“Us vs. Them” Part 1
By Fred | Friday, November 6, 2009
I remember when I was young, every time I would grab an apple my mother would tell me to wash the apple. “Wash the apple before you eat it.” Why? “Because they spray the apples.” Who are “they”? I think the definitive answer to “who are they,” is “the people that spray the apples.”
We mentioned this “us vs. them” concept in last Sundays message, pointing out that God loves all people. After the service, I was talking to Steve, somebody who used to attend Crosslands Church, moved to the United States and recently moved back to Canada, but just out of reach to make regular attendance at Crosslands worthwhile. He mentioned that they were struggling to find a church to attend in their area because of this. Most of the churches they attended had a mentality of “us vs. them.” We weren’t far into the conversation until I realized that this is a subtle and devious idea. It seems so natural. Because in the pursuit of inclusivism (anybody can belong at Crosslands Church), it becomes easy, almost natural, to make other churches the “them.” We don’t believe in “us vs. them,” but they do.
Something else that’s also challenging and ironic: I’m sure in the minds of at least some other followers of Jesus, we are the “them.” We are they ones they oppose. We are the ones that don’t belong to their “us.” What can we do about that? Not much, most likely. But what we can do is what we are responsible for. We are responsible for our own community. We can choose to exhibit Jesus love within our community and going out from our community, being willing to include anybody that wants to participate.
I want to delve into the idea of “us vs. them” over a few more blog posts over the next week or couple of weeks.
Category: Stuff
Comments (5)
I think you hit the nail on the head with the apple analogy. “Them” are always the more or less faceless people that you don’t know, but blame for everything. Blame the Muslims for 911, or blame the Government for the economy…
Get to know “Them” and they are no longer faceless, easy to blame people. “Them” are really us, and that means we must be flawed too.
This has me curious, Fred. I was about to post a reply but was held off. Spirit had told me to wait a little longer to reply. I await for your continuation. You have a strong message to tell. Only then can I reply.
I know many Moslems personally and we are friends. The Qur’an is a message that may be strikingly odd to to you, Doug. The message is of peace and war. Mohammad, a very good discussion companion at work, in fact purchased in gift to me my Qur’an. I work through the artwork slowly with all my other endeavors.
As to the Government, the people are the economy. It’s the regulations of the Government that prohibit the expansion of the Economy. The people drive the economy. Rules and decisions from the Leaders prohibit the economy. If we’re not happy about how things of the economy are operated, we do still have a say — at least for a little longer.
They are not us in these examples as per your post. You can not compare apples to oranges. Social divisions exist whether religiously or politically. To say otherwise is to lie to yourself. You can not be like them. They can not be like you. That’s just not possible. If you were like them, you would be with them. Period. And then you wouldn’t suggest you could be like them because if you were them, you sure wouldn’t want to be one of us.
Adam, Not sure my point was clear. The Muslims and Government were examples just to make a point. By saying that ‘getting the know’ them makes us realize that ‘Them’ are really ‘Us’, the intent was not that we realize we are the same, but that we often think we are right, or we are less wrong or we know what is good for us, or we are closer to perfect – not at all that we are the same. The differences that exist are clearly what may start to create that divide between ‘them’ and ‘us’ which leads to ‘us’ blaming ‘them’ for things. The reality is that we are as much to blame for the way things are than the ones we label ‘them’ – it’s just easy and convenient to blame someone different or faceless. When we realize that we are all flawed or not always right, we can start to take responsibility for things that we might otherwise blame on ‘them’. Not sure if that clarifies – that is one of the problems with blogging vs face-to-face discussion.
That clarified, Doug.
Everybody on the face of the planet has room for improvement. When we get to learn about the “FACELESS”, we begin to understand new life mysteries.
Face to face discussion is always good. But Blogging gets everybody’s opinions!
That’s why I like this medium.
But I also like the face to face too.