It’s beyond me to explain why so much of Christianity is so far off
what Jesus of Nazareth actually taught. And he wasn’t even vague or
unclear in any way. This passage is a prime example: here Jesus is
clearly teaching the disciples a lesson in tolerance. He couldn’t have
been more clear when he said: “Whoever is not against us is for us.”
And yet, much of conservative Christianity, and perhaps this is also
true for other religions, are doing the exact opposite of what Jesus was
teaching. They draw a line in the sand defining them and us in very
strict and judgmental ways. They are turning Jesus’ statement around,
saying: “if you’re not for me, you are against me.”
This is true for one of my close family members. She truly believes
that not everybody who says that they are Christians are actually
Christians. I wonder if the disciples would agree with her when she
says, “unless you come to my church, or a church that is very similar to
my church, and unless you believe the way I do (by which they usually
mean the 5 fundamentals of Christianity), you can’t be a true believer.”
Even if you go to your church regularly, even if you are a pastor of
such a church, even if you are doing good things in the world, even if
you sing the same songs, etc. she doubts that you are a believer. She
would be one of those who would say: Lord, I met a person who did good
things in your name, I told them to stop.” “Why?” Cause their not one of
us.”
Note how Jesus counters the disciples’ Us vs. Them language. The
disciples said: we stopped him cause he was not one of us.
There it is, the us vs. them concept that is the cause for
racism, sexism, heterosexism, unhealthy nationalism and racial / ethnic
supremacy attitudes. If we could only stop that language, if we could
only stop seeing the world in terms of “us vs. them,” we would actually
have a chance to get along.
Where does this concept even come from? How can it be explained? One
psychologist explains it like this ..
