From “The False White Gospel: Rejecting Christian Nationalism, Reclaiming True Faith, and Refounding Democracy” by Jim Wallis
We have a present-day political situation that has us on a trajectory of fear, leading to hate, which results in violence. Just as I write in the spring of 2023, three horrible stories emerged about gun violence within just one week. A woman who had driven into the wrong driveway by mistake in upstate New York was shot and killed; two young Texas cheerleaders who tried, also mistakenly, to get into the wrong car after practice were both shot with one in critical condition; and a sixteen-year-old Black teenager was shot when he ran the wrong doorbell in Kansas City, Missouri, looking for his younger brothers, and was then ignored by nearby households when he begged for help.
“Paranoia” is the word the best describes our contemporary situation, a very dangerous combination of guns and a complete lack of trust in one another – which is in such radical and horrible contrast to the Good Samaritan parable. In response to that growing danger, we need to rediscover what it means to love our neighbors.
What would a politics of love look like? How would we talk? How might we listen? How would we find empathy with one another? These are not hypotheticals, just as they weren’t in Jesus’ day. How do we see our neighbor in need? How do we respond as the Good Samaritan did, with mercy and compassion? We have to answer these questions if we want our faith professions to have any integrity.