James 1:26-27

The longer I live, the more I think people refuse to seriously look at the consequences their actions have on others and take evil seriously.  Too many people consider all the world’s evil a product of some “thing,” some group of politicians or religious leaders or celebrities who “make the world a worse place by being lawless.”  For me, that’s not what evil is.  Evil is the absence of compassion.  Evil is telling someone they have no talent at their passion, they will accomplish nothing in life doing what they love and that their goals are ridiculous, too lofty and flat-out stupid.  Evil is insulting someone with a bigoted slur or mocking accent/gestures over a trait such as skin color, nation of origin, mental capacity or sexual orientation, something that can’t be changed.  I cringe every time I see someone do the mock-Asian accent on TV. 

Evil is assaulting someone verbally, physically or emotionally for seeing this and knowing it’s wrong, saying “the status quo is good enough.”  Evil is saying “Trump don’t bother me none.”  Evil is pronouncing Kamala Harris’ name “Camel-a” (it’s Kah-MALL-a).  Evil is sending aggressive so-called pastors to what’s left of the CDC to convince them COVID is God’s punishment for America not using genocide against the LGBTQ+ community.  Evil is strangling an innocent man with your knee because he doesn’t have the same skin color as you.  Evil is being unable to believe that someone with a different skin color than yours could be successful enough to own a ranch.  Evil is being so nation-centric that you call making room for other religions persecution while in Egypt and Thailand, you can lose your life and/or your freedom for saying Jesus is your Lord and Savior.

But no, these evil people with such myopia cannot see past their borders, cannot see past the last pew in their church sometimes and don’t give to the homeless because they think he’ll just spend it on beer.  And they try to raise the younger congregants in their own boxes, dropping guilt bombs like Marie Barone in Everybody Loves Raymond (“I can’t stand Led Zeppelin and Van Halen, they write about SEX, but you do what you want”-actual thing said by fellow congregant in Church I went to from 2006-2015).  And in these times, the Church as the body of Christ must distance itself from all hate, all racism, homophobia and bigotry.

This is Faith against Prejudice Weekend, it is time to start if you haven’t already.