The Other Epidemic: Fear

by

Advocating Justice

Baptist News Global

The more I read the news, the more I become convinced there’s another epidemic currently facing the nation. It seems to be particularly acute in churches right now, too. And while it’s an epidemic largely of our own making, it exists all the same.

The other epidemic is this: We’re overwhelmingly addicted to fear.

Now, I don’t use the words “epidemic” or “addiction” lightly. I live in and serve a church in Appalachia, ground zero for this country’s opioid epidemic. And while I’ve grown to love this region for both its natural beauty and its people, I’ve learned a lot about epidemics and addiction in my four-plus years here.

For example, I’ve learned epidemics and addictions are no respecters of race, gender, nationality, religious affiliation or socio-economic status. They destroy families and communities in a myriad of ways, the majority of which are ignored or unreported. They rob people of hope. They snuff out potential. They leave both physical and emotional wounds from which some never fully recover. And they hollow out communities by attacking the young and the most vulnerable first.

In doing so, they deprive people of their dignity. They cause them to lose self-respect. They cause them to give up on dreams for a better future. No one leaves either of them unscathed.

One of the leaders in my congregation is a recovering meth addict, and he’s the most unlikely recovering addict you’ll ever meet. He’s a math professor at one of our local community colleges, and in a previous life, he was a choir director at another church.

His story, which he gladly and boldly tells others, will break your heart and then leave you inspired. In it, you hear how a series of unfortunate life events all occurring close together can turn your world upside down and leave you drowning. You hear the depths to which addiction can drag a person down.

But finally, you hear of the power found in Christ’s transformative love. You hear of the vital role community has played and continues to play in his ongoing recovery. You hear of the importance of radical truth-telling and painful honesty. And you hear the story of a man who’s rediscovered the power of hope.

So, when I use the terms “epidemic” and “addiction,” I am being as serious as possible. And I wonder if my friend’s story might serve as a metaphor for the national moment in which we find ourselves.

I wonder if his miraculous road to recovery might inspire in us the hope we all desperately need after yet another preventable tragedy. Because I can think of no better descriptor for the moment in which we find ourselves than “epidemic,” and we are seeing the depths of our addiction play out in numerous ways.

“A nation armed to the gills with guns is a nation that is deeply afraid.”

A nation armed to the gills with guns is a nation that is deeply afraid. Last year after the Uvalde mass shooting, Bloomberg reported the United States has 120.5 firearms per 100 residents, making us the only country in the world with more civilian-owned firearms than actual people. Including the most recent school shooting in Nashville, the BBC notes there have been more than 130 mass shootings in the United States so far this year, and there have been more than 600 mass shootings a year in each of the last three years. That’s an average of almost two mass shootings a day.

Of course, having an obscene number of guns isn’t the only indicator of the grip fear has on us. See also the numerous state and federal politicians who refuse to act.

Not only do they refuse to work on and vote for common-sense legislation addressing gun control out of fear of losing an election, they rally around guns and treat them as both identity marker and idol.

Much has been made of U.S. Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn., sending out a Christmas card that included a photograph of him, his wife and two of their three children posing with guns. After all, what better way to celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace than by posing with weapons of war?

But let’s not forget the Feb. 3 story in the Washington Post, which reported that U.S. Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., handed out assault rifle lapel pins to his House colleagues. They wore those in place of the traditional American flag lapel pin, and they apparently wore them during Gun Violence Survivors Week.

And now we know the story of the Tennessee Three, who stood with gun control advocates and were targeted by their colleagues, two of them expelled from the House.

False bravado, callousness toward others and refusal to listen are telltale signs of fear. And we see that in spades in the way our elected officials act, or refuse to act, on a problem that’s killing people.

The reactions to these mass shootings point to fear as well.

Fear is particularly evident in the scapegoating of minorities and marginalized people groups. Currently, some are trying to blame the transgender community for the mass shooting in Nashville because the shooter reportedly identified as trans.

But the Uvalde shooter didn’t.

Neither did the shooter who murdered people at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C.

Neither did the shooter at the supermarket in Buffalo, N.Y., or the shooter at the Fourth of July parade in Highland Park, Ill., or the shooter who targeted members of the University of Virginia football team.

“Fear can make you blame anyone and anything else, and that’s exactly what we’re seeing right now.”

I could keep going, but you get the point. Scapegoating, like the kind we currently see being done to the trans community, seeks to blame others because people are fearful of addressing what they know to be the real problem. Fear can make you blame anyone and anything else, and that’s exactly what we’re seeing right now. We’re seeing it cause us to act in increasing irrational and harmful ways.

We have to come face to face with the fact that many in our country are in the throes of addiction. They may idolize guns, but they are addicted to fear. And it is both their addiction and their idolatry that’s killing us.

After talking with my friend and learning more about his recovery process, I believe there are tangible steps the church can take to play a vital role in our national recovery.

First, we have to help people admit this is a real problem and is unmanageable. This requires painful honesty, which means the church has to recommit itself to radical truth-telling.

Mass shootings like the one in Nashville happen with greater frequency in the United States than anywhere else in the world, and our children are being killed at alarmingly high rates. Those aren’t political statements. Sadly, they’re just facts, and we can’t ignore them.

We have to do something.

Second, we need to remember isolation drives us deeper into our addiction. When we retreat into our hermetically sealed echo chambers, where nothing we disagree with can find its way in, our addiction worsens.

Community is vital for overcoming the natural fear and anxiety addiction brings. Gratitude helps, too. And the church is a natural place for both. In fact, encouraging thankfulness and gratitude are right within the church’s wheelhouse.

We ought to be doing those things regularly. And even though it’s becoming increasingly rare, church ought to be the place where people can have difficult conversations too. Church ought to be the place because it’s where we should value relationship over being “right.” Church ought to be the place because it’s where we should value loving one another over winning an argument.

“Encouraging difficult conversations about how to keep our children safe isn’t about being partisan or political.”

Encouraging difficult conversations about how to keep our children safe isn’t about being partisan or political. It isn’t about winning. It’s about being a decent human being. It’s about valuing life. It’s about trying to be like Christ.

Finally, the church can continue to tell the story of Christ’s transformative love and the power found within it. In addition to radical truth-telling, painful honesty and transparent community, we can be places known for faith, hope and love, places known for nurturing thankfulness and gratitude rather than places known for stirring up outrage, fear and hatred.

Scripture tells us perfect love drives out all fear and that God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.

Perhaps attempting such love will help foster the national recovery we desperately need.

Perhaps attempting such love can turn Isaiah’s prophecy of beating weapons of war into gardening tools into a reality.

Perhaps attempting such love won’t just save people spiritually, but it will help save them physically too.

At the very least, it’s worth trying.

Kristopher Aaron is senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Bristol, Va. He is a graduate of McAfee School of Theology and Brite Divinity School. He is married to Clary Gardner Aaron, and they have two children.