Love Your Neighbor

Sides have been chosen, lines drawn, and the battle engaged. Extremists on both sides call for blood. Websites disparage others. Religious websites demonize other believers. With friends like these, who needs enemies?

Reams (at least digital ones) of blogs, op-ed pieces, papers, and even sermons describe the polarized state of our country and our world. The anger is explosive, the fuses are short, and the ruptures are painful. Reputations destroyed, lives decimated, and blood shed—another day in our country and world.

Some, though, have a nagging sense that something is missing. And it’s missing in the church—in the community of Christ. Might it be those words in a book written some three-plus millennia ago? “Love your neighbor as yourself…” (see Leviticus 19:18). Or quoted by Jesus some two millennia ago? “Love your neighbor as yourself…” (see Matthew 22:39).

But…But…What if… What if they’re not kind? What if they’re not respectful? Agreeable? What if they’re not upstanding people (like we are?) And what if they voted wrong? What then?