Perfect Love

“There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love.” ~ First John 4.18, NRSV Let love be perfected in us.  Let Him be made whole, complete, defining all the good that is possible.  We should not […]

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If you hate

Race allows us to categorize people, to lump entire human populations together, to pack them into overcrowded boxes and store them in the socioeconomic basement of our society.  Race helps us to forget our commonality as human beings, “out of sight, out of mind.”  It focuses on and creates more differences than even exist in […]

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When our neighbors are our enemies

“The Bible tells us to love our neighbors and also to love our enemies; probably because generally they are the same people.”   ~ G.K. Chesterton “Those who say, ‘I love God’ and hate their brothers or sisters are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot […]

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Howard Thurman, Sentimental Christianity and Hatred

“Christianity has been almost sentimental in its effort to deal with hatred in human life. It has sought to get rid of hatred by preachments, by moralizing, by platitudinous judgments. It has hesitated to analyze the basis of hatred and to evaluate it in terms of its possible significance in the lives of people possessed […]

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The Hardest Commandment

“‘Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?’  He said to them, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’  This the greatest and first commandment.  And a second it like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’  On these […]

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