Casting out Fear

Dear DJAN Friends,

As Martin Luther King, Jr. frequently observed, racial discrimination and animosity are damnably hard to eradicate because they are buttressed by deep-rooted, ultimately irrational, fears: a fear of losing social and economic status, a fear of having to adjust to major social change. In both of his sermons on the subject, Dr. King addressed such fears using the following scriptural text.

God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. We love because he first loved us (I John 4:16b-19).

This passage suggests that when our love grows from trust in God, the One who has loved us so perfectly, then it is incompatible with fear; it casts it out. But, conversely, human fear can also cast out love. Fearful persons curve in on themselves in their search for security, and this thwarts compassionate identification with others. To come at this another way, more possessions won't cast out fear; we just fear losing them. Bigger weapons won't cast out fear; they just escalate conflict. And as we have learned in recent years (if we didn't know it already), more police won't cast out fear; they are the source of anxiety for some of our sisters and brothers. The antidote to fear, in the Christian scriptures, is the assurance that we are loved by a God who, in turn, sends us to love others as we have been loved–and, thus, help break the cycle of anger and fear.

May God grant us understanding and commitment.

—Rev. Dr. Michael Kinnamon