Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear was making the rounds on X after preaching at the Democratic National Convention on what he believes to be the right to abortion. Gov. Beshear condemned former President Donald Trump and Conservative Republicans by saying that women should have freedom over their bodies, and the bodies of their infant children through abortion and IVF. The Democrat Governor, who in 2022 vetoed a bill calling for a ban on abortions after 15 weeks & regulation on abortion pills, closed his message on abortion by claiming his radical views were a result of his Christian faith and the desire to be a good neighbor.

"How we treat people transcends party lines, it goes right to the heart of who we are. My faith teaches me the Golden Rule, that I am to love my neighbor as myself. The parable of the Good Samaritan says that "we are all each other's neighbors." So I want anyone watching tonight, Republican, Independent, Democrat to know that you are welcome here." [LINK TWEET]

This statement by the Governor is nothing new, we've heard this same line of neighboring from pandering politicians for years. On a recent White Dudes for Harris Zoom call VP candidate Tim Walz pulled out a similar neighbor card when he said, "Don't ever shy away from our progressive values, one person's socialism is another person's neighborly." The argument is that the radical progressive views of the left are loving, neighborly, and even Christian. Political groups claiming faith, like Evangelicals for Harris and Christians for Harris, support Vice President Kamala Harris' radical views on the economy, immigration, and abortion, all under the name of loving your neighbor for the common good. [LINK TWEET]

The position held by Evangelicals for Harris is no longer some fringe position, it is gaining traction among pastors and leaders in the church. During one of the Evangelicals for Harris Zoom events, Bishop Claude Alexander, who is the Chair of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary's board of trustees, and also on the board for Christianity Today, the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, Intervarsity Christian Fellowship, BioLogos, and more, said, "I believe abortion should be safe, legal, and rare in the cases of rape, incest, and the threat to the life of the mother." [LINK TWEET]

Daily Wire reporter, Megan Bashan, exposes this line of thinking and how it has infected the church in her book "Shepherds for Sale: How Evangelical Leaders Traded the Truth for a Leftist Agenda." The book exposes how leftist progressive ideas have infiltrated American churches, through leaders and secular political funding. Megan highlights leftist positions on issues like critical race theory, abortion, illegal immigration, climate change, and more have become "Gospel Issues."

Megan says in her book, "Often, those arguing for these progressive priorities don't even bother bringing much biblical application to the table. No matter the issue, all are thrown into the basket of, "Love your neighbor.""

This is a major issue as we approach this presidential election and also for the Church. Many Christians haven't been taught how to think biblically through moral and ethical issues. If we do not understand Christian positions on the issues, then many in our churches can fall to anything and everything under the banner of "Love your neighbor."

Issues like abortion are twisted into an act of love towards the mother while ending the life of the infant. Illegal immigration & open borders become acts of love towards our global neighbors seeking a better life (and maybe a government check). Climate change loves our neighbor, socialism loves our neighbor, using gender pronouns, gay marriage, and reparations all become forms of loving our neighbor.

In Luke 10 we find Jesus speaking with his seventy disciples after they returned from announcing the Kingdom of God to towns across the Judean countryside, encountering all sorts of people in each of the places they went to visit. As they gathered, a lawyer stands up to test Jesus saying,

"Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?"

Jesus responds, "What is written in the Law? How does it read to you?"

The lawyer then quotes the law (Deut 6:5, Lev 19:18) which says, "You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself."

The first aspect of loving your neighbor is that it is secondary to first loving God. Loving your neighbor does take priority over loving God, rather it's a love that flows from our love for God. I cannot abandon my love of God for my love for my neighbor, otherwise my neighbor becomes an idol. This is where many progressive Christians have fallen, bending the knee to the will of their neighbors rather than to the will of God.

Second this phrase, "Love your neighbor as yourself," is not some progressive utopian statement, it's a summary of concepts seen in the Old Testament Law. All those laws that we love to quickly skim through on our Bible reading plans can be summarized in the simple statement, "Love your neighbor." This means there are boundaries, morals, and ethical principles for the relationship between me and my neighbor.

I can freely give to my neighbor in need, but it would be wrong and unneighborly of me to steal from my neighbor who has much, to give to my neighbor who has little. It would be wrong of me to murder my neighbor in the womb so my other neighbor can live without the burden of children.

There is still one more question we, like the lawyer, need to have answered, "Who is my neighbor?"

Jesus answered the lawyer in the parable of the Good Samaritan, where a Jewish man is beaten, robbed, and left for dead. A Jewish priest walks by, and later a Levite. Both of these men saw their fellow kinsman on the road and did nothing, later a man from the nearby area of Samaria, a Samaritan, sees the man and comes to his aid. He puts the broken man on his own beast, tends to his wounds with his own supplies, and pays for the man's stay at the inn on his own dime. This Samaritan in the parable is used as our example of a neighbor.

Jesus could have chosen anyone to be the neighbor, he could have used a foreigner; or a distant enemy, but instead, he chose a Samaritan. Many preachers have rightly explained that the Jews in Judea despised the Samaritans, and did whatever they could to avoid them. However, Samaria was not some foreign far-off place. Both the Jews and the Samaritans lived in the same Roman Province of Palestine.

The parable seems to indicate that our neighbors are, for the most part, those who live near us. It's the people in proximity; our family, next-door neighbors, and those we share the roads with. Now don't get me wrong, God loves the world, and Christians should too, but if you took an honest look at the views infiltrating the American church today, we are quick to love humanity in some distant place, while ignoring the neighbor in our community, dying on the side of the road. We as Christians send money and people abroad while walking on the other side of the street when confronted with needs in our neighborhood.

As G.K. Chesterton put it in his book Heretics,

"It is the whole effort of the typically modern person to escape from the street in which he lives.. He can visit Venice [or Ukraine] because to him the Venetians are only Venetians; the people in his own street are men. He can stare at the Chinese because for him the Chinese are a passive thing to be stared at; if he stares at the old lady in the next garden, she becomes active. He is forced to flee, in short, from the too stimulating society of his equals — of free men, perverse, personal, deliberately different from himself [emphasis added].

In a recent study, self-identified conservatives and liberals were asked questions about their opinions on relationships, people, moral issues, and political priorities. The results showed significant ideological differences between the two groups.

The liberal group placed a high moral priority on people & issues that were furthest from them. A real-world example would be issues like climate change, animal rights, open borders, or foreign wars. However, the results also showed that liberals had more disdain for those closest to them, especially their own family and local community.

The conservatives significantly outperformed the liberal group when the people and issues were in closer proximity to them, scoring highest when asked about their care for the family, neighbors, local community, schools, and churches.

The study concluded that liberals were more universalistic and had compassion towards humanity, while conservatives were more nationalistic with more compassion on family & neighbors.

As our society becomes more advanced and isolated, we can very quickly adopt an ideology that shuts out our real-world neighbors and picks up pet causes of humanity to put on our social media profiles. Fighting to build a tower for Babel instead of caring for the neighbor on my block.

My Christian duty as Chesterton writes, is not a duty to humanity, but rather a duty to my neighbor. Yes, there may be a war going on somewhere in the world, and a humanitarian crisis abroad, but my duty is first to my neighbor.

When we fight for humanity instead of fighting for our neighbor we end up prioritizing issues that are personal, pleasurable, or vogue. We end up going to protests for people we've never met, putting flags on our bio, or following some queer socialist trend to feel edgy. Our real neighbor is the person that we see, like the parable we are sharing the same road. My neighbor lives in my home and on my block. For me, it's my fellow Tennessean and my fellow American.

Neighbors are difficult to love because they often don't leave us alone. They talk to us when we don't want to talk, they put things in their yard that we don't like, and they might be loud, brash, dirty, or nosey. Gov. Walz might argue that being a good neighbor means we should, "Mind our own business," so the left can continue to push progressive ideals, but Christ calls us to engage in the well-being of our neighbor.

My neighbors don't mind their own business, and I must learn not to mind mine.

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REFERENCE:

1. Schreiner, B (2022). Kentucky governor vetoes proposed 15-week abortion ban. Associated Press. Retrieved from apnews.com.
2. Woke Preacher Clips [@WokePreacherTV]. (2024, August 19). Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear punctuates a DNC speech singularly focused on protecting abortion/child sacrifice [Tweet]. X. Retrieved from x.com.
3. Defiant L's [@DefiantLs]. (2024, August 25). Tim Walz: “One person’s socialism is another person’s neighborliness” [Tweet]. X. Retrieved from x.com.
4. Evangelicals for Harris [@Evangels4Harris]. (2024, August 22). Our 3rd ad, “The Fruits of the Spirit.” [Tweet]. X. Retrieved from x.com.
5. Woke Preacher Clips [@WokePreacherTV]. (2024, August 18). During the “Evangelicals For Harris" Zoom call, Bishop Claude Alexander says. [Tweet]. X. Retrieved from x.com.
6. Bashan, M. (2024). Shepherds for Sale: How Evangelical Leaders Traded the Truth for a Leftist Agenda. Broadside Books.
7. New American Standard Version. (1995). Zondervan. Luke 10.
8. Chesterton, G.K. (1905). Heretics. John Lane.
9. Waytz, A., Iyer, R., Young, L. et al. (2019). Ideological differences in the expanse of the moral circle. Nat Commun 10, 4389. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-12227-0.