Jesus and xenophobia

A few months ago a pastor-friend of mine introduced me to a new word I had never heard before: xenophobia.

Break the word down in Greek.
xenos: stranger, foreigner, alien
phobos: fear, anxiety
Xenophobia: fear of the stranger.
Or, to word it better: the fear of someone who is different than me.

Psychologists will tell you that we all have xenophobia to some level or another, whether its severe (racism, sexism, bigotry, etc), diagnosed (deep levels of paralyzing anxiety over people who dress a certain way, talk a certain way, look a certain way, etc) or mild (locking our car doors as we drive through dangerous neighborhoods late at night or avoiding our neighbors who are weird because they make us feel awkward and unsafe).

We can spot xenophobia because what we fear the most is what we distance ourselves from the furthest., whether its physical, emotional, psychological or spiritual proximity.
What we are closest to in proximity is what we love the most.

I've wondered about my own xenophobia.
What types of people am I afraid of interacting with?
What - or who - do I hold at the furthest distance away from myself?
What - or who - do I hold closely?

As I've thought about my own xenophobia for quite some time I'm not entirely sure my answer, but I can tell you generally that I am fearful of people who don't make me feel safe. This is not uncommon. I think most people would answer the question this way.

I've been wondering about xenophobia and the gospel.
What are the implications of the gospel message when it comes to people who are different from us - religiously, socio-economically, geographically, linguistically, culturally - whether those people live across the street or across the world?

I'm chewing on the inclusivity of the gospel, the role of the Church in the world and how they relate to our fears of those different from us.
I think what made Jesus a compelling figure is because of the presence of love he had no xenophobia.
The more xenophobia we possess, the less love we will possess.
The more love we possess, the less xenophobia we will possess.
The gospel's power is so strong that it is capable of breaking down every xenophobic wall that we could ever erect.

I think of the words of Paul: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ." (Galatians 3:28)

Where is your xenophobia most evident? Why is that?
And can I invite the Spirit to come in and break down my xenophobic tendencies in order to replace them with love?

Comments

[swmrr]

Hi J.R. interesting topic. I hope more people have time to post, I don't mean to dominate in any way. You reminded me of what may appear to be a different topic, that of "anchoring" in the medical world. A very famous doctor published a book about how often doctors are too busy to process a great deal of conflicting information about a patient. A very interesting excerpt appears here: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=8892053

I was stunned during a book promo video by the author, Dr. Jerome Groopman, that he had told an insurance company CEO that he did not have any idea of how to create a solution to this problem. I have not heard someone that intellectually honest in a long time. I had thought he would feel funny saying "Sorry this problem has stumped me." My respect for him grew a thousand fold during that video.

Unfortunately it would be very very easy to write a parallel book, "How Christians think", in terms of how often people in church size a person up very quickly, and often not in a positive way.

Also, another possibly unrelated topic is accessibility issues for websites. Just went to a training session on that. Apparently there are special files called CSS files that can offer different views of the same content, depending on someone's accessibility issues. This is a neat website that demonstrates the power of CSS:http://csszengarden.com/. The site viewing options on this site are really cool: http://www.glaucoma.org/index.php

Also, there are more concerns about people's ability to contribute to the web, not just access it.

I know you care about this "different" group, too. Just wanted to add another group to your list. Jesus modeled how to deal with this "different" group, that of the physically disabled. He had an infinite set of CSS's, each appropriately tailored, to each person he encountered. He could adjust himself automatically so someone could easily access his freeing love. He also allowed for ostracized people to participate in his community. The gift he gave to the woman who annointed him with oil is impossible to quantify in human terms. The fact that he let an "unclean woman" touch him repeatedly shocked the religious leaders present.

I appreciate your thoughts on this topic, it is a very touchy one, I think, to discuss nowadays, because many issues are "in the eye of the beholder".