Reconciliation, the promise of Christmas

Do you feel our country is somehow broken? I do. This Christmas season has found America exhausted and at war with itself. Foreign leaders with hostile interests see such division and anger that they have reason to believe our citizens and political leaders may not rally around our president in a crisis. From Washington, D.C., to Anchorage, few would dispute the depth of our hostilities and lack of agreement on anything except for how much “we hate the other side.” Sadly, we can’t even decide how strongly we feel about democracy, as many show preference for autocracy and the use of force to create America in the image of their choosing.

Only six days into 2021, our nation’s Capitol was under siege by persons who had been convinced their country was lost and acted accordingly. And since then, there has been no slowdown in catastrophic vigilante rhetoric calling for more riots and assaults on liberty in order “to keep America safe.” If such language came only from a few outliers, it would be less concerning, but it also comes from some political leaders who are aligning themselves with the most destructive activists.

This past Sept. 11, George W. Bush, the president who led our country through the terrible days of the terrorist attacks on that day in 2001, gave a moving memorial address in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, at the site where United Airlines Flight 93 was brought down by a group of Americans united in their commitment to stop another attack on our homeland. He gravely warned about the forces of division in America: “A malign force seems at work in our common life that turns every disagreement into an argument, and every argument into a clash of cultures. So much of our politics has become a naked appeal to anger, fear and resentment.”

The next day, former President Donald Trump lashed out at President Bush on social media, saying he “led a failed and uninspiring presidency.” Just days ago, he slammed former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in an interview for congratulating President Joe Biden on his election, saying “F*** him.” And on the political left, we have some leaders in Congress who routinely use broad-brush strokes to severely mischaracterize nuanced conservative views, calling them fascist, racist or worse. With such example, do we wonder that our political discourse is so characterized by animosity and reactionary behavior?

Are things much different here at home? Alaska is deeply divided over the leadership of our federal and state government, the Permanent Fund dividend, masks, vaccines and much more, with the political extremes struggling for dominance and advocating positions that further polarize the opposite side of the aisle.

A recent Anchorage Daily News editorial board commentary poignantly warned of the dangerous path of political power grabs, reminding us the pendulum swings both ways — the power we desperately want our political champion to possess today could bring us terror tomorrow when a new leader takes their place.

How can we bring healing to our diverse citizenry if we have lost the idea of reconciliation? It seems the ability to work together and set aside grievances requires habits of the heart that are no longer formed in us. Do you know of any friendship that can withstand the absence of forgiveness? I don’t. Self-sufficiency, self-centeredness and self-salvation make us hard toward people we think of as losers and, ironically, makes us endlessly self-hating if we don’t live up to our own standards.

In the Christian tradition, the Christmas season celebrates the greatest act of reconciliation our world will ever know, how God set aside all his power and personal rights to reconcile himself to mankind, to do what we could not do, provide atonement for the brokenness of our condition. He didn’t wait for us to come to him. No, He came down to us, and became Emmanuel, God with us.

Reconciliation: It is the promise of Christmas. And it is what we desperately need.

Chuck Kopp is a lifelong Alaskan, a former member of the Alaska House of Representatives and a policy consultant.

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