Hostility is the failure to show love. Violence is a pain and hate multiplier. Hostile words, if not toned down, eventually provoke hostile acts. If I speak the politics of Democrats or Republicans and do not have love, I am nothing.

If we refuse to see and renounce the evil in our own heart, pointing the evil out in others does little good. Berating and insulting people is an assault on the American values of equality, justice, and human rights. Verbal assault isn’t the way “to win friends and influence people.”

Planned, nonviolent resistance, ended the racist, Jim Crow laws in America. Violence isn’t effective at changing people’s hearts.

The situation today calls for loving action, not hateful reaction. Real love isn’t wimpy. It boldly confronts injustice with kindness. The living Jesus gives His true followers the strength to be kind to the rude.

In all the hostility of the present moment, it’s a great time to show Christ’s supernatural love and to: “Bless those who curse you.” Persistent kindness that refuses to retreat into rudeness, is powerful! The early Christians had no political agenda, but sought to connect all people with the risen Jesus.

We are seeing the results of centuries of horrific abuse and what feels like ongoing second class citizenship to African Americans. Slavery, Jim Crow laws, lynching, and subtle discrimination all said that black lives don’t matter, but Jesus says they do!

As a white, I’ve learned so much, I was unaware of, by asking black people to tell me what it’s like being black. Still learning! Black people’s right to feel safe isn’t about politics. It’s about freedom and equality.

Christ, living in me, gives me love for everybody, whether they agree with me (or look like me) or not. We need Christianity that shares God’s love, not the kind that insults people to try to win a political argument. So Christians: How about some “tidings of comfort and joy” and some love that “is not easily provoked”?

Search for: Off the RACE Track book.