HOW we can stop acting on stereotypes

this morning I was listening to the BBC and heard an interesting report on the Roma in Hungary... the Roma are a people group who migrated (according to some) from India nearly a millennia ago and they are usually refered to as 'Gypsies'...

according to the reporter seven percent of Hungary's population is Roma... once, a friend and I were driving through a large central city and he commented that it had a large enough contingent of Roma that they held two seats in parliment (I never checked this out, it was a decade ago)... the Roma get a hard time from Europeans in general, just type 'Roma' in the BBC search engine and look at the headlines you get... in an English camp in Central Europe (CE) once, a student told me that his people looked upon the Roma the way Americans look upon African-Americans, I challenged his gross over-generalization, but unfortunately, his point was taken... sadly, I understood...

so a friend asked me recently about social issues that need to be addressed in CE: I would respond that the problem of homeless kids is really close to my heart... but, getting people to develop world views that are not based on prejudice would be number two... Jesus wanted this, he taught us to cut through the traditions (from which much prejudice originates), and even the Mosaic Law, through the Decalogue to the heart of the Shema, to which he added the love of neighbor... Willard comments this way about that... "But in God's order nothing can substitute for loving people. And we define who our neighbor is by our love. We make a neighbor of someone by caring for him or her." (p. 111) last night I saw the recent film about the revenge sought by Israel for the killing of the Olympic athletes... while I do not agree completely with the worldview that some say the maker of the film is putting forth, there is really something to say for looking beyond the racial and historical hatred that makes one group hate another...

all are our neighbors, all are the image bearers of God, all need an introduction to their Image Giver... THEN we will be able to stop acting on stereotypes...