Geaux Therefore

By Adam Morris

Who doesn’t love Super Bowl commercials? Everybody enjoys a good twist, and those ads pretty much only exist to surprise us. This year, we were introduced to a prenatal baby with an appetite for Doritos. It doesn’t get any more surprising than that. For me though, the real surprise came afterward. I heard the next day that NARAL had criticized the ad because, among other things, it used what they deemed an “antichoice tactic of humanizing a fetus.”

I am opposed to abortion on the grounds that it ends a human life. At the same time, I do understand that there are those on the other side of the aisle who truly believe that my position is a problem for a host of reasons. And while I believe that they are dead wrong, I also believe that if we do not truly listen to one other, we will never be able to bring one another over to our way of thinking. So I try my hardest to listen to the other side with sincerity and deal with what they say charitably.

Even so, I could not help but scratch my head at this one. The complaint wasn’t about Doritos calling abortion murder. How could it have been? The ad wasn’t about abortion at all. It was about an unborn baby who apparently had x-ray vision and an appetite for processed foods. NARAL’s problem? The human fetus was humanized.

I recently heard more complaints about humanizing. This time it was directed at Jimmy Fallon’s treatment of Donald Trump. As the two men interacted during an interview on The Tonight Show, Jimmy was given permission to mess up Trump’s famous comb over. It was a light-hearted exchange that many found to be humorous.

But some people criticized Fallon. Some thought he was too easy on Trump. Some thought he should have scrutinized the candidate. Some on the Left went so far as to accuse Fallon of humanizing the Donald.

A human being was humanized, and people were mad about it.

At this point, it may be tempting for some to accuse the Left of intentionally dehumanizing others when it suits their agenda. I have to admit, my mind went in that direction for a little while. And to an extent, I think that there is some of that going on (intentional or not). But as I have thought about it more, I have come to see that this is a tactic that is used by the Right as well.

We don’t need to worry about the refugees, they are probably terrorists.

We don’t need mourn with the families of dead inner-city youth, they are thugs.

We don’t need to respect President Obama, he’s a liberal.

Conservatives and liberals may have some commonalities after all. Like the Left, the Right dehumanizes people all of the time (intentionally or not). It’s an easy thing to do. Just throw some derogatory title on someone and they have been demoted from human to less than human.

That tendency should be of grave concern for us all. But it should especially be troubling for those of us who follow Jesus. After all, he famously commanded that we love our enemies. It’s a very difficult mandate. Perhaps more difficult than we even realize.

There’s a familiar story in the Bible known as the Parable of the Good Samaritan. While many have heard it, fewer know why it was told in the first place. The story is shared by Jesus in response to a question. After establishing that the second greatest commandment in the Torah (there are 613 of them!) is to love your neighbor as yourself, Jesus is asked who exactly qualifies as a “neighbor”. The implication of the question is that there are some worthy of neighbor status, and some who are not. So Jesus tells the tale of a man who saves the life of a cultural adversary (the Samaritans and the Jewish people had major problems with each other), pointing out that he acted as a neighbor to that man. Then Jesus tells his questioner to go and do likewise.

So then, loving one’s enemy means treating them as a neighbor. And the love that we are to show neighbors ought to mirror the love we desire for ourselves.

Not everyone on the Right is a Christian. Not everyone on the Left is a Christian. But to those believers on both sides (and in the middle), please be sure to view other people as neighbors. And be sure to love those neighbors as yourself.

The only way to do so is to recognize the humanity of everyone. The humanity created in the image of God. The humanity for whom Jesus bled and died. The humanity from whom you are called to make disciples.

If you call yourself pro-life, recognizing humanity is kind of a prerequisite. If you call yourself a Christian, loving that human as you ought may be very difficult indeed.

The Good Samaritan’s life was certainly made difficult by the love that he showed. But it is exactly that difficult love to which Jesus calls his followers.

Will we be obedient?

“Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise.” -Luke 10:36-37

Adam Morris graduated with an MDiv in Christian Education in 2015. He also serves as Associate Pastor of Family Ministry at Bogue Falaya Baptist Church. 

Editor’s note: The views expressed in individual Geaux Therefore blogs are solely those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.

This article was originally hosted on Adam's Notepad at https://adamsnotepad.com