Love your Neighbour ... without Partiality

by Jeremiah P

Here are a few of my thoughts after this week (time of rioting, turmoil, and accusations of racism) concerning discrimination and the family of God:

There is a gap between people's experience, and I think we often assume others in the church see what we see. There is racism, there is doctrinal anti-semitism, there are prejudices and perspectives that seep into our minds, our congregations, and our understanding of scripture from worldly influences and false 'religion'. The apostles and Christ had to talk about the dangers of ungodly attitudes because it is in our human nature to discriminate and be influenced by the deceived cultures that surround us.

The answer I see is that we must have grace for each other's experiences and dialogue in the spirit of love. We may really believe we know the truth, but every one of us has our blind spots that we must confront. The challenge is that our ignorance comes from our own experiences, as individuals and groups, which can skew our perception of reality. Correlation does not necessarily have a direct relationship to causation and our personal life experiences do not necessarily speak to universal truths.

Life experience is also not a one way street where one group is blind and the other sees clearly. Sometimes we are right. Sometimes we are wrong. Sometimes our understanding is somewhere in between ... Sometimes emotion blinds us to data and truth. Sometimes truth and data hardens our hearts. There are a lot of conflicting narratives out in the world that affect people of all groups differently. We need to remember that we each have different weaknesses and we will be targeted with different messages. Satan relishes the chance to speak tailored 'truths' to us so that we may only see part of the picture and end up pointing fingers at others who don't see what we see. Looking at how different groups interpret different sets of data says a lot about how narratives are born and echo through our culture. There are many lies and twisted truths pushed by people and groups with agendas. It's a complicated world out there, it isn't all 'black' and 'white'.

We must each find a way to be in the world, but not of the world. We must not judge the hearts of others based on their blackness or whiteness or otherness. Instead we were called to be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. If we are hurt and alone in the church start with Matthew 7:3 ... Not that we should not judge, but that we should heal ourselves before we tend to other's wounds, lest we spread the hurt and pain we feel, or propagate worldly narratives. First we must check our own biases, so we can see clear enough to reach out to others and speak in love.

This world is not our world and it will increasingly turn against those who try to live by scripture. Authoritarianism is being lobbied around the world on all  political and social sides. Many start out with the best intentions offering worldly solutions. Unfortunately, too many are following their own forms of 'righteousness' and not God's. Many cry out for 'justice' and end up creating injustice. Many ask for compassion while spewing hate. Many talk of virtue while promoting degeneracy that inherently destroys said virtue. Many 'nobly minded' people listen to the wrong spirit, and it influences them to fight for things that erode the Church's freedom to worship God in peace. Our adversary is crafty like that, and the only answer is to learn how to love our neighbour, not as the world does, but as God does with a single unflinching standard:

“If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself,’ you do well; but if you show partiality, you commit sin, and are convicted by the law as transgressors” (James 2:8-10)