Ep. 356 Andrew DeCort - Neighbor Love and the Abolition of Othering

Andrew DeCort joins me to explore what it means to love our neighbor — not as a vague ideal, but as a radical way of living that can heal our divisions and reshape our world. Drawing from his own story in Ethiopia and his new book Reviving the Golden Rule, Andrew shares how the practice of neighbor love dismantles fear, ends cycles of othering, and calls us into a deeper belonging rooted in the very heart of God. We talk about how love becomes courage in the face of violence, how Jesus’ teaching to love even our enemies abolishes exclusion, and how the Neighbor-Love Movement is helping people embody this ancient command in practical, everyday ways. This is a powerful conversation about faith, reconciliation, and what it means to live as people who see every human being as a reflection of God’s image.

Andrew DeCort founded the Institute for Faith and Flourishing and cofounded the Neighbor-Love Movement in Ethiopia, which have reached over twenty million people with the invitation to nonviolent spirituality. He holds a PhD in religious ethics from the University of Chicago and has taught ethics, public theology, peace and conflict studies, and Ethiopian studies at Wheaton College, the Ethiopian Graduate School of Theology, and the University of Bonn. He is the author of Reviving the Golden Rule, Blessed Are the Others, Flourishing on the Edge of Faith, and Bonhoeffer’s New Beginning. His words have appeared in Foreign Policy, the Los Angeles Review of Books, The Economist, Christianity Today, and numerous other platforms.

Andrew's Book:

Reviving the Golden Rule

Andrew's Recommendation:

Grief is Love

Connect with Joshua: [e-mail]

Go to www.shiftingculturepodcast.com to interact and donate. Every donation helps to produce more podcasts for you to enjoy.

Follow on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Threads, Bluesky or YouTube

Consider Giving to the podcast and to the ministry that my wife and I do around the world. Just click on the support the show link below

Contact me to advertise: [e-mail]

Support the show

Episode Transcript

Andrew DeCort (00:00):
Jesus says between the lines again and
again, that we only excludeourselves from full belonging
with God when we exclude othersfrom full belonging with God,
and that the desire of our heartis for full belonging with God,
that we have nothing to fear,that we are fully embraced by
this God who is kind andgenerous to the ungrateful and
even the wicked. You Paul,

Joshua Johnson (00:33):
hello and welcome to the shifting culture
podcast in which we haveconversations about the culture
we create and the impact we canmake. We long to see the body of
Christ look like Jesus. I'm yourhost. Joshua Johnson, in this
episode, Andrew de court invitesus back to the heart of Jesus,
to a love that refuses to drawlines, abolishes othering, and

(00:53):
welcomes every person as aneighbor. It's not sentimental
or abstract. It's a love thatconfronts violence, hierarchy
and exclusion with a courageous,embodied compassion. In this
conversation, Andrew shares hisstory of being rejected by his
own church community inEthiopia, and how that
experience and others of painand awakening led to the birth

(01:17):
of the neighbor love movement.
This global effort is builtaround a simple but radical
conviction that the command tolove your neighbor, even your
enemy, is the foundation forhealing a broken world. We talk
about how easily othering takesroot in us, the ways love
becomes an act of strengthrather than weakness, and what
it means to live a faith thatlooks like Jesus, kind,

(01:39):
generous, open to all. Andrew'svision is both ancient and
urgent, that our eyes, ears andwords can become instruments of
love in a world desperate forbelonging. So join us for a
conversation about courage,reconciliation and the practical
hope that love still has thepower to make us whole. Here is

(02:00):
my conversation with Andrew decourt, Andrew, welcome to
shifting culture. Thank you somuch for joining me.

Andrew DeCort (02:10):
Joshua, it's a pleasure to be here with you.
Thanks for your hospitality onyour show.

Joshua Johnson (02:14):
I'd love to get into this conversation, this
conversation about neighbor,love and how important that
ethic is to the world today, andothering, and how this just what
we do as humans, is we otherpeople. So how to figure that
out? You talk in your in yourbook, about your your time in

(02:35):
Ethiopia and your time today,but when you're we're really
coming alive to the concept ofothering, what was happening in
your life. Take me into thosemoments where othering really
came alive for you.

Andrew DeCort (02:49):
This is such an important topic for our time.
Joshua, we can easily think weknow what love your neighbor
means, and we can miss it'sreally profound, profound
significance for what we'regoing through right now. So when
I was really discoveringothering, I was working at a
rapidly growing Pentecostalchurch in Ethiopia and the Horn

(03:10):
of Africa. I had recentlygraduated from my master's
program at the University ofChicago, and this church had a
very messianic identity for whatwe were going to achieve in
Ethiopia. Our mission statementwas redeeming nations in
righteousness, and we believedthat by redeeming Ethiopia, we'd
redeem the continent of Africaand then the world. It was this

(03:32):
kind of rippling vision ofchange through the power of this
church. And at that time, italso happened to meet an amazing
person at a coffee shop namedLily, who's now my wife. And we
recently celebrated 18 years ofmarriage, 15 years of marriage,
18 years of relationship, andthe leadership at my church told
me eventually that I could nolonger be part of the church if

(03:55):
I was in relationship with Lily,because she was part of another
church and probably largelyidentical beliefs, you know,
gathered around the Bible,gathered around the person of
Jesus, gathered around thisinvitation to love the neighbor.
And yet, because Lily was partof another church, I couldn't be
part of my home church, becauseshe was assumed that she might

(04:15):
bring in some kind of foreignspirit that would kind of
corrupt God's favor on thisleadership team and the wider
congregation, and so I ended upbeing kicked out of this church
and started being part of acommunity across town and across
town on the other side of town,there I was having lunch one day

(04:36):
at a roadside Cafe, and a youngboy came up to the table where I
was eating with some friends andasked for help. And his name was
IO by I later found out, but wetold him, No, we weren't we
weren't gonna interrupt ourlunch and help him, sadly, and
he walked away. And when he waswalking away, this hood that he
was wearing, he was wearing ahoodie, just fell off his head,

(04:57):
and I saw that he had thishorrifying wound on. The back of
his head, Joshua. And it was oneof these. I call him Matthew 25
moment, a moment where I wasconfronted with Jesus teaching
that whatever you do to releaseof these, these people that you
see as small or insignificant,you've done that to me. And that
began me getting up from mytable and going and meeting this

(05:18):
boy, learning his name, and thenstarting a relationship with
Him, and spending many, many,many days in a local hospital
where we were trying to help himheal from this terrible wound.
So I was going through thispersonal experience of being
rejected by a church that Ithought I would serve my whole
life, and then seeing how I wasso quickly going to reject this

(05:39):
street boy who desperatelyneeded help, and then being
confronted by this word of Jesusthat this person who is so
easily seen as unrelated or lessor discardable, had this sacred,
even divine, value, and that'sexactly what I experienced in
him.

Joshua Johnson (05:54):
That's such an important story, both of those
because, number one, I mean youthinking about Lily, who's your
wife. Now that you know this isa fellow believer, another Jesus
follower, somebody that has verysimilar beliefs is is right
there and still when, whenyou're looking at Hey, us versus

(06:14):
them, it's still an otheringprocess, even when there's
somebody so similar in values towho you are. And then you know
somebody where, you know youhave Yab, who is has this wound
on the back of his head thatyou're we really always don't
see people on the margins,right? And you know, sees people

(06:37):
on the street. You see peoplethat are homeless in the United
States, or whatever it is, wereally just look away. And so
othering starts really simply,and you talk about the neighbor.
Love ethic actually starts notjust with Jesus, because Jesus
radically comes and tells us tolove our enemies and really

(06:59):
shows us the way, but itactually starts early on in the
Hebrew Bible. Where does thisneighbor love movement start?
Who is God and What's he tryingto say to us, even from the
beginning of the story,

Andrew DeCort (07:13):
the way I trace the origin of the neighbor love
movement Joshua is in Genesis,chapter one, from the very
beginning of God's originalintention for humanity. This was
a really revolutionary text thatwas put at the very beginning of
the Bible to provide a lens forhow we read everything that
comes afterwards in the rest ofthe Bible. And it was common in

(07:35):
the ancient world, or at least,not unknown, to see humans as
the image of God or asreflections of divinity, or as
these resemblances of divinedignity. But in each of those
cases, it was always a priest ora king, an elite figure, who was
seen as being the image of God.
And thus the image of Godreinforced that sense of

(07:56):
hierarchy, that there wassomeone higher than you, someone
more important than you, someonesuperior in value and authority
that you should basically submityourself to and be subject to.
And this was used as ajustification for slavery in the
ancient world, that the gods hadordained rulers and then had
ordained others to be underthem. Genesis, one comes along

(08:18):
and introduces thisrevolutionary vision, that each
and every person is made in theimage of God, that every person
has an exalted dignity thatreflects the preciousness of a
creator that speaks life andgives the gift of existence that
we are meant to share. So thiswas an incredible breakthrough.
I mean, imagine, to this day,Joshua, if I could look into

(08:41):
your face and say, I'm lookingat a glimpse of God, and so I'm
going to approach you withreverence, with curiosity, with
a sense of affection and value.
This is the invitation there andthen, when we get to Leviticus
19, a couple books later in theHebrew Scriptures, we hear for

(09:04):
the first time, love yourneighbor as yourself. And
something that I think is reallysignificant about that text is
that it's nested within Moses,larger moral teaching about how
the community should relate toto itself. So you have teachings
about fairly paying the daylaborer. This is someone whose
labor you could exploit and thendiscard. Moses says, make sure

(09:28):
that person is paid day of andtreated with respect. Moses
talks about the way that wetreat people who are so called
disabled, whether because of avisual impairment or a hearing
impairment. Again, these arepeople that you could trick or
that you could physically abuseor humiliate, and they wouldn't
be able to see you doing it orhear you doing it. Moses says,

(09:49):
pay attention to these peopleand treat them with care. On the
other side of the teaching oflove your your neighbor, later
in Leviticus 19, there's theteaching to love the foreigner.
So this is the person that youmay not recognize as being part
of your group. Maybe they don'tspeak the same language as you
or look like you. Right at thecenter of this chapter is this

(10:10):
command, do not bear a grudge orseek revenge against your
people, but love your neighboras yourself. I am the Lord. So
it seems like this neighbor lovecommand is meant, in many ways,
to summarize the ethical visionand behavior of the community
that Moses is trying to form asthe people are coming out of

(10:32):
hundreds of years of slavery inEgypt. And it revolves around
seeing the precious value of theother person of the neighbor,
whether they may be a worker orthey may be physically disabled
or they may be from anotherethnic group or nationality, the
relationship is meant to be oneof love and equality.

Joshua Johnson (10:51):
Take us into Ruth's story. So I mean, you use
the story of Ruth as goodexample of what this looks like
across ethnicity and religion,and what neighbor love looks
like. So

Andrew DeCort (11:02):
something that I wrestle with in this book Joshua
is Moses says, Love yourneighbor as yourself, but it
seems like there's stillcategories of other people who
can be disregarded or evendestroyed without any sense of
loss or regret or or a sense ofhaving broken God's law. And we

(11:26):
see that in Moses teaching, thisincludes this happens when you
get labeled as an enemy, whenyou get labeled as an enemy of
Israel, you're kind of removedfrom the moral circle or the
moral radar of who gets seen asbearing this divine significance
and being worthy of love. Andwhen Israel was journeying into

(11:46):
the land of Canaan, there wasthis ethnic group named the
Moabites, who did not welcomethem and did not treat them
well. And Moses responds inkind. He says, Never show
hospitality or welcome aMoabite, don't let them come
into your community for 10generations, which seems to be a

(12:07):
way of saying, Never, everaccept them. I know in Ethiopia,
some people can name theirancestors 10 generations back. I
most certainly can't. I don'tthink most listeners to this
conversation could name theirancestors 10 generations back.
He's saying, For as long as youcan remember, and as long as you
can look into the future, don'taccept these people. So in the

(12:30):
book of Ruth, we have a story ofNaomi, this Israelite woman
who's in a famine in the land,and she's desperate, and so she
moves to Moab looking for food.
And when she moves to this, youknow, this other land, this
pagan enemy territory, disasterstrikes her even further. Her
husband dies and her sons die.

(12:51):
And it's very likely that aHebrew reader of this text would
have said, Yeah, of course,that's what happened. You left
the promised land where God'sfavor is more uniquely present,
and you went over to thosepeople who weren't even ever
supposed to be accepted into ourcommunity, and now look, you're
losing all of your blessingsbecause you stepped outside of

(13:11):
the umbrella of God's favor.
Ruth then moves back to the landof Israel. But the trick in this
really small and powerful storyis that her Moabite, daughter in
law, Ruth, insists on comingwith her. But of course, in
doing so, Ruth is violating thislaw of Moses that a Moabite
should never, ever be acceptedinto the community and treated

(13:32):
as an equal, as a neighbor, assomeone who fully belongs. And
in this story, there's a mannamed Boaz who ends up not only
offering Ruth work and offeringher special protection and care
in the community, he asks her tobecome his wife and to become
part of His family. So what yousee here is Boaz not only defies

(13:54):
the teaching of Moses to keepMoabites out, he marries her and
becomes family with her andstarts starts a new beginning
with her and Boaz, in this bookof Ruth is described as a man of
hesed, a man of covenant love,of divine character that has
this loving kindness that isunlimited. And so the powerful

(14:18):
thing about this story, for me,Joshua, is that Boaz is both a
lawbreaker when it comes tochapter and verse, and he's the
exemplar of divine character,because he loves the other that
we've been told never acceptthem. He loves Ruth, this woman
of noble character. So this is,I think this is really, really

(14:43):
fresh, because this story is inScripture, but it's also showing
how love can transcend andexpand scripture at the same
time.

Joshua Johnson (14:54):
I mean, so if you look at scripture, if you
look in the in the OldTestament, it seems pretty clear
you have the. Ma, you have, youknow, in Deuteronomy, Love the
Lord your God with all yourheart, mind, soul and strength,
you have lived at kiss 19, loveyour neighbor as yourself. But
it seems to go go wrong. Itdoesn't seem to be like the core
ethic that they decide to liveby. If Moses is saying, hey,

(15:18):
never invite these people in.
They're your enemies, right?
We're talking about enemylanguage. What stories are these
people telling that otheringstarts to take place above and
beyond neighbor?

Andrew DeCort (15:33):
Love? Yeah, yeah.
What stories are these peopletelling that othering goes
beyond neighbor love? That'ssuch an important question. I
think there's, there's a coupledifferent stories. One is about
them, one is about us. Forexample, in the case of Moab,
there's a story told about howthose people came from dirty
ancestors, that there's somekind of original evil back in
their history. And if you goback far enough, you'll see that

(15:56):
they're, they're these kind ofcorrupted people. And we hear
this language today Joshua, thatthese people were born to be
criminals, that these peoplewere born to be murderers or
thugs. So there's something kindof fated against them because of
their ancestry. Another isbecause of more recent traumas.
So again, I mentioned that inthe case of Israel entering into

(16:19):
Canaan, they were not receivedand treated with hospitality in
the way that they expected. Andso there was a grievance, a
grudge, there was a sense ofhaving been wronged, and there
needing to be some kind ofretribution or payback. Of
course, we're very familiar withthat story too. They wronged Us.
They hurt us. Now they're goingto get hurt. But there's also

(16:40):
the story that we tell aboutourselves, and that's often the
story that we have some kind ofsuperior connection to God, and
that God has willed for us to beon another level compared to
other people. And we can seesome of this in in Deuteronomy.
I talk about this in the book.

(17:00):
And these are, these are reallycomplex texts, but for example,
towards the end of Deuteronomy,we hear the god character
through Moses saying that if youobey my law, you will be the
head and never the tail. Youwill be at the top and never at
the bottom. You will have thewealth and others will come to

(17:22):
you in a posture of service,being subservient to you. You
can tell that here. You know, ifyou're going to be close to God,
you get to be the top. You getto be the head. You're not that
dirty, nasty tail dragging atthe bottom. So that story is,
when we're close to God, we getto use people for our own
benefit, at least certaincategories of people, and we

(17:44):
don't have to feel like we'resomehow violating the image of
God in others. So these stories,I think, get circulated very
much today, whether it's there'ssomething wrong with them that
goes back to the deep past,whether there's trauma, a
conflict that has builtresentment between us, or the
story that we're telling that wehave some unique connection with

(18:04):
God that makes us closer to Godand justifies us using and
abusing other people, otherpeople, because God just made it
this way, and a lot of ways thatwould connect with something
like Christian nationalismtoday, where, for example, last
night, I was watching a videowhere the the so called
Secretary of War posted on hishis X account, a video of the

(18:27):
Lord's Prayer with Americanmissiles being launched and
exploding in so called EnemyTerritory, using the words of
Jesus to apparently provide fairprayerful sanctification of
America, American militaryaggression. There you see that
God is on our side when we'reshooting at our enemies, our

(18:50):
Jesus, original prayer is beingfulfilled. So these are, these
are powerful stories.

Joshua Johnson (18:56):
That's a really powerful story. That's it's kind
of mind blowing that that stillhappens today, and we're using
these stories to really otherothers, and we are then lifting
ourselves up so that we could beat the top and we could get all
the blessings because we'reclosest to God. It's kind of
scary that that can happen.
Jesus Himself comes in. He'scalling us an ethic of love in a

(19:20):
greater way than ever before. Hemoves into a place of even
saying, you know, love yourenemies that wasn't said before.
Jesus is the one who's like,really takes it to the extreme.
It is like love for everyone.
What Is Jesus really getting at?
What changes if we take Jesusseriously, of what this really

(19:42):
looks like and what this reallymeans,

Andrew DeCort (19:48):
this is what's at the heart of Jesus, teaching of
neighbor love. The neighbor iseveryone, and the command to
love is universalized, and sothere's no longer any other.
That you can target forindifference, for aggression,
for annihilation. We just seenthat the enemy is often the

(20:09):
label that gets put on people tobe pushed away, to be treated as
objects of hatred or to beattacked. For example, in the
Book of Leviticus Moses, has Godsay this statement, I will be an
enemy to your enemies. And hetalks about how just if a few of
us start chasing our enemies,that 1000 of them will run away

(20:32):
again. It's this idea that Godis on our side with Jesus. He
explicitly says, Love yourenemies so that you may be
children of your Father inheaven. Here, Jesus is returning
us to this vision of Genesis,one where God is the first lover
of enemies. Jesus gives one ofhis very rare definitions of God

(20:57):
in Luke chapter six, verse 35where Jesus is unpacking his
teaching of loving the enemy, hesays that God is kind to the
ungrateful and the wicked, thatGod's posture towards people
isn't predicated on theirbehavior. It's predicated on
God's character. And if God isfundamentally kindness and

(21:19):
generosity, then this is whatpours out of God, even in a
situation of conflict. So Jesusis going to the ultimate other,
the one that you feelreligiously and politically
entitled to oppose an attack.
And he says, even that one youare called to love. And you're
not just called to love that onebecause of some kind of abstract

(21:42):
moral duty, but because thislove for the other is the very
essence of God. And so whatJesus is doing here, Joshua, I
think, is something very, very Icall it revolutionary Not, not
to use that word in a kind ofcheap, you know, firework sort
of way, but, but in the sensethat Jesus is shifting our

(22:07):
paradigm and calling us into afundamental new energy for being
human. Because he's saying thereis no other that you can
exclude, disregard or attack, asif they don't matter. Every
person, including the one youlabel as another, is connected
to you and has precious value.
So I call this the abolition ofothering, if, if we get a very,

(22:31):
very powerful command to lovethe neighbor in Hebrew
scripture, but we see that thereare loop loopholes still about.
Well, if you're an enemy, youcan still be excluded or
attacked. Jesus universalizesneighbor love and abolishes
othering. And what I try tosuggest Joshua is that when

(22:52):
Jesus sends His disciples outinto all nations, notice it's
this movement outward towardsothers. Jesus says, Teach them
to obey everything that I'vecommanded you. And we know that
love of the neighbor, includingLove of the enemy, is the core
teaching of Jesus. So when Jesusis saying, go out and teach all

(23:14):
people to obey what I'vecommanded you, he's saying,
universalize this practice ofneighbor love. And so this is
what I talk about, theuniversalization of the neighbor
love movement, which is exactlywhat we see in the early Jesus
movement, where people are goingout across cultural and
political and religiousboundaries, and they're
spreading this vision that theother is a neighbor and worthy

(23:35):
of

Joshua Johnson (23:35):
love. I so wish the world would be like that,
and we can see that, I think theargument against those and
people, even that callthemselves followers of Jesus,
would argue, saying that thisreally is weakness, and the
world doesn't work this way. Andif we don't use force, where

(23:57):
everything is going to basicallygo to hell, right? It's going to
be hell on earth. So we need touse force, or we need to other
people. We need to dominate sothat love can prevail. It's a
strange like loop they do intheir head to get to domination

(24:17):
and force is neighbor. Love weakfirst of all, and why does force
or domination not bring aboutlove that we're seeking?

Andrew DeCort (24:30):
Yes, neighbor, love is not weak. Neighbor love
is courageous. Neighbor love ispowerful. Neighbor Love is the
embodiment of a more courageous,creative agency that can bring
healing between us. Othering iseasy. If you have insulted me,
it's easy for me to try toratchet that up and insult you

(24:52):
back. If you have threatened me,it's easy for me to try to
again, escalate and threatenback if you. To use physical
aggression. It comes very, veryinstinctively for the fight,
fight or flight mode to go inand I either run away from you
or I try to dominate you.
Neighbor love is calling for amore grounded agency that faces

(25:13):
conflict without mirroringconflict. It is responsive
rather than reactive. And Iwould say that rather than a
weakness, this shows incrediblecomposure, it shows incredible
awareness. It shows that ratherthan me being subject to your

(25:34):
whether it's aggressivelanguage, aggressive behavior,
aggressive policy, that I am myown agent, or my community has
its own agency and freedom toact rather than to react, to
initiate rather than to followthe script that we've been
given. So I'm a reader ofFriedrich Nietzsche, and

(25:56):
Nietzsche famously talked abouthow at the core of human life is
the will to power. And Nietzschehad a really, as you can
imagine, he didn't, he didn'tthink that neighbor love was a
good thing, or he didn't take itseriously. He said it was
exactly that. It was weakness.
It was being a doormat. It wasgetting walked over. But what I
say in response to Nietzsche isthat it's it comes very easy for

(26:18):
us to try to seek our own powerto try to maximize our interest,
to put ourselves at the centerof the universe. But when you
are exercising agency out of theawareness that the other person
also bears value, that there'salso a reflection of divinity in
them, that there may besomething to learn from them,
this requires a largerawareness. Requires a larger

(26:42):
self control. It requires anexpanded range of motion that I
think many of us call weakbecause we find it so
intimidating, we find it sochallenging, we find it so
threatening, because it doesrequire vulnerability and to
your second question, Joshua, Iwould say that, you know the

(27:03):
teaching of Jesus is, is Loveyour neighbor as yourself,
including the one that you'remost likely to view as an enemy.
And I would say I've never beenin a situation where I want to
be loved by being dominated. AndI've never been in a situation
where domination has motivatedme to become better, more

(27:27):
truthful, more generous, morecooperative. And having worked
in East Africa for many years inthe Ethiopian context, I've
never seen where Americanforeign policy of aggression,
invasion, occupation has builtrespect. Instead, it's developed

(27:48):
further resentment. I think thatthis comes common sense to all
of us, if any of us Americans,were treated the way that Israel
is currently treating Gaza, forexample, after we've invaded
Yemen or Syria, or numerousother countries across the world
not to go back to Iraq, we wouldsay that this is completely
intolerable. We would not viewthis aggression as motivating

(28:12):
towards some kind of mutualrelationship of cooperation. I
think this is, this is commonsense when we put ourselves at
the center of the story. But ifwe look at, say, Iraqis or
Afghanis or Somalis orPalestinians as our neighbors,
as people who bear equallyprecious value, it would become

(28:32):
more commonsensical for us tosay, of course, occupying,
bombing, destroying is not goingto generate the kinds of
relationships that will createmutual security, mutual
prosperity, mutual flourishing.
And more and more researchJoshua is demonstrating this,
and I talk in the book brieflyabout how there's a researcher

(28:52):
at Harvard University namedErica Chenoweth who has done a
massive study from 1900 to, Ithink, 2019 and she looks at, I
think, 627 cases, and she findsthat non violent social change
in the face of conflict is twiceas effective at bringing
sustainable change, sustainablejustice, sustainable democracy,

(29:14):
as violent methods of trying tooverthrow situations of tyranny
or conflict. So more and more wesee the empirical social
scientific research catching upwith the teachings of Jesus
around loving the enemy andpracticing non violence, that
neighbor love is not weak, butrather it lays the foundation

(29:36):
for us to have a meaningfulhuman life together, which is
exactly what Jesus said, Blessedare the peacemakers, because
they will inherit the earth. Theworld becomes a home when we
practice peace together.

Joshua Johnson (29:52):
I think another thing that people will say, you
hear it all the time, is lovethe person Hate the sin they're.
This language in the Bible,where there's calls for
righteousness, sin is nottolerated. But we're all messy.
We all have, you know, tensionswithin ourselves, and each one
of us has those things. How dowe reconcile that? What does it

(30:15):
look like where love andrighteousness, holiness, and,
you know, love of neighborcoincide.

Andrew DeCort (30:24):
I mentioned a minute ago Jesus teaching in
Luke, chapter six, Love yourenemy. Why? Because God is kind
to the ungrateful and thewicked. Immediately after that,
in the next in Jesus nextbreath, he says, Do not judge,
lest you be judged. And then hegives another teaching where he
says that if you give in thesame measure, you will be given,

(30:49):
and there will be a good measurerunning, running over that will
be poured into your lap. It'sthis image of fullness, of
abundance of surplus. Firstjudgment. In this context, it's
clear Jesus is talking aboutothering. If you think that you
have some kind of moralsuperiority to someone else,

(31:09):
you're not operating out of anawareness of your own fragility,
your own capacity to commitmistakes, your fallibility,
errors of judgment, of behavior.
Jesus is saying, if you'remaking any kind of moral
judgment out of a position ofmoral superiority, and assuming
we're the good ones who are whoare closer to God, that's a

(31:30):
mistake. On the flip side, hesays that when we are exercising
moral generosity to pour outforgiveness and grace towards
others, we are opening ourselvesto receive the same abundant
measure from God. And so I wouldI would say, Joshua, yeah, of
course, there's a crucial rolefor confronting injustice. If

(31:53):
we're lying to one another, wewon't be able to trust one
another. We need to be able toseek the truth together. If we
are exploiting one another andtreating one another cheaply, of
course, we're going to feeldevalued and dehumanized, and
resentment is going to buildbetween us, and we're going to
have escalating conflict. Weneed to be able to treat one

(32:16):
another with respect, and sothose those injustices and
dehumanizations need to be namedand called out. But they do not
get named and called out from aposture of moral superiority, as
if I'm the good one, and if youcould just be like me, then we
would be better. But rather, itgets called out from the posture
of this is the community thatwe're seeking, in which all are

(32:38):
equally valued, in which we areall equally accountable, and so
it's not come over to our sideand become like us, because
you're less, you're unrelated,you're dirty, you're defective,
you're a monster. It's togetherwe seek the common good of all
in this posture of both humilitytowards ourselves and generosity

(33:01):
in the face of human failing. SoI think that this is crucial,
because the desire for justicecan so easily become the basis
of reinscribing othering. We arethe good guys. We have. You
know, today we call itcivilization. We could call it
Christianity. We could call itthe West, this assumption that

(33:25):
somehow this world that we'vebuilt up in large part through
practices of colonization,enslavement, the exploitation of
the human person, that somehowwe have a moral superiority, and
so calling for justice isconstantly a self affirmation
that we are right and that Godis on our side. Jesus is so

(33:45):
perceptive into this psychologyof self elevation. He says, if
that's if that's the energy outof which you think that you are
protecting justice, then you'vejust fallen into the trap of
othering again. And watch out,because with the measure you
judge, you will be judged. Andthis is, this is I call this in
the book of Joshua, the paradoxof neighbor love that Jesus,

(34:10):
Jesus says between the linesagain and again, that we only
exclude ourselves from fullbelonging with God when we
exclude others from fullbelonging with God, and that the
desire of our heart is for fullbelonging with God, that we have
nothing to fear, that we arefully embraced by this God who
is kind and generous to theungrateful and even the wicked.

Joshua Johnson (34:32):
I mean, we are the beloved children of God,
and, you know, as we are thebeloved, so are other people. Is
that we walk in that way, itcould really make the world a
better place. You write aboutspecific examples of everyday
people like doing this in reallife, and I think it's part of

(34:54):
neighbor love that's reallydifficult. Is as we were just
talking, I. About about justiceand trust and and with other
people. When that is notreciprocated, it's really hard
to love. Give me an example ofsomebody that actually did that.
What was the effect? Whatdifference did it make? We need

(35:15):
to

Andrew DeCort (35:16):
constantly be re embedding neighbor love into our
embodied lives and practice, andif it's not, if it's not
practical and lived, then again,we're just playing a mind game
where we're probably elevatingourselves over someone else, and
assuming that we are, that weare superior. One of the

(35:40):
examples that I write about inmy book is Martin Luther King,
Jr, Chapter Chapter Six of thebook looks at what I call modern
exemplars of neighbor love.
These are not people who areperfect and without mistake, but
these are people who give usshining examples of what the
practice of neighbor love lookslike in situations of extreme
othering and injustice, and manypeople may not be aware of the

(36:06):
depth of Martin Luther King Jr'sfaith. He was a Christian
minister. He had a PhD intheology. And the civil rights
movement, in many ways, was aneighbor love movement. What
Martin Luther King Jr insistedagain and again is that we will
not respond to the othering ofAmerican society, which is
through the lens of race, thecolor of skin in the same kind

(36:29):
by seeking control or by seekingdomination or by seeking to
separate or eliminate anyone.
Instead, we will seek to reformour society by insisting again
and again on the precious valueof every human being in the
society, regardless of the colorof their skin, regardless of how
much money they have or theirpolitical convictions. And what

(36:52):
we saw through Martin LutherKing, Jr, refusing to mirror the
exclusion, the devaluation, thehatred in his society is that he
contributed towards massive,massive transfer transformations
in humans in American society,like the passing of the Civil
Rights Act, desegregation acrossthe board in the United States,

(37:15):
and the ongoing journey thatwe're part of, of a society in
which Every human person isvalued equally. Of course, this
project is profoundlyincomplete, and we're continuing
that struggle today. We see it.
We see it rising and spikingagain today. But I think Martin
Luther King, Jr is aparticularly powerful example of
the practical implications ofneighbor love, because he didn't

(37:38):
start a movement to try to, forexample, elevate oppressed
African American people overwhite Americans. His energy
wasn't born out of resentment,but implicitly mirroring back
the very thing that he sought tooppose. Instead, there was
genuine creativity andtransformation in his movement

(37:58):
that was grounded in the dignityof all people. It was grounded
in non violent struggle. Soinstead of again, using
subjugation and weapons to tryto bring change, it was through
dialog. It was throughrelationship. It was through non
coercive means, and that wascreating the possibility for
what king called the belovedcommunity in which people don't

(38:19):
feel like winners and losers butequally responsible participants
in the society. And I just triedto imagine Joshua, what if
Martin Luther King, Jr wasn'toperating with an ethic of
neighbor love, and he didn't seewhite people, for example, as
neighbors, people who areequally precious and connected
to him. Imagine the ways that hecould have used his gifts for

(38:42):
speaking and organizing andacting to sow an even deeper
resentment and conflict in oursociety that could have gone in
very, very different directions.
So I see King as a very powerfulexample in our society that we
need still today, because we'reseeing this rhetoric of those

(39:04):
people, the enemy, the monster,those who must be eliminated in
order for our society to besafe, for it to be prosperous,
for it to be blessed by God.
Martin Luther King, Jr standsout as an exemplar that says
that that road doesn't take usto where we go, you know. And
towards the end of his life, hebecame increasingly clear that
we either choose non violence orwe choose non existence, because

(39:27):
if we choose the path ofviolence, we will end up
eliminating each other. And whatI just like to highlight again
is that King said non violenceor non existence, not because he
was a liberal, not because hehad against some kind of
abstract morality, but hebelieved that anyone that we
seek to create to commitviolence against is our neighbor

(39:50):
and bears the precious image ofGod. And so we are. We are
degrading God if we act inviolence against any. Human
life. So again, the neighborlove ethic was the breath, it
was the bone, it was the energyof the civil rights movement and
Martin Luther King Jr, and ofcourse, the countless, countless

(40:11):
people who made that movementpossible.

Joshua Johnson (40:15):
You're not just actually thinking about this,
studying it and talking aboutit, you're actually trying to
live it on the ground inEthiopia as well as you're
trying to implement thisneighbor love movement in
practical ways of what it lookslike to see this move across
Ethiopia. So just tell me aboutthat movement. Why are you

(40:38):
setting that up in Ethiopia? Andwhat are some of these practices
that you're you're utilizing tohelp this neighbor love movement
spread?

Andrew DeCort (40:47):
So in 2018 Joshua, there were events
happening in Ethiopia that wereindicating that conflict was
really getting ready toescalate. There were public
executions, some really justhorrific deaths like we've we're
seeing some of that in oursociety now, and displacements

(41:07):
of people and an increasingdiscourse of the other as an
enemy, as a cancer, as a hyena,as a kind of dangerous wild
Animal. This was often a longreligious, ethnic and political
lines, and so we were seeinghardenings of identity towards
others that were creatingreally, really heartbreaking

(41:30):
violence. And my wife, Lily andI and our partner, takalane nega
said we really think thatothering is at the heart of
what's unfolding in Ethiopia.
Yeah, it's complex. There arehistorical grievances, there's
poverty, there's conversationsaround, how is the map drawn?
What is the nature of thepolitical structure of society?
But at the heart of the violencethat we're seeing is this

(41:52):
willingness to view other peopleas unrelated or less than
ourselves. And so we wanted to,we wanted to start a movement
that would mainstream in ancientin Ethiopian society, the vision
of the other as a neighbor, thatwhoever you see, whoever you
interact with, they are yourneighbor, and they bear precious

(42:12):
value in the eyes of God. Andregardless of whether you follow
Christianity, whether you followIslam or another faith or no
faith, this is our shared moralvision that can unite us in a
society of the common good. Andso we started traveling the
country, speaking atuniversities, speaking at
libraries, speaking at businessincubators, meeting with

(42:36):
religious leaders politicians toask people to sign a covenant
that says, Just today, Icovenant to love my neighbor as
myself, every woman, man andchild, is my neighbor across
every boundary and identity.
That's the crucial part I chooseto see and treat my neighbor
with value, compassion andpractical respect. Today I say

(42:57):
yes, I'm an ambassador ofneighbor love. So we asked folks
to make a personal commitment tolive a covenantal life oriented
around this love of the other asa neighbor, and then we unpack
that covenant in seven practicesrooted in the body. And I really
love the practicality of thisJoshua, because you don't need a

(43:18):
special amount of money or aspecial technology or some kind
of outsized influence topractice neighbor love. It's in
our body. So it starts withseeing the other person as my
neighbor. And that's that'sjust, again, very blunt and
practical. When I look at you,I'm seeing someone who is
connected to you, even if I'mjust meeting you for the first

(43:39):
time, even if I have reason tobe suspicious of you, or even if
there's a history there wherethere's a deep resentment, I
choose to see you as someone whois bearing precious value,
rather than to look away fromyou or to label you as something
less than a precious neighbor.
With my ears, I choose to listento you with patience in seeking

(44:00):
understanding. This could betruly a revolutionary practice,
if we would all devote ourselvesto say, I want to listen to you
and understand what you'resaying even in the midst of
disagreement, rather than just,you know, turning you off and
assuming that I already knowanother is the mouth commit to
speaking to the other withrespect and truthfulness, even

(44:23):
in the midst of disagreement.
And this has to do with removingany kind of insulting or
dehumanizing language from ourvocabulary, so that even when we
get heated or when our emotionsare escalated, we refuse to
start moving into the languagethat says, But you are labeling

(44:46):
you, insulting you, degradingyou. So there's seven of these
practices that are rooted in thebody, but they start with how we
see other people, how we listenwith other people, and how we
speak with other people. And.
And the invitation for the lastseveral years in Ethiopia has
been for young people to reclaimthe heart of their faith found

(45:06):
in loving their neighbor asthemselves, and to embody this
with their own flesh in theirrelationships with other people
in community. And this, this hasbeen extremely challenging
Joshua, because Ethiopia haspassed through a devastating
civil war from 2020 to 2022conflict remains very
unpredictable and intense inEthiopia. And the thing is, when

(45:31):
your community organizes itselfaround naming another group of
people as the enemy, you easilybecome a person in between. If
you are committed to lovingothers as your neighbors, your
own group may not recognize youas being part of them because
you're wanting to make peacewith the enemy and see their

(45:54):
dignity and seek non violentsolutions to the conflict, the
people on the other side of theconflict may not recognize you
as one of them because theystill may label you as part of
their enemy group, and so youincreasingly become a kind of
third space, maybe homeless,wilderness dwelling person, and
we've learned through theprocess of Ethiopia, Civil War,

(46:16):
just How threatening andchallenging it can be to invite
people to make love of theneighbor, the very core of their
identity and faith and practice,because a lot of people will not
understand it. And I think thesame is true here in the US
today, that when we break out ofour tribal notions of identity
and belonging, that a lot ofpeople may be very confused and

(46:39):
feel like, Oh, you've become atraitor to us. You're not a
truly, you don't truly belongwith us because you're not
aligned against anyone. But areseeking to see others as
precious in value, regardless ofwho

Joshua Johnson (46:53):
they are. So speak to America right now, if
we're we're looking at a placeof greater polarization, greater
identity, hardening aspects ofour lives, seeing people as the
other and seeing people asenemy, and we have escalating
violence. Yeah, in our country,speak to speak to the Americans.

(47:15):
What do we need? How can westart this movement in America,
what can we do so that neighborlove can actually help our
situation?

Andrew DeCort (47:27):
Yes, again, I really see Jesus as as such a
genius of neighbor love and thekind of epicenter of this
movement that has spread acrossthe earth across the last 2000
years, and in Jesus time, Jewishrelationships with Samaritans
was one of the most inflamed,deeply resentful relationships

(47:52):
of othering. Samaritans were tobe avoided. They were to be cast
out. They were to be spokenabout with degradation. And what
we see is that Jesus went toSamaria. He actively traveled
inside of that dirty land, thatenemy territory. Jesus built
relationships with Samaritans.
He touched Samaritans. Jesustold arguably his most famous

(48:16):
story about a Samaritan. Butrather than talking about how
the Samaritan was a thug or wasa heretic, Jesus described the
Samaritan as the embodiment ofdivine love that opens heaven
this very shocking story, and Iwould say that in America today,
we need to follow the example ofJesus and build relationships

(48:39):
with the people that are seen asthe as the most hateable others
in my Christian community, thatmight be trans people, that
might be Muslim people, thatmight be Palestinian people. And
what I want to do is I want tobuild relationships where I am
listening actively, where I'mcoming in with a curious mind

(49:02):
and seeking to understand howhas othering limited my
understanding of who you are andwhat your story is and what your
experience is like. Will youteach me and help me enlarge my
love? So I think Americans todayneed to build active
relationships with the peoplethat they believe are the enemy.

(49:23):
And of course, that's going tobe complex, that's going to be
messy, but when we do that, Ifind that so many of my
assumptions about who thosepeople are, they get, they just,
they get blown away, becausethere's a depth in many cases,
there's a beauty, there's agoodness that I wasn't expecting

(49:44):
to encounter that becomes veryhealing to my humanity, I feel
changed and enriched. So whatwould happen today if Americans
made a list of. Okay, who arethe the three groups of people
that I'm most tempted to see astotally wrong, as hopeless and

(50:05):
part of the downfall of mysociety, and what if I would
actively seek to build arelationship with at least one
member of that group and say,Would you tell me your story?
Would you tell me about yourlife? Can we begin walking
together? Ooh, that wouldrequire a lot of patience, but I
think it would be transformativefor all of us. And instead of

(50:28):
relating to one another as thesetwo dimensional caricatures of
one another, we would relate toone another as neighbors, as
these full bodied complex,deeply precious people with whom
we share life.

Joshua Johnson (50:45):
Andrew, this has been rich and wonderful and good
and something that wedesperately need. I have a
couple of quick questions as weend here. One, if you go back to
your 21 year old self, whatadvice would you give?

Andrew DeCort (50:59):
I would say to my 21 year old self, it's gonna
hurt really bad. Learn how togrieve deeply, value friendship
and always keep love at thecenter of who you are. God will
sustain

Joshua Johnson (51:12):
you. Sounds good. Anything you've been
reading or watching lately, youcould recommend.

Andrew DeCort (51:17):
I've been reading some old stuff and I've been
reading some new stuff. Well,I've spoken that the theme of
grief. I've been reading a bookcalled grief is love. My dad
passed away a little over a yearago, and I've been going through
the grieving process of reallymissing him and how grief comes
unexpectedly and washes over us.
Grief is love has been quite apowerful book about how do we

(51:38):
work through our grief andrecognize that our grief is, in
fact, love. The reason why wefeel grief in the face of loss
or in the face of injustice orsuffering is because we were
created to love and to betogether, and so when that's
broken, the grief that rises upin us is an indication that love
is actually present, and I'vebeen working on allowing who

(52:02):
those complex emotions to livetogether. Joshua, grief and
love, longing and missing, deepadmiration and the deep ache and
emptiness that comes fromabsence. So that's that's one
book that I've been reading andreally appreciating.

Joshua Johnson (52:23):
Wow, that's beautiful. I mean, that's a
that's a deep one, right there.
Yeah, Andrew, your book,reviving the golden rule, I
think is really important fortoday, in our day and age. It's
probably, it's important for allof humanity from the beginning
all the way until theconsummation like this is that
this is a huge thing, that, youknow, it's the core of who Jesus

(52:46):
is. It's the core of what he hasbrought. And, you know, it's the
core of God as somebody wants tobe love, give love to all people
and receive love. And so thisis, this is huge. This is key. I
love this book, so I want peopleto go out and get it, and you
can go get that. Anywhere booksare sold. Is there anywhere

(53:09):
you'd like to point peoplespecifically to get the book? Or
how could they join the neighborlove movement? What does that
look like to connect with you?

Andrew DeCort (53:19):
Yeah, you can get the book at bookshop, at Amazon,
at IVP. You can buy the bookwherever, wherever you buy
books, it's going to beavailable paperback, ebook and
audiobook on October 2. So it'sshould be out really, really
soon. If people want to sign theneighbor love covenant, covenant

(53:40):
and download our sevenpractices. Go to NLM global.org,
I encourage people to print outthe covenant, put it in a place
where you can see it, and everyday, renew your commitment to
being someone who is expandingthis ancient movement of love
across barriers of enmity,suspicion, grievance, and let

(54:02):
your body become the first placewhere you are practicing love
with your eyes, with Your ears,with your hands, with your feet
and who you're walking with. Sobooks available anywhere you buy
books, please visit NLMglobal.org and check out signing
the covenant and becoming apractitioner in your community?

Joshua Johnson (54:21):
Yes, wonderful.
So well, yeah, we'll link tothat in the show notes. So go to
the show notes, just click thelink. You'll go straight to
download the covenant neighborlove covenant, sign that and
actually live it. And if we dothat, if there's enough of us
that could actually live thiscovenant of neighbor love and
actually practice it and do it,our world would look more like

(54:42):
Jesus, and that's what I want tosee happen. It would just be in
an incredible place. So Andrew,thank you for this conversation.
Thank you for diving deep inwhat does it look like to
actually love our neighbor, loveour enemies? Practically. What
does it look like? Practically?
What. Does it look like toactually see people listen well,

(55:03):
speak respectfully to others,and how othering has actually
really hurt and hindered thislove all over the world for a
long time, and so I just praythat we can live this out. It is
fantastic conversation, andreally enjoyed it. So thank you,
Andrew,

Andrew DeCort (55:19):
thank you so much. Joshua, it's been a joy to
be with you. Jesus said, Do thisand you will flourish, and
that's my hope. You.