I'd like to speak today about us and them. Us, we, the group that I am in, are the true believers, the just, the smart, the good, the righteous. But them! Those backsliders, those evildoers, those sinners! They have no mercy, they have no morals, they lie, cheat, and steal from each other (which you and I really couldn't care less about) and from us. They steal our belongings, our security, our very way of life.
The only sin is to draw a line between us and them.
We are all people. As soon as you draw that line, make a group or an individual into Them, you dehumanize yourself.
We all do it. It's human nature to do so. Only a very few people have ever lived their lives with all of humanity on their side of the line.
The place I find myself drawing the line is with people who have drawn that line themselves.
There is an ideology of greed in the world, one that says We are rich because We work hard, and They are poor because They are ignorant, or lazy, or not committed. The belief that this nation was founded upon, that all are created equal, is used as a bludgeon, and the people who deny Darwin in biology are the most eager to twist his words in sociology.
People who feel others are subhuman, not deserving of the rights of humanity because they have different color skin, or love someone of the same gender, or were born into a bad situation. These people, to me, are Them.
It's human nature to divide the world into self and other, into like-self and alien.
Hate and greed grow from the same root. The idea that another human being is somehow not human, not one of Us. The greed that allows someone to take millions of dollars, not only while thousands lose their homes, but because thousands are. The hate that lets people be intimidated and beaten and, yes, sometimes killed because They are a threat to Us.
As long as we are human, there will be Us and Them.
Let's not be the ones to draw the lines. Let's let Them be Us.
Reverend Patrick RichardsFink, ULC