I recently wrote an opinion piece for Baptist News Global exploring the parallels between the central character in the 1993 film Falling Down and fellow conservative Christians in today’s political climate.
I hadn’t actually watched the film until a couple years ago, but when it was first released, I’d seen the pivotal scene in which it dawned on Michael Douglas’s character that he might be the bad guy. That moment has haunted me ever since.
Writing the article caused me to reflect on my own “I’m the bad guy?” moment.
For much of my early life, I was fairly apolitical. It was only after I became a Christian during my undergraduate years that I dipped my toe into politics as I also transitioned to becoming pro-life.
Soon after, I felt called into ministry and pursued graduate degrees in Radio-TV-Film and Divinity at a university associated with Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson. My goal there was not to delve into politics but to learn how to most effectively share the life-transforming truth of God’s love, forgiveness and freedom offered through Jesus Christ – something that had radically changed my own life.
While in school, I worked a part-time job transferring old 8mm home movies to the much newer technology of VHS (yes, this was the early 90’s). With not much else to occupy my mind as I watched hours of other people’s old memories play out on the screen before me, I started regularly listening to talk radio, consisting of Rush Limbaugh and other conservative commentators.
It was not long, after hours of hearing Rush label people with such mocking terms as “feminazis” and “environmental wackos,” that I soon became a full on Rush Limbaugh “Dittohead.” I didn’t consider Rush or the other talk radio hosts to be “Christian,” but rather as simply entertainers who made really good points.
Yet, as all my days consisted of seminary classes, mixed in with Rush and friends, combined with continual Christian Coalition messaging, inevitably the gospel and talk radio conservative politics became enmeshed. The message and presentation became one, and I became a culture warrior, defending the world against the liberal elite for the sake of God’s kingdom.
Fast forward several years. I can’t explain exactly what happened. I don’t know for certain what flipped the switch (the Holy Spirit perhaps?). I was driving, listening to a popular talk radio host who explicitly framed his show as Christian ministry. I’d respected him for years. But suddenly, I heard it clearly: thirty straight minutes of complaining. No joy. No hope. Just grievance, arrogance, and contempt—especially toward “liberals.”
I asked myself a simple question: If I were searching for God and stumbled onto this station, would this draw me toward Christ? I realized nothing about that half hour was unusual. It was the same message I’d been consuming for years.
It was as though a sweet tea I’d enjoyed much of my life had suddenly turned bitter and I could no longer stomach it.
The gospel of love, joy and peace had been replaced with a message of anger, complaint and fear.
The gospel that welcomed sinners now saw them as merely enemies to be “owned” and defeated.
The gospel of servitude became one of protectionism.
The gospel of forgiveness and healing shifted to arrogantly correcting those “stupid wackos.”
The gospel of grace had hardened into mockery.
This was not the gospel that saved me or that I’d signed up for when I gave my life to it. And yet here I was – not just as a bystander but someone who had become complicit in it.
“How did that happen?”—the same question Douglas’s character asks in Falling Down.
My zeal for making a difference in this world had caused me to lose my way.
Yes, I was the bad guy, and I just didn’t see it until that moment.
So I stopped listening to talk radio. I stopped relying on Fox News as my only news source. I started listening to people that were different from me—not to defeat them, but to understand them. To hear their pain. To learn how to serve rather than label them as enemies.
“For our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the world powers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavens” (Eph 6:12, HCSB).
Yes, there is darkness in the world, but we must always be willing to confront the darkness in ourselves first.
Read the Baptist News Global article here.
