Prejudice And Peace (3)
Wednesday June 10, 2015
What is prejudice? Prejudice is a preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience. Prejudice is often rooted in our fear and insecurity around difference. We smell certain unfamiliar smells and we turn up our offended noses as though we are superior in what is familiar to us. We see how someone from Asia drives and we have a negative reaction about all Chinese people. People from different ethnic backgrounds become the material for sarcasm and jokes. The rich think the poor are stupid and lazy. The poor think the rich are harsh and selfish. The old think the young are lazy and irresponsible and the young think the old just don’t understand what life is like today.
We often respond with fear and anger and prejudice because we fear change or don’t know what to do with something new. Our insecurity and fear uses words of judgement and prejudice. We make opinions and assumptions based on the limited information we have in our own culture and don’t realize that there is so much more of God’s goodness to express than any one culture can contain. Diversity is God’s idea. God delights in diversity and the many expressions of life that each culture demonstrates. God is calling people from every culture to know His forgiveness through Jesus and work together as one in His Kingdom.
Unfamiliar is not inferior it’s simply different. If we can celebrate our own life as a gift from God, then we can celebrate other’s lives as gifts from God, expressed in cultures that are quite different from ours. It’s not “either/or” with God, it’s “both/and.” Can we widen our arms to accept and love all God’s children?
This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not God’s child, nor is anyone who does not love their brother and sister. For this is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. (1 John 3:10-11 NIV)
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