Love and humanity have to be foundations of a better world, but they cannot survive with passivity. These values don’t thrive by hoping for the best or turning the other cheek when hate and oppression arise.
Love isn’t fragile. It calls for us to act. To fight for justice. To protect the vulnerable. To teach.
Tolerance is often upheld as a virtue or a moral highground, but it must come with boundaries. Community tolerance must be a social contract—a mutual agreement to respect each other’s humanity and dignity. But this social contract does not obligate us to tolerate those who weaponize hate, dehumanize others, or seek to dismantle justice and equality.
There is a line, and when it is crossed, we have a responsibility to act.
Hate and oppression are not abstract ideas. They manifest in everyday actions, in systems, and in the silence of those who allow them to spread. Fighting oppression isn’t about responding with hate—it’s about protecting what is good, fair, and just. It’s about standing alongside those who are vulnerable or those who have no voice and saying, “We will not let this stand.”
Jesus preached love as the most important of all commandments; loving God and loving our neighbors—yes, even the neighbors we don't like or who don't look and sound like us, who don't worship like us. He overturned the tables of the money changers who were taking advantage of the poor, declaring, “My house shall be called a house of prayer; but you are making it a den of robbers.” This was an act of defiance against corruption and oppression. It reminds us that love and compassion are not passive—they demand justice and the courage to confront wrongdoing.
Love and humanity can only win if we are prepared to fight oppression and hate. Compassion is not weakness; it is strength. And tolerance can only thrive when it is rooted in mutual respect, not extended to those who seek to break the social contract through harm and dehumanization.
Oppression and hate can wrap itself in many coats and it can be hard to recognize. Fighting it may mean setting aside another important cause for a while. It may be shaking up a system that has benefited you! And by shaking it up, so that the weakest and marginalized can thrive, you will most certainly face obstruction and anger from those you hold dear. Who don't understand why you're willing to rock the platform they've stood on for so long.
"Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act." - Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Be brave and courageous. Be boldly compassionate.
[Images generated by AI]
