Love Your Neighbour

I am so tired of the stereotypes in the media. Last evening as I watched “Law and Order, Special Victims Unit”, it happened again.

A gay man had been the victim of murder and the first of many suspects was, surprise, surprise, the dried up old pastor of a very right wing American heartland evangelical Christian church. The pastor and his flock were actually staging an anti-gay demonstration at the funeral of the unfortunate murder victim. The character actor portraying the reverend was very convincing as the mean spirited, completely devoid of love, judgemental and unforgiving antithesis of all things Christian. The entertainment industry simply delights in presenting faithful Christians in this manner. The stereotype is as bad as the stereotype of the typical gay man. Both portrayals are not reality, but popular culture.

I am a born again Christian. I am not naïve. I know there are unloving and judgemental Christians out there. It is very unfair, in my opinion, to tar all Christians with the same brush. At the same time, it is crucial that we all are reminded from time to time of the instructions left for us by Jesus Christ Himself.

30 ‘And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment.
31 "And the second, like it, is this: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these."

Jesus spoke these words in The Holy Bible in the Book of Mark (Mark 12:30-31)

Just who is our neighbour? Lest we think he or she is the person next door or indeed our fellow Christian, we have only to turn to the story of the Good Samaritan. A neighbour is anyone in this world who can expect to give us mercy or more importantly receive mercy from us. We are to love all others as we would like them to love us. That is a love like no other.

I would be just delighted to watch a television series some day soon where the portrayal of the true and faithful Christian, fundamentalist or evangelical or not, is a loving, non-judgemental, forgiving and merciful mirror image of Christ.