Who Is My Neighbor in a Persecuting Society?

More than a generation ago, British historian R. I. Moore argued that Western Europe in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries underwent “what has turned out to be a permanent change” and, in his now-famous phrase, became “a persecuting society” that defined itself by identifying, marginalizing, and oppressing heretics, Jews, lepers, “sodomites,” sex workers, and others deemed threats to the Christian social order. Moore’s central insight was that persecution does not arise from the character, beliefs, or behaviors of its victims. Rather, it is constructed and imposed by those in power to serve their own interests, even as they claim that the persecution of some protects the community at large.[1]

As I reflect on the task of theological education in this political moment, I find myself returning to Moore and recognizing that his description of a medieval turning point is not a relic of a distant past. In fact, we now live in a society increasingly warped by the violence and damage caused by the persecution of so many of our neighbors.

The United States has a long history of leaders who have called for the persecution of its own residents based on race, gender, religion, ethnicity, citizenship status, sexual identity, and economic class. Under our current political regime, this persecution of “the other” is being carried out openly and unapologetically to reclaim a mythic national “greatness” from our country’s past; to promote “Christian nationalism”; and to defend the “superiority” of white people. The targets of this persecution include, among others, people of color, immigrants, the poor, LGBTQ+ persons, and those who dissent. 

In the US today, many political leaders, along with their ideological allies, have mastered, in Moore’s terminology, “the rhetoric of demonization,” by deploying language of threat and pollution to justify the exclusion of entire communities from the benefits of living in an open, free society grounded in democratic principles.

Our democracy is in a state of crisis. The constitutional balance of powers among the judicial, congressional, and executive branches has given way to the consolidation of authority in an imperial presidency, supported by a Supreme Court committed to a suffocating doctrine of “originalism” and by a congressional majority too intimidated to fulfill its mandated constitutional functions. The most vulnerable members of our society are paying a heavy price for our crumbling democracy.

What, then, is our calling as theological and religious educators in this moment? The Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25–37) offers us a powerful call to action: a person is beaten, robbed, and left at the roadside. After the religious leaders of the day see the wounded person and pass by on the other side of the road, a Samaritan, an outsider despised by the dominant culture, stops, tends the injured person’s wounds, and takes full responsibility for their care. Jesus tells this Gospel story in response to the question “Who is my neighbor?” The answer is clear: the true neighbor is the one who shows mercy, a mercy that requires stopping, seeing, and acting.

If Christianity is anything, it is a religion of love that prohibits us from demonizing, marginalizing, or doing violence to the foreigner, the sojourner, the immigrant, or anyone else deemed “other.” As theological educators, we cannot cross to the other side of the road. Instead, we are called to name our nation as it is: a persecuting society that must be met with prophetic force. We are challenged by the Gospel to resist this rhetoric of demonization with the full resources of our theological inheritance; to bind up the wounds of those being harmed; and to help form students who understand that the life of faith and the demands of justice cannot be separated.

To do anything less is an affront to the religion of Jesus of Nazareth and a sign that we are failing in our vocations as theological and religious educators today.

[1] R. I. Moore, The Formation of a Persecuting Society: Power and Deviance in Western Europe, 950–1250, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007).