Prejudice

This morning I'm enjoying watching Izak study his new Lady Blacksmith Mambazo. He looks up every now and then, laughing, imitating a particular sound, a certain rhythm. I think back to a negative review that I read on Amazon prior to buying "Shaka Zulu" (Grammy nominated, BTW). It said, "It sounded like buzzing bees." Nice. Way to be ethnocentric.

Along that same line, I had an interesting conversation with a man whose son had decided to go into the pastorate. In the midst of explaining it, he said, "I can't say too much; I have prejudices." I probed a little, since his son was in the United Methodist denomination. "Like gay marriage?" "Yes," he answered, "like gays and blacks. But I've probably said too much already." I felt this knot in the pit of my stomach. Wow, bigotry and discrimination in the same sentence. It was obvious to me that this gentleman had never truly gone been outside of his white, conservative circle; he'd never really loved anyone different than himself.

Connect that encounter with the tsunami that devastated Asia yesterday morning. 24,000 deaths and still counting. I am holding my breath to hear whether our friends in Tamil Nadu are still alive. Sam Stevens and his daughter Becky (of India Gospel League) have been to our church and our home. IGL is an evangelical church planting organization that has planted thousands of church in India. My prayer is that they are unharmed, but I'm sure that their people were impacted. Can you imagine? People from your church, children, babies... gone, never to be found again. The grief must be unbearable. May the church, the real Church rise up and pour out the love and power of the risen Christ in this day.

I am thankful for the transformation that Christ has, and is taking me through in regards to how I view those who are different than me. Other races, other beliefs, other socio-economic brackets. My ability to love those just like me is cheap and weak and easy. But what about the culture that I do not understand? What about the people group that has no reason to reach out to me, who regard me as an enemy? What about those who struggle with their sexual identity? What about witches? What about democrats? It's so easy to sell verbal barbs that disregard groups of people that you don't agree with, but Christ called us to LOVE individual people who are different, who are lost, and who are seeking.

I think the groups I still struggle with not discriminating against are protestant denominations. I still catch myself categorizing and generalizing people based on the name of the door of their church. I use names of churches way too often.

So, for the record, I believe that Christ mandates us to love all individuals. How God doesn't just strike us dead when we belittle or berate others in our own self-righteousness I'll never know.