Love Note by Pastor Larry Love, February 25, 2025--Tackling Anti-Christian Bias 

Not long ago I heard that President Trump signed an executive order setting up a commission on religious freedom and specifically wants it to examine the country’s anti-Christian bias.  It’s about time someone started looking into this anti-Christian bias.  So…

·       Maybe now we in this country will reject our anti-Christian bias for hate and instead develop a Jesus-like bias for love—loving our neighbors (all of them)…and even our enemies…as Jesus taught Christians to do.

·       Maybe now we will abandon our anti-Christian embrace of racism and begin believing the biblical affirmation that all human beings are made by God in the image of God and are loved by God enough that God sent Jesus into the world that we might all have life.

·       Maybe now we will toss out our anti-Christian bias for exclusion, our propensity to reject and exclude people who aren’t like us, and start welcoming the stranger (immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers) as the Torah, the prophets, and especially Jesus taught Christians to do.

·       Maybe now we will choose the pro-Jesus call to love and forgive enemies, relinquishing our anti-Christian bias for vengeance and retribution against those who have wronged us (or against our perceived political enemies).  Maybe now we will heed the words of Paul, “Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all.  If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.  Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.’  No, ‘if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink….’” (Romans 12:17-20)

·       Maybe now we in this country will move on from the anti-Christian embrace of lies, and instead return to a pro-Jesus, pro-Christian love of truth.  Jesus said, “If you continue in my word…you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” (John 8:31-32)  And Paul said, “So then, putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors, for we are members of one another.” (Ephesians 4:25)

·       Maybe now we will discard our anti-Christian bias against the poor, and our anti-Christian bias in favor of the rich, and begin feeding the hungry and housing the unhoused and regarding all as created equally in the image of God and as equally loved and valued by God and by us.

·       Maybe now we will reject our anti-Christian bias for warfare and begin, in concert with other nations, beating our swords into plowshares and studying war no more (Isaiah 2:1-4; Micah 4:1-4).

·       Maybe now we will reject our anti-Christian bias for arrogance, anger, revenge, pride, selfishness, and instead embrace anew the fruit of the Spirit, those traits the Spirit of God grows in us—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness/generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (as Paul urged in Galatians 5:22-23.)

·       Maybe now we will leave behind the anti-Jesus, anti-Christian bias for narcissism, a selfish, self-centered, me first, us first, America first, take care of myself/ourselves mentality, and embrace the pro-Christian call to servanthood (seeking others’ well-being with as much energy as we seek our own) as Jesus taught and lived saying “I came not to be served but to serve…,” and also gave us an example by washing his disciples feet and then saying, “So if I, your Lord and Teacher , have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.  For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you” (John 13:14-15)

·       Maybe now we will toss out our bias toward the anti-Christian, unbiblical pursuit of money and things, and instead lean into a biblical bias for generosity, living simply and using our resources to take care of each other by making sure everyone has a decent job or, if unable to work, the resources to survive and thrive in this life here on God’s beloved earth.

·       Maybe now we will discard our anti-Christian penchant for misogyny and racism and Islamophobia and homophobia and xenophobia, and nurture instead a pro-Jesus bias for grace and welcome and inclusion which we see in Jesus’s words and actions and in the disciples in the book of Acts as the church expanded and included more and more people and groups who were previously left out and despised (See Acts 1-12 for multiple examples).

·        Maybe now with this new religious freedom commission and it’s mandate to tackle anti-Christian bias, we will turn more fully toward Jesus’s teachings about loving God and neighbors and enemies, directing love toward everyone instead of hating/excluding people based on ethnicity, gender, religion, nation of origin, sexual orientation.

Yes, it’s time to do some work on the anti-Christian biases that are so deeply ingrained in our lives and culture, and replace them with a strong bias for Jesus’s way of love and inclusion, the way he clearly articulated in his teachings and actions in the Gospels.