Whenever we feel threatened and afraid, we tend to make rash and often bad decisions. This is true for individuals and for societies and countries. The most devastatingly bad decision is often to find someone to blame and then isolate and punish them. When Jesus taught us to love our enemies, I think he had in mind the kind of terrible things that good people can do when they are afraid of someone or afraid of a whole race of people.

Today, I think we need to remember our history as a nation in times when we felt threatened. The great wars of the last century, the Depression of the 1930's, diseases such as cholera, the plague or more recently HIV/AIDS are examples of times when, as a nation , Canadians and people through out our cultural background felt at risk of being wiped out. The pattern of response to these frightening times was to raise the level of fear by finding a villain and making him or her more threatening. Often this was a whole group of people and when the threat had been eliminated, there was reason to regret some of the actions taken.

In both wars, we isolated and even incarcerated people of the ethnic origin of the enemy, even if they had lived in the country for several generations. Germans, Italians and Japanese born in this country were imprisoned and lost their homes out of fear. Lately we have been offering them apologies and even compensation.

The witch hunts in Europe and North America around seventeen hundred were largely because of the plague and religious wars which threatened the prosperity of communities. Tens of thousands of innocent people -most of them women - were executed out of fear and ignorance. The Irish were feared and persecuted in many areas of this country when Cholera struck the cities especially the ones admitting poor immigrants.

My purpose in reviewing these shameful events in our own past is not to accuse those who responded to the perceived threat in ways that we now regret, but to point out that we are not more advanced in terms of our own response to threatening events in our present time. Lest we think that all of this is in the past and we are somehow better than that today, consider how Muslims and Gays have been demonized in the wake of 9/11 and HIV/AIDS.

The root cause of much hateful and discriminatory b e h a v - iours and even laws is prejud i c e based on i g n o - rance. If we are to truly rise above the shameful behaviours of our nation's past, we must endeavour to overcome the kind of ignorance that leads to fears and hurtful behaviour.

Christ has shown us that the vision of God for this world is one of peace and understanding. If we Christians are to truly follow where Christ is leading, we should make every effort to understand the situations and people and culture which we are being encouraged by the media to see as threatening to our beliefs and way of life. Such efforts are not about conversion from one way of worshiping and celebrating the divine in our presence to another but learning how we can trust and live with o n e another - learning how to love our neighbour.

The outreach committees of St. Marks Anglican church and the Anglican Parish of Mono are offering the community an opportunity to listen to some of the vital and diverse voices that make up our country today. The object is to help us to see that we need not be afraid or feel threatened by the presence of those who are different. It will also help us to see that they are struggling as we are with radical and inflammatory people within their communities.

I feel that this is so important that I have invited Raheel Raza to preach in my churches, St. John's and St. James, on Sunday April 29. Raheel is a Muslim woman who will be part of the Vital Voices event at St. John's church on Highway 9, on Saturday, April 28, 9:00 a.m.. Please join us and learn with us how to love those who may seem to be our enemies because we have come to see them as our neighbour sharing God's creation with us in hopeful and loving ways.

For more information on the Vital Voices Event call St. John's, 519-941-1950. For service times for St. John's and St. James please see the ad for the Parish of Mono on this page.