#100 Xenophobia

We've hit 100 posts! If this blog were a monthly comic book, like the old The Adventures of Superman series that my blog's name references, hitting triple digits would be a big deal. For a (normally) weekly blog, that's not as impressive, but, I think it's still pretty cool. Thanks for reading, everbody!

Now let's get down to business. This week I'd like to talk about xenophobia. If you're unfamiliar with the word, it refers to the fear of strangers. Normally, xenophobia is used to describe fear and even hatred of foreigners, but it can be applied more broadly. I'd like to use it in a broader sense here. Let's think of xenophobia as the fear of people who are different.

I think xenophobia is deep in every human heart. We tend to be more comfortable with people that we think are similar to us. Often we default to language of "us" and "them" in our conversations and thought. Obviously the membership of those groups varies based on what we're talking about, but there are few things simpler or easier than dividing humanity into people like us and people not like us. I would guess most of the time our us-them divisions are unconscious, and I think many times we don't mean anything bad by them. But we tend to think better of ourselves than others, and so we tend to think better of us than them. I think constantly thinking of other people as different from us makes it easier for us to be suspicious of them. Who are we going to trust? Ourselves or people who are different? It's easy for us to distance ourselves from others and let that distance turn into fear and then hatred. Think about our conversations about political parties or immigration or gender and sexuality. How often do we speak poorly of "them"? How often do we worry about what "they" might be up to? Simply by being biased towards ourselves, we can quickly become biased against others. It doesn't take much for that to lead to fear and even hatred. There are few things that I think we should be more concerned about in our lives that unchecked xenophobia.

Thankfully, in the midst of our xenophobia, Jesus teaches us to love everyone, including those who are different. I'm not sure I can think of a lesson that is more difficult or more important for us than that. Jesus calls us to love every person we encounter as much as we love ourselves, no matter how different they might be and no matter how much they love us back. Jesus could have treated everybody—you and me included—as "them." He's perfect. No one else is. But instead Jesus reached out to bring all kinds of people into "us," making all kinds of people His sisters and brothers. He challenges you and me to think of no one else as unable to be part of "us." Sure, people are different. Those differences can't just be ignored; many times, in fact, they should even be celebrated. But Jesus teaches that everyone is created and loved by God, broken and hurt by sin and evil, and able to be redeemed and renewed in Him. That common human condition can help you and me see past "us" and "them." Others may be different, but others are not totally different than we are.

Xenophobia doesn't fit with Christainity. But sadly, xenophobia has been taught to us and ingrained in us all our lives. Our biases are real and deep. We can't totally get rid of them. But what we can do is become more aware of them. (Click this link if you'd like some tests that could help with that.) We can try to be on the lookout to avoid slipping into us-them language. And most of all, we can ask Jesus to help us love others because "perfect love drives out fear" (1 John 4:18). This kind of love understands that others may fear and hate us, but it doesn't worry about that. This kind of love trusts that God can and hopes that God will use us loving others to help overcome that fear and hatred. Jesus loves us, and He wants to teach us to love others, too.

Grace and peace,
BMH