My ‘Cocaine Bear’ mistake

I recently made the mistake of watching Cocaine Bear. It’s a B-movie based on the unlikely, but apparently true, story of Class A narcotics that were lost in a US national park and then found and ingested by a black bear.

The mind-altered bear then goes on the rampage, attacking tourists. I found myself frequently jumping in shock, gasping in horror, and squeezing my eyes shut in disbelief during the course of the film – much to the amusement of the person sitting beside me on the plane at the time.

The way the director cleverly manipulated my fear responses to keep me watching the film despite my better judgment reminded me a little of recent political manoeuvrings. You may have followed the debates around the ‘war on motorists’, the ‘great British train robbery’, or the ‘invasion of immigrants’. The catastrophising rhetoric is a clever device used by some politicians – and loved by the media – because it creates fear. Fear can make us instinctively want to move, to act, to shout, to blame. Or it can make us shut down, hide, close our eyes, ignore the problem. Or fear can make us want to run away and escape. This classic fight/flight/ freeze response to fear is as great for party politics as it is for action-movie sales figures.

It is not so good for democracy.

Funnelling negative emotions is a far cry from taking a stand on core principles and values. Take immigration, for example. It seems to me very simple exegetically to see the Scriptural mandate for concern for the stranger, the sojourner, the outcast. It also seems to me that most people, whether or not they have faith, would agree that compassion is a greater virtue than aggression. Most if not all of us even have neighbours or friends or relatives or colleagues whom we love and care for, whose stories involve immigration. And yet too many of us are succumbing to the fear-mongering fuelled by the lies that ‘immigration is bad for our country’ or that ‘millions of people are planning to claim asylum here’.

The genius of this fear tactic is that it rallies people together, forcing us to take sides, and putting us firmly in self-protection mode. It also serves as a brilliant distraction from the truth, and from other issues. It can blinker us not only to the bigger picture, but to the needs of those around us.

In the letter to the Galatians we are reminded of the principle that God says should govern our relationship with politics and with each other, and we are warned what might happen if we get distracted from that principle.

‘For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbour as yourself.” If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.’

The chapter goes on to show how Christians can live counter-culturally. It calls us to display the fruit of the Spirit – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control to be evident. We don’t get to pick our favourite one or ignore those we find difficult. We don’t save them up for when we are at church or when we are in private. We ensure that this fruit is evident to all, bridging the sacred/secular divide, bursting out of any boundary we try to construct for them. This fruit has the potential to override fear and our natural self-protecting or self-gratifying instincts. Galatians is clear that it is given to stop us provoking and alienating one another.

In my experience it is not easy to live a life marked and shaped by the fruit of the Spirit. It isn’t easy to deal with the problems of the world and try to fix them without getting sucked into the spirit of fear and division. But it is more important than ever that we, as the Christian community, stand together and encourage one another in our faith so that we can display those vital political disruptors – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.