The rabbi questioned his disciples: “When does night end and day begin?”

“When it becomes light enough to walk along the path without using a lantern,” said one.

“When you can see someone approaching in the distance,” said another.

“When the stars fade from the sky,” said a third.

The rabbi drew close to them. “When you look into a stranger’s face,” he said, “and recognize them as your dear sibling, only then has the night ended and the day begun.”

This well-known Rabbinic tale exposes a constant temptation. A temptation with two steps.

First, we divide the world into two groups: white and black, men and women, Christian and non-Christian, straight and queer, abled and disabled, rich and poor.

Then we insist that one group matters more than the other. We create systems that perpetuate privilege and disadvantage. We’ve got names for these systems: racism, sexism, Christian nationalism, heterosexism, ableism, classism. We play this unjust, divisive game in our personal lives and in our social structures. And, far too often, far too often, in our churches.

I sometimes wonder if we, myself included, have ever read the Bible at all. Especially the stories of Jesus, whose ethic of compassion (concern for marginalized people) clashed with the Pharisees’ ethic of purity (separation from anything “unclean”). In his day, table fellowship indicated social boundaries—who’s in and who’s out. Instead of ostracizing those that the religious leaders despised, Jesus ate with tax collectors and sinners (Mark 2:15). He welcomed to the intimacy of his table people who were habitually kept from it. Jesus’ hospitality stands in stark opposition to the hatefulness of many people who claim his name. The absurdity is that we think we’re following him. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Where, I wonder, does us-versus-them thinking come from? Why are some Christians so vicious to their neighbors? There’s lots of reasons, of course, both psychological and sociological. But I’m going to suggest a theological one.

I suspect there’s a through-line between hate and the doctrine of eternal, inescapable hell. This might be a stretch for some of you, but hear me out. How we see people here and now is influenced by how we see the end of history. Double-destiny eschatology has a future division of two groups, the saved and the unsaved. This causes us—maybe unconsciously—to create a present division of two groups, people who are doomed to hell and people who will join us in heaven.

I like how theologian Jürgen Moltmann puts it: “If the end of the world is a double outcome, believers going to heaven and unbelievers to hell, then the present is inescapably dominated by friend-enemy thinking.” If God’s gracious to us but not to others (who will be punished forever), then we can treat them with contempt here and now.

Ideas have consequences. We imitate the God we believe in and act the way we think God acts. If we think God is a vindictive judge, we’ll imitate that God. Christianity has a history of violence—excommunications, inquisitions, crusades, persecutions and religious wars—justified in God’s name, on the assumption that God loves a favored few and hates everyone else. Christian nationalism is the latest chapter in that sad story. The public Christian voices we hear today are too often judgmental, nasty, and harsh—full of condemnation verging on hatred of immigrants, homosexuals, and transpeople or women seeking abortion. After all, if they’re on God’s enemy list, why wouldn’t they be on ours?

But if we think God’s a loving parent, we’ll imitate that God. If everyone without exception—including even the sinful dead, who, I think, get a second chance—are loved by God, then all the living without exception are people we must love. Because God’s love has no boundaries, neither can ours.

“Whoever they are,” Moltmann says, “God loves them, Christ has died for them” and they’ll eventually be with us in heaven. This includes racists in South Carolina and jihadists in Afghanistan, drunk drivers who kill innocent families and pimps who force young women into prostitution. (Let’s be clear—I’m not saying unreformed sinners can simply waltz into heaven unchanged. There’s no salvation without repentance and transformation—and so sinners will be purified after death until they’re ready to enter the eternal communion of love. But that’s another topic for another time.)

My point is just this: God’s grace is far and wide and deep and high enough to include everyone and long enough to last throughout eternity (Ephesian 3:18-19). We’re all children of a gracious God. No one’s inferior. No one at all.

There’s a marvelous scene in the film Luther. A teenage boy has killed himself, but Brother Martin insists on burying him—against church rules—in the parish courtyard. The gravedigger objects: “The boy is damned. This is holy ground. He’s a suicide.” But Luther tells the father to bring his son. “Some people say that according to God’s justice this boy is damned because he took his life,” Luther mutters as he digs the grave himself. “God must be merciful,” he insists as he lays the corpse to rest; “God is merciful.”

Luther removes his own crucifix and places it on the boy’s chest, blessing him with the sign of the cross. The lad isn’t a low-life. He’s not an enemy. He’s just someone who nothing can separate from God’s love (Romans 8:38-39). And when I really believe that, really live that, when I look into a stranger’s face and recognize them as my brother or sister, then the night has ended and the day of God’s kingdom has begun.

Header photo by David Billings on Unsplash

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Free to Be Faithful: Stepping Forward Together With Courage and Conviction

The Institute for Christian Studies and the Reformed Journal present a personal conversation with Nick Wolterstorff and Kristin Du Mez.

Saturday, May 3, 7pm, Eastern Avenue Church, Grand Rapids, Michigan
Free event, but you must register

Register here to attend this event in person–Sorry, SOLD OUT!

Register here to participate online via Livestream.