” (vs.43).
Sometimes the voice of Yeshua speaks to me from the historic literature of the gospels’ many translations. This comports with reader-response theory: what is written has a parallel life with what is read and heard. I believe it is the Spirit at work within. So, in that sense, you offer us five observations and considerations, which I paraphrase as what to do when facing (1) ferociously bicameral, autodoxic minions; (2) how to be warily analytical activist citizens, (3) beatitudinally patient humanitarians, (4) solidly verbal supportive comrades, and (5) soundly gospel-waring “humilitarians” [the personal sound of the living Word changing every heart, the voice of Yeshua sinking in]. I hope not to have distorted what you meant.
Many thanks Dan!
Thank you for this excellent, thoughtful, and very timely essay on authoritarianism. When combined with your recent essay on fundamentalism, a powerful perspective results!
Many sincere thanks Mark.
We are now in serious times.
Jack
Dear Jack,
A friend recently sent me an excerpt from a book he had read describing the very conditions you have highlighted in your reflection. It contained the same political atmosphere with the heated rhetoric, stifling of dissent, acerbic language, and extreme divisions between people. The punch line of his message was that wherever the references to our country and people were named he had substituted those specific references. The passage was actually a description of the pre- World War II conditions in Nazi Germany but the situation is nearly identical now in the U.S. It was a stunning parallel and dramatically highlighted how essential it is that we act now to sustain our democracy. Even more important, our Christian faith leaders need to step up to publicly demonstrate that ALL people are loved by God and that as Christian people, we MUST act by standing up for freedom both in words and deeds. You, Jack, are one of those leaders who is doing what we are all called to do! May God bless and guide you as you guide us!
Peace,
Frank
Many sincere thanks Frank. I will follow up on this next week.
Scary times.
Jack