by Dr. Mark Creech
Director of Government Relations
Return America
North Carolina lawmakers returned to Raleigh Wednesday and overwhelmingly approved legislation to suspend the state’s gasoline tax through the end of November. With families struggling to make ends meet and transportation costs affecting nearly everything, even a temporary reduction in fuel prices is welcome news.
But the General Assembly had hardly cast its final votes when accusations were already flying.
Republicans, who control the General Assembly, were accused of staging a political stunt to win votes in the upcoming midterm elections. Critics highlighted the timing and questioned why lawmakers hadn’t acted sooner.
Those are fair questions. Politicians sometimes pay closer attention to ordinary people’s concerns as an election approaches. After all, they know voters will soon decide their political fate. There is no reason to pretend that political considerations don’t sometimes influence their decisions.
Still, is it fair to conclude that electoral considerations were the only reason Republican lawmakers acted? Is it possible that some of them, perhaps even most, were genuinely concerned about the hardships facing their constituents? Can a lawmaker not recognize both a pressing public need and the political consequences of addressing it?
I certainly can’t tell you what was in the hearts of all those legislators, and neither can their critics.
And therein lies something far more troubling than the politics surrounding a temporary gas-tax suspension.
We have become so accustomed to suspecting the worst of people on the other side of the political aisle that we can scarcely acknowledge even something beneficial without accusing them of ulterior motives.
Political discernment differs from political cynicism. The former is necessary for good government. The latter, when habitual, corrodes the very trust upon which representative government depends.
Consider what happened in Raleigh. The House approved the gas-tax suspension by a vote of 111–1, and the Senate followed with a unanimous 41–0 vote. Democrats joined Republicans in supporting the measure, even as some Democratic leaders questioned the motives of its sponsors.
Legitimate questions remain about the legislation. How much of the tax savings will actually reach motorists? Is temporarily replacing highway revenue from state reserves sound fiscal policy? Why was this matter considered urgent now rather than months earlier?
Holding public officials accountable is not cynicism. Indeed, it is an indispensable part of responsible citizenship.
There is an enormous difference between questioning the wisdom of a public policy and presuming to know the secret intentions of everyone who supports it.
To be fair, this problem hardly stops with Democrats. Republicans can be every bit as guilty of assuming the worst about Democrats. Too often, Christians who readily object when their preferred political leaders are unfairly maligned are quick to attribute the basest motives to leaders of the opposing party.
Such is not moral consistency. It is applying one standard to our friends and another to our adversaries. If we are honest with ourselves, we must admit this is a powerful tendency in all of us.
Political cynicism can even be mistaken for wisdom. We sometimes mistake a suspicious spirit for a discerning one, as though the person who believes the worst of everyone must somehow understand human nature better than the rest of us.
Nevertheless, cynicism is not necessarily a sign of wisdom. Sometimes it is merely suspicion masquerading as discernment.
The Bible gives us a better way.
In I Corinthians 4:5, the apostle Paul writes:
“Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts.”
Paul was not forbidding moral judgment. Scripture repeatedly calls believers to distinguish between right and wrong, truth and falsehood, righteousness and wickedness. Paul warned against premature judgments about matters that ultimately belong to God’s knowledge, especially the hidden intentions of the human heart.
This truth is profoundly humbling.
We can examine a person’s words. We can evaluate his conduct. We can study his record. We can even draw reasonable conclusions from behavioral patterns. But we cannot look into another person’s soul and know with certainty every consideration that prompted his actions.
Indeed, how many of us can honestly say that our motives are always entirely pure?
A person may act generously for mixed reasons – wanting to help and also hoping others will think well of him. A public official may support a beneficial measure both because it is good policy and because he believes voters will appreciate it. Human motives are frequently mixed.
This does not excuse hypocrisy or dishonesty. It simply recognizes the complexity of the human heart and the challenges of navigating life in a fallen world. But this understanding should not diminish our concern about the habit of assuming the worst about others, for its consequences reach far beyond politics.
When suspicion becomes our default attitude, trust begins to erode. Every act of kindness is viewed with suspicion. Every change of heart is dismissed as manipulation. Every good deed is presumed to conceal some selfish calculation.
Eventually, we create a world in which no one can do anything commendable without being accused of something contemptible.
What kind of society can flourish in such conditions?
James 3:17 describes the wisdom from above as “first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.”
Notice the last two qualities: without partiality and without hypocrisy. They are desperately needed in our political conversations. We ought not demand charitable interpretations of our own side while denying them to others.
Perhaps the question we most need to ask is not whether every politician in Raleigh acted with entirely pure motives. None of us can claim that every motive behind our actions is pure.
The more searching question is whether we have become so hardened by political suspicion that we are no longer willing to acknowledge the possibility of good in those with whom we disagree.
Christians, especially, ought to resist that temptation. We are called to exercise discernment rather than surrender to cynicism. We must hold our leaders accountable without pretending to possess God’s knowledge of the human heart.
There is enough dishonesty in politics without our adding to it by making accusations we cannot substantiate.
We ought to be discerning enough not to believe everything politicians tell us, yet charitable enough not to assume that everything they do is a lie.
