Brotherly Love

A House Divided

Valerie Cullers 12 Comments

When we hear the phrase, “A House Divided,” most people think of Abraham Lincoln and the speech he gave in 1858 at the Illinois Republican Convention, where he said, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” But did you know that the phrase was not original to Abraham Lincoln? Jesus is the one who actually coined it first when He said, “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided against itself, that house cannot stand.” Matthew 12:25

That phrase has been going through my mind this week as I listen to the news. The media loves to bring division to our society. In 2019, the drumbeat was black vs. white. In 2020, it was Democrat vs. Republican. In 2021, it was vaxed vs. unvaxed. So far in 2022, it is government vs. truckers. Listen carefully when you listen to the news or other media outlets; you’ll notice that many of the speakers are pitting one group of people against another.

Does it really have to be that way? Can we not shake ourselves awake and recognize the programming that is being disseminated on the airwaves? If we don’t, we will succumb to the division that is deliberately being sown in society around us.

Think about your own prejudices and those of your peers around you. Don’t they mimic the programming that is on the news channels? We must recognize that we are being conditioned to look at others with suspicion if they do not think or act the way that we do. This is happening on both sides of the political divide. Surely we don’t have to fall for this, do we?

Abe Lincoln was right to quote Jesus when he was talking about slavery in our nation. He recognized the division that would break our union apart. Now there is a more insidious division taking place; it is family member against family member, neighbor against neighbor, city against city and state against state.

We may not be able to stop the vitriol that is spewing forth from the media but we can quit listening to it and stop being conditioned to hate those who do not agree with us on a political or social level. I don’t know about you, but I refuse to hate my brother or my neighbor because of the color of his skin, his political affiliation, his vaccination status or his choice to protest.

Image by Dimitris Vetsikas. Courtesy of Pixabay.

Phileo – A Personal Cure for Racism

Valerie Cullers 24 Comments

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I must have heard the term “racism” at least a hundred times last week, but what does it truly mean? The primary definition in Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary says, “a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capabilities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority in a particular race.” That is one definition for the word, but it is not the only kind of racism in the world. A lot of racism is ethnic or religious and has nothing to do with the color of a person’s skin. Visit any country and you will find people who believe they are superior to another group of people who share their same nationality. Many believe they are superior to those living in the countries along their borders.

How do we get those beliefs inside of us, and where do they come from? If we examine our own belief systems, we will see that most prejudice inside of us has been taught to us since the time we were small children. Remarks may have been made around our home or in the neighborhoods we lived in about people who were different than us. Did we always agree with those remarks? Probably not, but somehow those attitudes may have wormed their way inside of us in a way we were not aware of at the time. We could also have had a bad experience with someone from a different nationality or ethnicity, and so we formed a generalization about those who shared the same characteristics as the person who hurt us. 

I believe that racism is a form of hatred. We may have even heard the words, “I hate that person because they are…you fill in the blank. Racism hates because of the racial, ethnic, or religious differences of those around us. It is very easy to generalize about people groups, especially when we don’t know the individuals personally. We don’t believe we are bad people when we hold those kinds of beliefs; we think it is only natural to feel that way.

Natural or not, we need to confront those beliefs and seek to change our attitudes towards those who are different than we are. Jesus told us to “Love our neighbor as we love ourselves.”  There are many kinds of love in the world, but the kind of love we need is “phileo.”  The word phileo is from the Greek and it means “friendship or brotherly love.” You’ve heard of Philadelphia…same root word.

Will it be easy to change? No, it will take time and determination. Every time we begin to generalize or think ill of those who are different than us, we must catch those thoughts and reject them. We must learn to view others as fellow human beings, our brothers, if you will, whom we need to learn to love and care for. If we can personalize that love and reach out to others with that same kind of caring we would give our own brothers, it will go a long way in solving the problem of racism. 

Remember, we cannot fix the world around us until we fix ourselves. 

Image by Cheryl Holt. Courtesy of Pixabay.