The image is as clear to me as the night it happened over 50 years ago: I was a kid at a church Christmas party being held at the home of one of the members. Their dad was prosperous, a Republican, and Christian – my dad was poor, a Democrat, and an atheist/agnostic. They were arguing about Roe v. Wade, which had just been enacted, and both had an adult beverage in their hand – probably not their first. The discussion got loud, filled with facts and emotions and astonishment at the other person’s perceived ignorance. An hour after it was done, both of them stood at the piano trying to out-sing each other through verses of “Angels We Have Heard on High.” This is how I thought people interacted over politics and religion – we are Americans first, I was told, and we aren’t supposed to be the enemy.
That was the 1970’s, and it wasn’t an idyllic time in any way. We were emerging from the Vietnam War and the fissures that had begun after WWII were growing. The blip of happiness that were the 1950’s had given way to one of the scariest decades in our history, and no amount of disco dancing could cover the scars of turmoil we were experiencing. The dividing lines were reemerging, and the Civil War, which had never really ended, resumed in full force. The detente we endured was over, and the tentative truce we had with those we differed with was crumbling. Loving one’s neighbor is easier, I suppose, when they look and act and think and pray like you. The people we used to breeze through life with at school and work and play had become the enemy.
Since then, diversity has become a dirty word, and religion has become a weapon. Loving our neighbor works for us as long as that neighbor is the same as us. We struggle to understand how anyone can believe things we don’t believe in. Instead of a cold war, we have death threats from all sides. We have weapons of mass destruction available on the internet. We have children afraid of going to school and parents creating silos in their homes. We have people hating us for who we love and loving us for who we hate. We aren’t supposed to be the enemy, but we are. Jesus told His followers to love their neighbor and to love their enemy; now, it seems, they are the same people. I guess He knew that then, too.
Prayer – Holy God, forgive us for demonizing those we disagree with. Teach us what is right. Amen.