LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF: GOD’S DESIGN FOR  DIVERSITY, EQUITY AND INCLUSION
One thing that all Americans can agree on is that the nation is divided. And there is no dispute that similar divisions exist around the world. Much has been said about how to achieve unity and world peace, but none of those suggestions work because they are human solutions to a spiritual problem created by humans who have the wrong idea about what God expects of them.

Most people do not know what God expects of them — except that he wants them to practice religion. Christian Nationalists are so confident about their knowledge of God and his ways that they boast freely that God wants them to take dominion over the seven mountains of American culture.

Non-Christians are skeptical at least, and unbelieving at most, about what God expects of them. These attitudes are understandable because concepts of who God is and what he wants have been grossly misrepresented by Jews, Christians, art and media. From what non-Christians observe in Jews and Christians, all God wants is for them to practice religion. That makes no sense to rational, thinking people so they avoid religion like the plague but never bother to investigate the truth about God’s plan for universal diversity, equity and inclusion.

If people could see God for who he is and what he stands for, they would see that Jews and Christians totally misrepresent him when they practice their religion in public. If people could see God for who he is and what he stands for, they might be shocked to learn that God doesn’t want them to be religious. He just wants them to follow a few, common sense principles about how to get along with one another.

Here is a short list of the basic attitudes and behaviors that satisfy God’s commands about loving your neighbor.

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The genius of loving your neighbor according to God’s commands is that these attitudes and behaviors can be practiced by anyone at any time in any location without practicing religion. They are in no way burdensome. No special clothing, no schedule, no special language or ceremonies are required. Furthermore, there is no financial cost to participate — unless you want to voluntarily give money or something else of value to someone who is in need. These attitudes and behaviors represent pure, undefiled religion prescribed by God. People who embody these attitudes and behaviors give evidence that they have clean pure hearts that God values.

STUDY TIPS: See God’s Commands About How to Relate to Him and to One Another and God’s Commands About Doing Justice for Others for complete, unordered lists of scriptures about how to love your neighbor as yourself. Also, see the  pages below that focus on specific topics about loving your neighbor as yourself.

• • • • • • • How to Relate to Strangers, Aliens and Enemies 
            • How to Practice Truthfulness, Honesty and Integrity
            • How to Do Justice for Marginalized People
            • Right Attitudes and Behaviors Toward Government
            • Prohibitions Against Showing Favoritism and Partiality
            • Prohibitions Against Giving and Receiving Bribes 
            • How to Relate to All People
            • Relationships with Government and Politicians
            • Attitudes and Behaviors in Religion and Politics
            • Do Not Trust Lawbreakers, Associate With Them or Vote For Them
              
            • Do Not Seek Revenge and Other Proverbs

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Most of the statements in the topical lists above are paraphrases of scriptures listed in God’s Commands About How to Relate to Him and to One Another and God’s Commands About Doing Justice for Others. Although these statements do not include scriptural references and are paraphrased, they should be considered to have the same value as  scripture. In other words, they should be considered to be God’s commands about how to  get along with each other in ways that lead to peace and unity.

Some religious people may not be willing to consider the statements in these lists as being equal to commandments from God because they do not include scripture citations and do not have that “thus sayeth the Lord” authority. Such a rigid, hyper religious perspective would be very unfortunate if it keeps people from paying attention to God’s advice about how to get along with one another peacefully. Hopefully anyone —  both religious and nonreligious — who reads these lists can find common sense wisdom in each statement and conclude that, if all people applied these kinder, gentler principles in all their relationships, division would decline and peace would be more common everywhere.

If Americans would apply these principles, changes in how people get along would happen first in face-to-face relationships and sooner or later in politics and government. Whether fast or slow, these changes are necessary for preservation of American democracy which depends on freedoms guaranteed in the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

It is no overstatement to suggest that these freedoms are not equally available to all Americans. And it is no overstatement to suggest that these inequities exist because Americans, the majority of whom say they trust God and the inerrancy of the bible, have failed miserably in practicing what they preach about the bible being a reliable guide for living. As a result, Christians, especially Christian Nationalists, have not been the city on a hill that they imagine themselves to be. Instead they have become models of abuse, neglect, greed  and hypocrisy.

Blind to this dismal history, Christian Nationalists boast that God has chosen them to take dominion over the seven mountains of American culture.  Christian Nationalist support this claim with a lie that says America has always been a Christian nation blessed by God. The lie claims that God’s Kingdom will be established when Christian Nationalists dominate all aspects of American culture. This lie is contrived to lure gullible religious people with valid grievances into supporting Christian Nationalist politicians with money and votes that will place them in positions of legal authority to make changes that will resolve all their grievances. Gullible people believe these lies because they do not understand that God’s kingdom is a spiritual kingdom in the hearts of New Covenant disciples — not a geographical/political kingdom.

What converts to Christian Nationalism fail to understand is that their grievances exist because their Christian forefathers have perpetrated the abuse, neglect and division that grieve them and other socially marginalized groups. America’s social and political divisions are the result of hundreds of years of disregard for God’s common sense, doable commands about loving your neighbor.

Christian Nationalism converts have very real grievances. God’s warnings about the consequences (i.e. curses) of failure to obey his commandments are real. No one escapes the consequences of failure to love your neighbor as yourself — not even the elites at the top of the social, religious and economic spectrums.

Even though God’s warnings about the consequences of failure to love your neighbor are cloaked in biblical symbolism, it is plain to anyone who reads them that they touch every aspect of human life. Because Christian Nationalists are deceived in their belief that they are blessed by God for their religious zealotry and trust in Jesus, it does not occur to them that they are cursed for failure to love their neighbor. But the depth of their outrage, their willingness to resort to violence, and their endless rhetorical complaints about government all reveal hopelessness and fear that gives clear evidence that they are deeply affected by the curses God warned them about. However, they wrongly attribute the source of their problems to government and culture — not to their own disobedience to God’s laws. This misunderstanding explains why they are so gullible to the appeal of Christian Nationalism.

Woefully blind to the fact that they curse themselves by not obeying God’s laws about how to get along with one another, Christian Nationalists desperately strive to calm their fears by blaming their enemies (i.e. liberals, people of color, non-Christians, etc.) for all their problems. They characterize themselves as sorely aggrieved victims of progressive policies that marginalize them while giving agency, equal rights and political power to the “others” whom they fear. This is what victims do. They always blame others — especially progressive partisan politicians — for their problems. If they would read their bibles, Christian Nationalists would understand that their grievances affirm that God’s warnings about the consequences of disobedience to his commandments are true and at work in their lives. They are their own worst enemies.

Rather than admit that they own the blame for the curses that plague them, Christian Nationalists conspire to overcome and dominate their enemies by implementing the Seven Mountain Dominion Strategy. They arrogantly believe that they will resolve all their grievances and serve God when they gain control over all of America’s religious, corporate and political institutions. It will not work. Their ill-conceived strategy only heaps curses on top of curses and makes life more miserable for everyone — including the Christian Nationalists.

Christian Nationalists fail to understand that they are victims of the abuse, neglect, rejection, and even murder that they perpetrate on others. When they adopt legislation that oppresses others, they self-righteously believe that they are defending their rights and protecting their God-given privileges. By attacking others, however, they only make matters worse for themselves and others. Not only are they not loving their neighbors, they are do not love themselves the way God prescribes. What they do is just the opposite of love. God calls this kind of behavior evil. 

Jesus said clearly that people who love him will obey teachings.  Loving your neighbor as you love yourself is one of his primary teachings. He also said that he spoke for God — not on his own authority.  How Christian Nationalists can say what the say and do what they do without recognizing that their words and behaviors are totally out of sync with Jesus’ (i.e. God’s) teachings. Perhaps they find some loophole in their trust of Jesus for eternal salvation that acquits them from disobedience to God’s Commands About How to Relate to Him and to One Another. More likely they just don’t know what it means to be created in God’s image, and do not understand God’s idea of salvation. Jews, on the other hand believe that the only laws they need to obey are the 613 Mitzvot taught by their religious leaders.

Lacking understanding — or perhaps in willful contradiction — of God’s commands, Christian Nationalists zealously militate to marginalize others while they disobey God’s commands about loving one another. And when they disobey God’s laws about loving one another, they heap up curses on themselves. In Eastern cultures this is called “karma.” In American culture we say “what goes around comes around.”  God says he blesses those who obey his commands and that curses will come on those who disobey. God does not bring the curses, the curses come naturally to those who do not love their neighbor as they love themselves. This is God’s idea of karma.

Christian Nationalists don’t understand that marginalizing the people whom they see as the enemy will not cure their pain or ease their fears. They don’t understand that the division all Americans experience is the consequence of universal rejection of God’s common sense, practical, doable commands about loving your neighbor as you love yourself. As long as Americans continue to disobey these commands, they are their own worst enemy.

STUDY TIP: See How to Love Your Neighbor.