How do we love white supremists?
The conscience is reached by love and humility, not by condemning/belittling/mocking, or by legislating my values on others. Legislating hate-crimes, removal of statues, and flags, does not reach the conscience. Self-righteous response to self-righteousness does not reach the conscience. In my opinion, Hollywood has done more to reach the conscience of whites in America, than legislation has ever done. Protesting against protesters only inflames self-righteousness on both sides, and does not reach the conscience. Intolerance of intolerance does not reach the conscience. Condescension does not reach the conscience.
Jesus said, “Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who mistreat you. If someone strikes you on the cheek, turn to him the other cheek. Do to others as you would have them do to you.”
Jesus also said, “Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven.”
Rather than being the chief accusers of white supremists, especially those who claim to be Christians, pointing out their sin in not following Jesus, I have more hope in reaching their consciences by being chief confessors, humbly confessing to them that we are no better than they, because our tendency is to feel superior to haters, to be just as self-righteous as any other hater, to love being right more than we love Jesus, so we are also sinners in not following Jesus.
We live in an era that is highly-politicized, highly-divided, because there is so much self-righteousness and so little humility. No one cares to listen to the other side to understand-or-even-care-about their concerns. No one cares about compromise. Self-righteousness abounds. Love and humility are absent. This is the atmosphere of war.
–Dave McCarty, GospelFriendships, who loves feeling self-righteous about the self-righteous, except when he’s been freshly convicted of loving his own righteousness more than Jesus and His imputed righteousness
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