Embracing the Peace of the Risen Jesus

Psychologist and journalist Daniel Goldman explores the dark side of defining others as “Them” in his 2006 book Social Intelligence: The Revolutionary New Science of Human Relationships.

He recounts this story:

“It was during the last years of apartheid in South Africa, the system of complete segregation between the ruling Afrikaner’s and the ‘coloured’ groups. Thirty people had been meeting clandestinely for four days. Half were white business executives; half were black community organizers. The group was being trained to conduct leadership seminars together so they could help build governance skills within the black community.

“On the last day of the program they sat riveted to a television set while President F. W. de Klerk gave his now-famous speech that heralded the coming end of apartheid. De Klerk legalized a long list of previously banned organizations and ordered the release of many political prisoners.

“Anne Loersebe, one of the black community leaders there, was beaming: as each organization was named, she pictured the face of someone she knew who could now come out of hiding.

“After the speech the group went through an ending ritual in which each person had a chance to offer parting words. Most simply said how meaningful the training had been, and how glad they were to have been there.

“But the fifth person to speak, a tall, emotionally reserved Afrikaner, stood and looked directly at Anne. ‘I want you to know,’ he told her, ‘that I was raised to think you were an animal.’ And with that, he broke into tears.”

Daniel Goldman writes of that moment: “The relationship between one of Us and one of Them by definition lacks empathy . . . Should one of Them presume to speak to one of Us, the voice would not be heard as fully or openly as would that of one of Us — if at all.

The gulf that divides Us from Them builds with the silencing of empathy. And across that gulf we are free to project onto Them whatever we like . . . righteousness, intelligence, integrity, humanity and victory are the prerogatives of Us, while wickedness, stupidity, hypocrisy, and ultimate defeat belong to Them.”

May we embrace the mind-set that is the peace of the Risen Jesus: love centred on justice and reconciliation; empathy that honours our “connectedness” to God and to one another as children of the same God; the awareness of God’s presence in every relationship we enter and decision we make.