I saw in the news today that a teacher in North Carolina was put on administrative leave while an investigation is carried out concerning some shoving that occurred between him and a student. Every time such an event makes the news, I hear someone express regret that it isn't like the old days when teachers could physically discipline students. It is no wonder, they often say, that there is no respect for authority anymore.

The problem with this common complaint is that physical bullying, whether by a teacher of a student, or peer to peer, or even nation to nation, does not teach respect. Such bullying is always about fear. Very often all it teaches those being bullied is how to throw their weight around when they are dealing with someone smaller or weaker than them. It is not uncommon, for instance, to find out that child or spouse abusers were once abused themselves.

It remains a highly popular notion, however, that physical force is an effective way to gain respect, to make peace, or to accomplish our purposes. The reality is that it creates fear, brings at best a temporary and uneasy accord, but also feeds an attitude of disdain or even hatred of the bully in the one being bullied.

The use of bullying force is common in the world of nature, where the survival of the fittest is the rule. It would seem that our eager willingness to embrace these tactics, which reign in the animal kingdom, might be the clearest prima facie evidence that we evolved from lower forms within that realm.

Yet the very same people who look with the greatest favor upon such bullying tactics, ironically enough, are often also the ones who want to deny most vehemently that "they evolved from apes" (a phrase which itself exposes a lack of understanding about the evolutionary rise of humanity).

If we were, in fact, created by God as we now are, it certainly raises the question of why we so often act more like animals than like persons created in God's image. It seems much more likely that we are still in process of rising above our base animal instincts to find a higher way to live.

Of course there are many who even want to attribute these same animalistic bullying ways to God. Those who emphasize the fear of God present a deity who is not shy about destroying those who cross the line of acceptable behavior. Many who worship such a God almost cannot contain their glee at the prospect of God coming to destroy their (and therefore God's) enemies.
The Psalmist even succumbs to such base desires, expressed against Babylon in Psalm 137:9. "Happy shall they be who take your little ones and dash them against the rock!"

Surely we do not take such a text as a justification for our own desires to destroy our enemies. Or, if we do, then we have surely given up any right to complain about Islam being a religion that incites violence.

My own conclusion is that the scriptures contain the best and the worst of human anxieties and desires. The best, it seems to me, are when Isaiah (55:8-9) speaks for God, saying "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways...For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." Or when Jesus says (Matthew 5:21ff, 38ff, 43ff), "You have heard that it was said...But I say to you..."

God has given us a better way, a higher way, and a more productive way to approach life. We do not have to bully our way through life in order to have the good life. Of course, if we think the good life means more material wealth, an overabundance of things, and a higher standard of living than most people in the world could ever dream of having, then physical force might be the only way to secure our desire.

Thank God, we are offered a better life than that in Jesus - the life that is truly life.