LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF: GOD’S DESIGN FOR DIVERSITY, EQUITY AND INCLUSION
One thing that all Americans can agree on is that the nation is divided. And there is no dispute that similar divisions exist around the world. Much has been said about how to achieve unity and world peace, but none of those suggestions work because they are human solutions to a spiritual problem created by humans who have the wrong idea about what God expects of them.
Most people do not know what God expects of them — except that he wants them to practice religion. Christian Nationalists are so confident about their knowledge of God and his ways that they boast freely that God wants them to take dominion over the seven mountains of American culture. They are much deceived in their belief in attributing their evil human aspirations to God.
Non-Christians are skeptical at least, and unbelieving at most, about what God expects of them. These attitudes are understandable because concepts of who God is and what he wants have been grossly misrepresented by Jews, Christians, art and media. From what non-Christians observe in the attitudes and behaviors of Jews and Christians, all God wants is for them to practice religion. Because these beliefs make no sense to rational, thinking people, they avoid religion like the plague but never bother to investigate the truth about God’s plan for universal diversity, equity and inclusion. These are not biblical terms, but they do describe the kind of world God had in mind when he said “love your neighbor as yourself.”
If people could see God as an agent of justice for the poor and disenfranchised in the world today instead of as old white man with a beard, sitting on a throne, watching over the world, listening to prayers and manipulating people and world events in response to those prayers. they might obey his commandments about loving your neighbor. If people could see God for who he really is, they would see that Jews and Christians totally misrepresent him in their doctrines, rhetoric and religious practices. If people could see God for who he is and what he stands for, they will be shocked to learn that God hates religion. They would see that basically all God wants is that people follow a few, common sense principles about how to get along with one another. That is what the second great commandment is all about. Moreover, loving your neighbor is what the entire bible is all about.
Here is a short list of the basic attitudes and behaviors that satisfy God’s commands about loving your neighbor.
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Most of the statements above are paraphrases of scriptures listed in God’s Commands About How to Relate to Him and to One Another and God’s Commands About Doing Justice. Although these statements do not include scriptural references and are paraphrased, they should be considered to have the same value as scripture. In other words, they should be considered to be God’s commands about how to get along with each other in ways that lead to peace and unity through love.
Some religious people may not be willing to consider these statements as being equal to commandments from God because they do not include scripture citations and do not have that “thus sayeth the Lord” authority. Such a rigid, hyper religious perspective would be very unfortunate if it keeps people from paying attention to God’s advice about how to get along with one another. Hopefully, anyone — both religious and nonreligious — who reads these lists can find common sense wisdom in each statement and conclude that, if all people applied these kinder, gentler principles in all their relationships, the world would be a better place.
The genius of loving your neighbor according to God’s commands is that these attitudes and behaviors can be practiced by anyone at any time in any location without practicing religion. They are in no way burdensome. No special clothing, no schedule, no special language or ceremonies are required. Furthermore, there is no financial cost to participate — unless you want to voluntarily give money or something else of value to someone who is in need. These attitudes and behaviors represent pure, undefiled religion prescribed by God. People who embody these attitudes and behaviors give evidence that they have clean pure hearts that God values.
But Jews and Christians have always found ways to defile God’s commandments by converting them to religious rules and rituals. They claim righteousness if they obey the literal Ten Commandments and obey other religious rules/laws which they wrongly interpret from literal readings of the bible. Pure religion cannot be reduced to a set of human laws obeyed like religious rituals. Attitudes and behaviors that satisfy God’s command to love your neighbor are written on the hearts of New Covenant disciples and lived out spontaneously and privately in their daily lives.
In other words, loving your neighbor involves attitudes and behaviors that are much broader and deeper than those found in the above list. Even the links below do not touch the depth of God’s understanding of love, but they do help us understand the differences between Godly love and human love.
If people around the world would apply these principles, the world would become a better place. Changes in how people get along would happen first in face-to-face relationships and sooner or later in politics, government and international diplomacy. Whether fast or slow, these changes are necessary for the establishment and preservation of democracy in all world governments.
In America, the principles of loving your neighbor are guaranteed in the Declaration of Independence:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
It is no overstatement to suggest that these freedoms are not equally available to all Americans. And it is no overstatement to suggest that these inequities exist because Americans, the majority of whom say they trust God and the inerrancy of the bible, have failed miserably in practicing what they preach about the bible being a reliable guide for living. As a result, Christians, especially Christian Nationalists, have not been the city on a hill that they imagine themselves to be. Instead they have become models of abuse, neglect, greed and hypocrisy.
Blind to historical facts, Christian Nationalists boast that God has chosen them to take dominion over the seven mountains of American culture. Christian Nationalist support this claim with a lie that says America has always been a Christian nation blessed by God. The lie claims that God’s Kingdom will be established when Christian Nationalists dominate all aspects of American culture. This lie is contrived to lure gullible religious people with valid grievances into supporting Christian Nationalist politicians with money and votes that will place them in positions of legal authority to make changes that will resolve all their grievances. Gullible people believe these lies because they do not understand that God’s kingdom is a spiritual kingdom in the hearts of New Covenant disciples — not a geographical/political kingdom.
What converts to Christian Nationalism fail to understand is that their grievances exist because their Christian forefathers have perpetrated the abuse, neglect and division that grieve them and other socially marginalized groups. America’s social and political divisions are the result of hundreds of years of disregard for God’s common sense, doable commands about loving your neighbor.
Christian Nationalism converts do have very real grievances. God’s warnings about the consequences (i.e. curses) of failure to obey his commandments are real. No one escapes the consequences of failure to love your neighbor as yourself — not even the elites at the top of the social, religious and economic spectrums.
Even though God’s warnings about the consequences of failure to love your neighbor are cloaked in biblical symbolism, it is plain to anyone who reads them that they touch every aspect of human life. Because Christian Nationalists are deceived in their belief that they are blessed by God for their religious zealotry and trust in Jesus, it does not occur to them that they are cursed for failure to love their neighbor. But the depth of their outrage, their willingness to resort to violence, and their endless rhetorical complaints about government all reveal hopelessness and fear that gives clear evidence that they are deeply affected by the curses God warned them about. However, they wrongly attribute the source of their problems to government, political progressives and culture — not to their own disobedience to God’s laws.
Woefully blind to the fact that they curse themselves by not obeying God’s laws about how to get along with one another, Christian Nationalists desperately strive to calm their fears by blaming their enemies (i.e. liberals, people of color, non-Christians, immigrants, homosexuals, etc.) for all their problems. They characterize themselves as sorely aggrieved victims of progressive policies that marginalize them while giving agency, equal rights and political power to the “others” whom they fear. This is what victims do.
Christian Nationalists always blame others — especially progressive partisan politicians — for their problems. Blinded by pride in their self-righteousness, they can never accept responsibility for anything. If they would read their bibles, Christian Nationalists would understand that their grievances affirm that God’s warnings about the consequences of disobedience to his commandments are true and at work in their lives. They are their own worst enemies.
Rather than admit that they own the blame for the curses that plague them, Christian Nationalists conspire to overcome and dominate their enemies by implementing the Seven Mountain Dominion Strategy. They arrogantly believe that they will resolve all their grievances and serve God when they gain control over all of America’s religious, corporate and political institutions. This strategy will not work. Their ill-conceived strategy only heaps curses on top of curses and makes life more miserable for everyone — including the Christian Nationalists.
Christian Nationalists fail to understand that they are victims of the abuse, neglect, rejection, and even murder that they perpetrate on others. When they adopt legislation that oppresses others, they self-righteously believe that they are defending their rights and protecting their God-given privileges. By attacking others, however, they only make matters worse for themselves and others. Not only are they not loving their neighbors, they are do not love themselves the way God prescribes. What they do is just the opposite of love. God calls this kind of behavior evil.
Jesus said clearly that people who love him will obey his teachings. Loving your neighbor as you love yourself is one of his primary teachings. He also said that he spoke for God — not on his own authority. How Christian Nationalists say what the say and do what they do without recognizing that their words and behaviors are totally out of sync with Jesus’ (i.e. God’s) teachings. Perhaps they find some loophole in their trust of Jesus for eternal salvation that acquits them from guilt for disobedience to God’s Commands About How to Relate to Him and to One Another. More likely they just don’t know what it means to be created in God’s image, and do not understand God’s idea of salvation. Jews, on the other hand believe that the only laws they need to obey are the 613 Mitzvot taught by their religious leaders.
Lacking understanding — or perhaps in willful disobedience — of God’s commands, Christian Nationalists zealously militate to marginalize others while they disobey God’s commands about loving one another. When they disobey God’s laws about loving one another, they heap up curses on themselves. In Eastern cultures this is called “karma.” In American culture we say “what goes around comes around.” God says he blesses those who obey his commands and that curses will come on those who disobey. God does not bring the curses, the curses come naturally to those who do not love their neighbor as they love themselves. This is God’s idea of karma.
Christian Nationalists don’t understand that marginalizing the people whom they see as their enemies will not cure their pain or ease their fears. They don’t understand that division and fear are the consequences of universal rejection of God’s common sense, practical, doable commands about loving your neighbor as you love yourself. Ensnared in their wicked traps, they thrash about wildly trying to escape the chaos they have created. They are their own worst enemy.
STUDY TIP: See How to Love Your Neighbor.