Never forget that justice is what love looks like in public. – Cornel West
These are difficult times and I am terrified. I am terrified for myself and for the people that I love. I feel rushed and I feel urgency. I don’t have all of the time in the world to convince you of my urgency with beautifully thought out language. Beautiful language or academic words are not the point. I only have this. If you, reading this, are a Christian/evangelical, and you cannot hear me or ascribe me the benefit of the doubt while I am in this pain, then your heart is callous.
I am frustrated with the evangelical tendency to make shallow and uninformed calls to love the oppressed. What I mean by this is that I often see Christians make statements that we need to love Muslims, we need to love Black people, we need to love LGBTQ+ people because they are siblings, they are family. But in the same breath, I see Christians perpetuate false information and stereotypes about the people they profess to call family.
These blog posts and sermons I see from Christians do not call the audience to action in a particular manner that is informed or helpful to those they speak of loving. I am worried that those who are unaffected by certain oppressions will hear those calls, tell themselves “I have never done a racist/Islamophobic/sexist act”, and then convince themselves that by agreeing that the xyz neighbor must be loved, that having that agreement alone is what it takes to love the xyz neighbor.
An example I encountered of a vague, (late) and misinformed call to love is with an article posted on an evangelical website called Dear Church, Islamaphobia is Anti-Christ. I agree with the basic argument, that Christians must love our siblings who are Muslim. Of course. However, I am appalled by how the article perpetuates misinformation, one-dimensional narratives and a shallow notion of love. (Please feel free to read it yourself so you may form your own opinions). The author describes a personal experience where he watched a house of worship get destroyed by an extremist group. But the way that he introduces the idea of loving our Muslim neighbor is by talking about extremist groups like Daesh/ISIS.
Having an article about “loving your Muslim neighbor” and fighting Islamophobia while referencing an act committed by radicalized groups like Daesh, Boko Haram and the Taliban conflates the actions of these groups with an entire population of Muslim people. This is problematic on so many levels and perpetuates the stereotype that the religion of Muslim people is inherently a violent one.
The Muslim people that we encounter on a day to day basis, our neighbors and co-workers — they are not Daesh. They are not affiliated with the Taliban. But articles like the one I referenced make these false equivalencies.
Relying on stereotypes like this perpetuates the idea that some people are good and some are evil, that entire groups of people are not worthy of protection. Christians then waste time trying to self-righteously tell their peers to love a group of people whom they have and continue to dehumanize in their ignorance.
I am not writing you this to convince you that this reductive conflation of your Muslim neighbor with Daesh is wrong. Because it absolutely is wrong. You already know that assuming all Christians are KKK members is wrong. You already know that assuming that all Christians represent the Crusades is wrong.
So why do you refuse to understand that believing that all black people commit crimes is wrong?
Why are you hesitant to believe that most Muslims are just as human as you are?
Why do you spend so much energy relying on the stereotypes that this society has fed you?
Do you not understand how dehumanizing it is to keep doing this?
I encountered that article as someone who is tired of watching the humanity of the oppressed being debated by the Church. I am tired of watching Christians who might not identify with a particular oppression debate tirelessly whether we ought to fully include or protect the oppressed, whether that oppression is tied to someone’s gender or someone’s faith. I am tired of watching the Church spread false information about a group of people in order to discredit their humanity.
All of it is dehumanizing.
Christians should not be deciding whether or not women are worthy of protection before uplifting them.
Christians should not be deciding whether queer people are worthy of protection before protecting them.
Christians should not be deciding whether people of other faiths are worthy before protecting for them.
Because a tenant of our Christian faith is that ALL PEOPLE AND ALL LIVING THINGS ARE UNDENIABLY LOVED BY GOD.
And this love is not a shallow love. This is a Love that seeks JUSTICE and PEACE for the people that Love loves.
If we Christians really were committed to loving our Muslim neighbor (to continue on with the example of the article), we do not keep debating their humanity. If we say that we love someone, we already commit to wanting to understand them. We already commit to seeing them as human — as worthy of protection, safety, happiness and abundant life as ourselves. We already understand that the stereotypes are just that. Stereotypes.
These are dangerous times. Muslim Americans and immigrants and refugees have and continue to be survielled in their communities and threatened by hate crimes. Now, our neighbors have to wake up to television and social media timelines to hear politicians and authorities plot more evil actions against them.
As a black woman, I have watched a lot of white conservative, white moderate and even white progressive Christians waste precious time self-righteously writing blog post after blog post about whether or not my life matters and whether or not I am worth protecting. However, that time could have been used to more accurately understand what those who are being oppressed, stigmatized, and demonized are experiencing. That precious time could be spent fighting for a better life for your neighbors.
Beyond seeking to love our Muslim neighbor or our black LGBTQ+ neighbor, we must seek out justice for them, and we must confront the powers and principalities that are not interested in seeing justice for them.
If you are a Christian, you might be familiar with this verse.
For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
Instead of wasting so much time, Christians, you need to name these forces and evil powers that contradict the values of Jesus. These powers have names, but they are not people, and these powers show up and appear in our communities in certain ways. White supremacy (which Alicia Crosby greatly describes here). Capitalism (which treats the bodies and landscapes inhabiting the world as disposable). Homophobia (which treats non-heterosexual relationships as less than human). And once you know what those forces are, you need to know how to combat them. And that requires that we build knowledge and wisdom and seek truth about what is happening in the world and in our community. That way, our knowledge and wisdom can accompany the love that we say we have for our neighbors.
As Christians, we should have already agreed that all of God’s creatures were named good and that everyone is trying their best to live and to love well.
Act like it.
Live like it.
There were a lot of good intentions with blog posts like the one I mentioned. But good intentions are not enough, and misinformation can create serious harms. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, they say. We must have intimate knowledge about who our local and global neighbors are, knowledge about what actions we are to take, and knowledge about what our love is to look like at a particular time and place.
Otherwise, our love is just sentimental and imagined.
The Generous Pine 