Recently, my daughter and I were having one of our frequent Father-Daughter fat chewing sessions. Don't you parents love to talk to intelligent, young, upwardly mobile offspring? We touched on a variety of subject matter and somehow got into the subject of prejudices. Both of us threw in some relevant facts we had become aware of recently and stated our own personal summaries of how we saw the subject affecting our nation and whether we thought a solution would ever be found to resolve it.
I summed up my own thinking this way. If it were possible to take the sum total of the individuals who live in this country, put them into a gigantic blender and puree their genetic make-up, pour out the resulting combination into molds and create a new kind of human being, both male and female, many or even most of the same problems we see today would still exist. Such is the nature of the human creature.
PREJUDICE: A judgment or opinion formed without due examination of facts. An unreasonable judgment held despite facts to the contrary.
Fear of and hatred of other races, religions, etc. Detriment arising from a hasty and unfair judgment. A biased preconception, bigotry, intolerance.
RACISM: An excessive and irrational belief in the superiority of one's own racial group.
I am thoroughly convinced that if two individuals were isolated on a deserted island, one or both of them would quickly find something to look down their superior noses at the other about.
It is a proven scientific fact that no human being enters this world with built in prejudices, so we can correctly conclude that prejudices are acquired or learned as an individual matures.
Since prejudices are so obviously present within each one of us, can we assume that it is a natural aspect of being human? I've often wondered why it is that human beings have this seemingly natural need to see themselves as superior to someone else? What does it add to one's life that wouldn't exist if it were not for this belief? Is it connected to the basic instinct for self-preservation or an accepted law of nature that says the fittest will survive? Is it a force that is impossible for us to resist and alter?
As best we can determine with our scientific research, no other creature possesses the concept of good and evil. No other creature has the ability to conceptualize their own existence to such an extreme as to believe they have an immortal soul, that some portion of themselves will exist forever. No other creature has the ability to expand their understanding and reasoning ability to the point of believing in a supernatural, spirit realm, invisible to the natural eye. A realm that exists perhaps, on another dimensional plane and we human beings have within us, something so special it enables us to reach out from within and contact that realm, communicate with its inhabitants and gain even more knowledge. Isn't all that simply amazing?
If we as a species are so intelligent, so special, so gifted, so blessed, so civilized, so loving, caring and compassionate, so godly, so wise, so knowledgeable, and so rational in our thinking, wouldn't you think we would have reached perfection long before now?
We, as a species can look back at our recorded history and through a process of comparison conclude that we have made some giant strides toward that goal of perfection. Still, we must also conclude that we are not there yet. Our tendency to be prejudiced toward one another has not declined. If anything, we have found other, more glaring differences between individuals that only contributes to our prejudices.
If God, for some reason not yet revealed to our understanding, was to deem it necessary to come to earth once more in the body of a man, live among us, performed endless miracles before our very eyes and continuously proclaim His heavenly truth within range of our hearing, do you believe the eventual outcome would be different than the first time He did it? How many times must the supreme price for our salvation be rendered? It is evident that once was not enough. What have we done with that first redemptive act of sacrifice? Have our hearts really been changed?
If there is anything the United States of America needs, it's godly, highly moral, intelligent leadership. In my own humble opinion, we as a nation appear hopeless when it comes to the political choices we make. Does this scripture mean anything at all to us today? Eph:6:12: For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. It appears to me that it does not. Recently we witnessed for ourselves a demonstration of the truth of that scripture in the highest office our nation can bestow upon any single person. How did our nation react to it? They looked away, ignored its implications, and used their individual state of seeming prosperity as an excuse for condoning said wickedness.
Now, we are facing an election year. We have another opportunity to help our nation become the greatest example of what a democratic republic can be in this world. One nation, under God. It seems that our eyes do not see evil and our ears cannot hear truth.
In the beginning, the candidates were many, but some have fallen by the side of the campaign trial, out of the running. Those that remain, are they the best we can hope for? Will we as a nation, as a people ever learn to take control over our prejudices, to look beyond the color of a man or woman's skin, gender, political affiliations, party platform rhetoric and judge each person by the contents of their heart and by the spirit that holds rule over them?
Why is it that some candidates seem invisible to the voting public? Why do their words seem to fall to the ground with little affect? If we examine them closely enough we will plainly see that they practice what they preach or that they are only projected images of what they know we want to see and hear, but in reality are nothing like that image.
I believe that God has sent us the person He would want to see in the office of our nation's president. There is no glowing halo suspended above that person's head. When they speak, there is authority in their words. Their words have authority because they are truth. But truth does not always tickle the ear, yet it is truth all the same. If we cannot believe them for the sake of their words, then believe them because of the works they do. Be a fruit inspector and then decide upon that which is produced. No tree can bear both sweet and bitter fruit. It is either one or the other.
Hosea:4:6: My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: