Happy Monday!
It’s time to let go of today’s word-of-the-week…
DICHOTOMY
We’re comfortable with dichotomy, even when it’s false.
Good/evil. Friend/enemy. Conservative/liberal. Life’s easier when our ideas, politics, or theology can be reduced to a nice, simple dichotomy.
Would-be “leaders” capitalize on this desire for simplicity. So they create powerful, simplistic, repetitive imagery that appeals to our basic instincts, and when they repeat it enough times it becomes “truth.” No shades of gray, just simplistic, powerful, media savvy us-versus-them rhetoric.
Jesus didn’t create dichotomies. He loved people and asked us to do likewise. He left instructions about loving our enemies. and doing good to those who persecute us.
Not so long ago, a relatively small band of thugs murdered six million Jews. They were able to gain the power to do this, in part, because people who knew better stood by and did nothing because they were afraid. About the same time, Japanese-Americans were imprisoned simply because they looked like the people who bombed Pearl Harbor. That happened because people who knew better stood by and did nothing because they were afraid.
It’s tempting, this notion of an enemy that’s different. Jews were bad. Japanese-Americans were dangerous. Simple enough, right?
Except that “simple” dichotomous thinking leads to horrible, irrational consequences.
Today we hear prospective leaders demonize entire categories of human beings based on skin color, culture, or religious faith. They insist it’s either us or them. Thing is, as a follower of Jesus there’s no them.
This isn’t about opposing someone who’s doing it wrong…that’s just another friend/enemy dichotomy. Following Jesus can’t be about who we oppose.
We’re for the dignity and respect of every person. We’re for unconditional love, grace, and forgiveness…for every person.
In a broken world, following Jesus isn’t black and white. It’s difficult choices and shades of gray and tough discussions and occasionally standing in unpopular or even dangerous places.
It’s up to us to refuse to accept or support dehumanizing comments and actions that flow from dichotomous thinking. Regardless of political ideology or personal opinion, we must be the people who stand for people.