The Type of Loyalty That Leads To Mob Boss Worship — and the Type that Aligns with Truth and Goodness
-
If you're Venezuelan, and Trump removes a dictator who oppressed your people, do you owe him your loyalty?
-
If the border is an important issue to you, and it's secured, are you now required to be loyal to the president who made it happen?
-
If your taxes go down, are you beholden to the leader who made it happen?
Perhaps our loyalty should go deeper than a simple transaction. It's not to say we can't be appreciative.
This idea of allegiance is one I want to explore in this essay to work out my understanding and framework for how our allegiance should be directed and who deserves it.
Tribal loyalty is allegiance to a person, regardless of whether they are speaking the truth and doing good or not. Tribal loyalty is sticking with the one who did something for you without regard to who they are and the character that they embody.
The problem with tribal loyalty is how it makes us vulnerable to exploitation, because if the group is led (or taken over) by a highly corrupt leader, we become defenders of that corruption. Truth and goodness are subordinated to group belonging and the fear of being alone.
Loyalty grounded in a Christian ethic is allegiance to what is good and spoken as true by someone and against that which is wrong and deceptive (inside ourselves and others). As Christians, we can embrace the exile that comes from what is true and good because of our relationship with God, despite being an outsider to our fellow man.
Here are two signs of tribal morality and partisan blindness... depending on how we answer.
-
Are you willing to stand up to your own tribe when what they are saying or doing is at odds with the spoken values? If your group says character matters and then embraces someone who has no character, will you stand up against that choice?
-
Another great test question is, are you willing to defend those on the other side, in that other rival group? If you value election integrity and your rival is wrongly and falsely attacked for election interference, will you step into the gap?
If you're unwilling to do one or both of these, you've possibly elevated your group's power over truth, goodness, and principles. You're likely captured by your group's tribalism.
Let's dive into this idea by starting with the idea that there is complexity when it comes to what is good and bad.
The Distinction: Good and Bad
First, we have to accept that there is good and bad. Truth and lies.
Even in tribalism, members can often state the bad and deception in the other group, even when they fail to see it in the mirror. So we have that distinction to work with.
To help us through this, we also have to recognize that healthy and unhealthy dynamics are also within groups, where parts of a group can be problematic, and other parts are good.
Allison Mack, the well-known actor from Smallville, talks about the challenge of being in the NXIVM cult because the cult did some things that were good; it created an anchor for members to justify their allegiance to the cult leader. An ethic based on parts of a group doing good things is one way toxic groups exploit good-faith members.
Outside of groups, we also have to realize that there is good and bad in each of us individually. There are lies I believe about myself and others. There are things I do that are selfish. So people are not all good or all bad, but rather they are a combination of both.
Recognizing this dynamic enables us to appreciate that our rationality and good behavior are often dependent on the community we inhabit. We need others to navigate and live the good and true life because we have dark parts of us that can get out of hand when the group and we fail to contain them.
A Recent Example of this Mixed Bag & The Love That Follows
In the recent and tragic assassination of Charlie Kirk, this dynamic of complexity came to the surface as his legacy was put to the test by allies and critics.
Here's someone highlighting that dynamic while emphasizing this important distinction of complexity and competing elements.
"We can admire the good aspects of Charlie Kirk and emulate them. We can fairly judge the bad aspects and strive to overcome them in our own lives. " - Posted by jaclyncreiswig , We are remembering two different Charlie Kirks
This situation, and the public wrestling with the legacy of Charlie Kirk, are a useful example of this complexity at work. People are a mix of good and bad, including the worst of us and the best. And we are invited to join in God's work to amplify the good and push out the bad. In Christianity, we call this process sanctification.
It's a form of growing and maturing into truth, wisdom, and goodness. Christianity embraces that the bad exists in us, not just others, and that we have to work that out of us with God's involvement and finishing work on the cross. We're called to work it out in ourselves before we do so with others (take the plank out of your eye before taking the speck out of their eye).
What people tend to do is pick one of these rival groups or individuals in it and paint someone exclusively in that negative light instead of the full, more complicated picture. Christianity helps us see this complexity when we embrace this opportunity.
"The central teaching of Christianity is that on the cross, God had this dual recognition of us. We were people who had done wrong, but we remained recipients of his affection. The love God extended to me must impact how I view others, thus making the cross inescapably political. The Empire and its tendency to murder rivals is undone by the Kingdom of God, which rejects the way of violence. The Empire crucifies its enemies to silence them; Christians love them into becoming different types of people." - Esau McCaulley, Charlie Kirk & Loving Our Political Enemies
Fundamentally, Christians believe that we humans contain some badness. But that doesn't stop God's love. And, God's love also drives us to love others. That love will impact how we see others, and it will drive us to see the complexity, particularly as we see it in ourselves.
Toxic Allegiance
The problem with tribal allegiance is that we support both good and true things and lies and bad things. If our leader says and does bad things, we go defend them instead of holding them to account (within our areas of influence and authority).
When our allegiance is to what is true and good, we embrace that good part of someone while pushing back against the other toxic parts. And we also appreciate that our ability to distinguish the two can also become distorted, so we need help in seeing clearly, particularly our blind spots.
When principled members of the tribal group are purged, this creates an accelerating corruption dynamic where the leader does worse and worse things while the members defend and defend, sacrificing their integrity in the process. Those who would hold the leaders accountable are gone or highly compromised (because they've been pushed out).
Instead of this tribal morality, we can align with only good and shed all the bad (in us, others, and the groups of which we're a part). But it requires a risk of alienation because speaking out against your group when they do wrong, especially when you don't have a position of power, can lead to being purged from the group. Exile is tough.
Loyalty to Trump Over Values
Trump famously emphasizes loyalty among his circle, often making it a litmus test for those who worked with him (no one who affirmed that he lost the 2020 election was allowed in the presidential administration). Trump values loyalty over competence, which has a series of consequences for those in his wake because the most loyal are often the most incompetent.
Supporters often justify questionable actions by focusing on perceived benefits for their side, rather than evaluating them on their own merit. This process of invalidation rivals or critics often involves DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender), a tactic where criticism is redirected, and the original victim is portrayed as the wrongdoer.
Changing Minds
If someone is not fully committed to what is true and good, there is no rational argument you can make to change their mind. Their rationality is based on their loyalty. Justification becomes a post-hoc exercise.
When you come to realize a lot of friends and family you know would probably go along with all the terrible things throughout history (slavery, the Holocaust, segregation, etc), it makes your stomach drop. That is true when we realize this about ourselves. It's not too difficult to imagine the scenario where we become the concentration camp guard. My encouragement to you is to reject the tribal group commitment and choose what is good and true, regardless of your group.
This can get complicated when a group helps us in a meaningful way because we feel a reciprocal desire to reward their help with loyalty. If your business was about to fail and the mob steps in, it's hard not to become loyal to the one who saved you. So how do we navigate this?
Collaboration Versus Collusion: Where Does Our Loyalty Truly Reside?
The core idea comes down to this: are we beholden to someone who helps us? If someone gives us something, must we respond to that act by being loyal to them?
How we answer is the difference between temporary collaboration and ongoing collusion (or short-sighted instrumental compromise). Sometimes we do need to collaborate with others who are fundamentally different or morally compromising in fundamental ways, but these collaborations must have very clear boundaries (we will work together within these boundaries, and then the collaboration is over). Ongoing collusion would involve loyalty to the other, based on what was done for us even even beyond the scope of collaboration.
Imagine your home has a gas leak at midnight. You find a local worker who can fix it, but you know he is a man who treats his staff poorly and ignores safety rules when no one is looking.
-
The Collaboration (Closed Transaction): You hire him to fix the leak. You watch him work to ensure the pipe is sealed. You pay him the agreed price. When the job is done, the relationship is over. You do not owe him your silence when you see him break rules later. You traded money for a fix. That is a bounded transaction. Collaboration has a fixed cost (the fee). Once paid, the system returns to balance.
-
The Collusion (Captured): Because he "saved your home" at midnight, you feel you owe him a debt of loyalty. When you see him dumping waste in the local creek next week, you stay silent. You tell yourself, "He helped me, so I have to help him." You have now moved from a one-time fix to ongoing collusion. You have traded your voice for a favor. Collusion has a rising cost (the silence). It creates a "Debt Trap" where the "favor" of the past is used to buy your integrity in the future.
Mob Rules?
To provide a more challenging and extreme example imposed at the start of the blog post, if the mafia saves your life, must you submit yourself to the directives of the mafia when they ask for a favor?
There's a great exchange between John Piper and Tim Keller (before his passing) about this idea of allegiance and where our loyalty resides. You can watch that exchange in the following video. I'll pull out the key quotes below as it gets a bit technical and theological.
"You said, 'we owe him everything,' so now I've used the phrase 'the debtor's ethic' as a bad thing —'I owe him everything'.
In the gospel, I see the beauty of what he's done for me, which is his love and sacrifice. As his creator, I see the beauty of his holiness. That should be what I mean when I say owe him, it means he deserves it. I want to say he deserves it because of the Beauty and the greatness of who he is."
Piper goes on to use the word fitness, which Keller agrees is a better word. What they're implying is that if someone, like a criminal warlord, does something to help you, it doesn't mean you are indebted to serve him because he is not deserving of your loyalty. They do not deserve your loyalty because of the warlord's lack of fitness. They do not embody that character and integrity that deserve your loyalty (of which God does deserve because of his nature).
The story of Job in the Hebrew Scriptures is also helpful, particularly Oswald Chambers' commentary about a final confrontation between the young Elihu and Job.
"The passion for authority is a noble one, but Elihu missed out on the face that authority to be worthy arises out of the nature of a superior moral integrity, and not simply from one who happens to be higher up in the scale than ourselves. Elihu comes with the idea that because God has said a thing, therefore it is authoritative: Job wants to know what kind of God it was who said it. Is He a being whose character does not contradict the moral basis of life? Authority must be of a moral, not superstitious character... To be without any authority is to be lawless, but to have only an internal authority is as bad as having a blind external authority: the two must meet together somehow... Authority to be lasting must be of the same order as that of Jesus Christ, not the authority of autocracy or coercion, but the authority of worth, to which all that is worthy in a man bows down." - Oswald Chambers, Our Ultimate Refuge
So, the key insight is that loyalty to someone is importantly grounded in their character, not just what they've done for us. Are they worthy of our loyalty?
Becoming someone who is worthy of loyalty requires a level of moral clarity that comes from honesty. So let's explore how we embody that character and how it plays a part in this dynamic.
A Leader Worth Following: The Way Forward... Sincerity.
“The only resistance worth a damn is the one where you stop calculating the odds and start living your truth without reservation.
What separates the merely clever from the genuinely courageous isn't tactical brilliance but moral clarity—the willingness to act as if your conscience matters more than your comfort.” - Mike Brock, 100 Days of Collapse: A Reckoning of Meaning and Power
This resonates with me as I've been reflecting on the idea of living sincerely when living in community with others. The life in us should naturally flow out of us, not because we're performing but because it's who we are. It's the story we want to tell.
When we are espousing statements and claims that are not sincere, it's another sign that we've lost our way and are likely inside a tribal bubble where winning or loyalty is more important than sincerity. And it's also a sign to others that they should not be loyal to us, at least in the relevant topic (because we've lost our way).
As Christians, this is unacceptable. Sanctification is a sign of salvation, as Timothy Keller says in the video. John Piper emphasizes that if your faith isn't producing love, it's not real.
This idea of sincerity is powerfully conveyed by Oswald Chambers in his commentary on Jesus' words in Matthew 5:33.
"Sincerity means that your appearance and your reality are exactly the same.“Remember,” Jesus seems to say, “you stand in the courtroom of God, not of men; practice the right kind of speech and your Father in heaven will back up all that is true.
...We should not have to call on anyone to back up our word; our word ought to be sufficient, and whether others believe us or not is a matter of indifference. We all know people whose word is their bond; there is no need for anyone to back up their word, as their character and life are quite sufficient. Hold your speech until you can convey the sincerity of your mind through it.
Until the Son of God is formed in us we are not sincere, not even honest—but when His life comes into us, He makes us honest with ourselves and generous and kind toward others." - Oswald Chambers, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount: God's Character and the Believer's Conduct
This idea resonates deeply with me because of how much I've aimed to be me regardless of where I'm at and who I'm with. It's a powerful insight for people pleasers. It's also liberating to recognize the impossibility of this task on our own, and the need for God's part in facilitating.
And there is practical power in living this way. In an interview on Farnham Street with Lulu Cheng Meservey, she points out how much people are attracted to those with strong convictions about something (regardless of its merit) when they trust them. While this can be exploited for the unjustifiably overconfident, it's a simple way that people test whether something is true and good.
The better test is the ongoing fruit of this confidence played out over time across the people involved. This will root out those who have sold grounding and those full of hot air.
Sincerity is the sustainable way to become both a person of principle and someone who lives these values out in their life.
The Exile Who Refuses Tribal Loyalty: Daniel in Babylon
This boundary clarity is a clue for how we operate as an exile and how we help others escape the toxic group and move into the way of a principled exile.
Fundamentally, when we participate in corrupting activities to achieve a virtuous end, we simply become a corrupt version of what we say we fight against. This is why Republicans and many Christians who are part of the Trump coalition have become all the terrible things they have accused their enemies of being.
Republican and former Trump loyalist Marjorie Taylor Greene captures it well in the following quote.
“Our side has been trained by Donald Trump to never apologize and to never admit when you’re wrong,” she told me in her Capitol Hill office one afternoon in early December. “You just keep pummeling your enemies, no matter what. And as a Christian, I don’t believe in doing that.”
Republicans and many Christians chose the way of the sword to fight their enemies, and they have become villains of the story (much like the religious leaders who had Jesus killed).
This is why, when we are operating in a context (family, work, country) that asks or requires us to participate in deception and wrongdoing, we must make the choice not to submit and instead to resist. This can cause us to experience consequences, but they are mild compared to the ways we punish others and Jesus by participating in the lies and wrongdoing.
The Hebrew and Christian scriptures give us a path forward, for those of us who want to choose what is true and good even when those in authority demand we do the opposite. Exile. The Bible Project does a terrific job illuminating this Exile dynamic in the following video.
Non violently laying down our lives is part of the way forward. Loyalty for the exile is first and foremost to God. Do what's true and good. Don't do what's deceptive and bad. And if that means pushing back against your own group, that is the way forward.
Ultimately, as Christians, we will always be exiles at some level of society, and that's a form of relief to realize and embrace this aspect of our identity.
An Example of Moral Defiance in War
To close us out, I want to give a specific example about defying unjust orders as it relates to the American military to illustrate how it is a tradition in America, particularly the military branches, to only follow just orders.
This insight comes from the philosopher, Alasdair McIntyre, during the question-and-answer portion of his talk on being a theistic philosopher in a secular age. It's a terrific example of having a culture of doing the right thing, especially when things are really challenging (war).
"The United States Army and other military forces are actually, by and large, composed of the best people in America today.
What people who served in Iraq, particularly officers at the level of captain and above up to colonel, found themselves in was a situation in which they had to invent a way of carrying on the war that would be adequately humane and that would adequately recognize the problems of the local communities they were dealing with.
They, in fact, did and have done throughout that war a quite magnificent job.
It's very important that the military themselves do not have rules that they are allowed to waive.
Going back to the Vietnam War, I take it to have been in many ways an unjust war, but one that was waged justly in many ways. It was quite common in Vietnam for someone in a forward position to be ordered to saturate a particular area with fire. This order would come from somebody who was, say, 25 miles away in the rear.
The person who was on the spot would immediately say, "No, I can't do that. There are nothing but civilians in this area. It would be militarily pointless and, in fact, you would be taking innocent life."
Quite often the order came back, "Do it." And at this point, it was also quite often the case that the officer on the spot simply disobeyed orders.
If you disobey orders in the field in the American Army, what happens is that as soon as possible, the relevant commanding officer calls together a court of inquiry—three officers of the relevant rank—and they simply decide whether there is an occasion to move to court-martial.
During the Vietnam War, on no occasion on which someone disobeyed orders rather than take innocent life was anyone ever sent for court-martial. This was a quite extraordinary record of people insisting on obeying a code which was indeed the military code, as they have generally scrupulously done so.
In Iraq, there are of course the famous exceptions—the atrocities, the cases when this breaks down.
By and large, however, actually waging a war can be done without demonizing the enemy." - Alasdair Macintyre, On Being a Theistic Philosopher in a Secularized Culture
This is an inspiring story about many courageous individuals in our country, of which I'm grateful. Their loyalty to what was good, and not simply obeying what they were told to do by their superiors.
In the Share Life podcast, I spoke with retired Air Force Major General Jack Briggs, and he discussed this topic. As a fighter pilot, there would be situations where a non-combatant would come into a strike zone, and they'd have to cancel or redirect the weapon to protect the civilians. Even though so much work was put into the attack and the order was given, it ultimately came down to doing the right thing whenever and however possible.
Let these stories of courage inspire and guide you as you say what is true and do what is right, even when those around you are doing the opposite.
Share on Social Media
Related Content
