Xenophobia
1 : fear and hatred of strangers or foreigners or of anything that is strange or foreign
2 : fear or wariness of people with whom a person is not familiar
Paranoia
1 : fear (and expectation) of attack and betrayal, resulting in avoidance of tenderness and intimacy
2 : a tendency on the part of an individual or group toward excessive or irrational suspiciousness and distrustfulness of others
3 : an unfounded or exaggerated distrust of others, sometimes reaching delusional proportions, and resulting in constant suspicions of the motives of those around them and belief that certain individuals, or people in general, are "out to get them"
4 : a way to uphold the narcissist's grandiosity, to prove how important and feared he is
5 : a way to fend off intimacy that exposes his weaknesses, shortcomings, and deep buried emotions - hurt, envy, anger, aggression
Narcissism
1 : egoism, egocentrism
2 : love of or sexual desire for one's own body
3 : excessive preoccupation with self and lack of empathy for others
4 : feelings of shame or humiliation, depression, and mania
5 : dependence upon external stimuli - adoration, adulation, affirmation, applause, notoriety, fame, infamy, and, in general, attention of any kind
Psychologists suspect that the cause of narcissism is severe mental or physical pain in childhood at the hands of a powerful, idealized mother-father figure.
"Freud used the phrase “the narcissism of small differences” to describe the work of British anthropologist Ernest Crawley. Crawley discovered that groups with greater degrees of similarity would often treat each other with greater degrees of enmity and aggression than strangers. Indeed, the people most similar to us upset us the most, because we expect them to be exactly like us, and are disappointed when they aren’t. (Which is why it shouldn’t be a surprise that in the Book of Genesis, sibling conflict is the virulent and frequent. Siblings are the ones most like ourselves, and therefore the people most capable of inspiring the narcissism of small differences)."
http://chaimsteinmetz.blogspot.com/2009/08/why-jews-fight-why-your-kindly-uncle-is.html
Coping Mechanisms
* splitting (seeing things as black-white, good-bad, weak-strong)
* projection (accusing others of having the disowned aspects of your self)
* ignoring the future consequences of their actions
* ritualized behavior
All sin comes from the failure to love.
Jesus Christ:
Matthew 5, the Sermon on the Mount NRSV
43 "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' 44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.
46 For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others?
Do not even the Gentiles do the same?
48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Luke 17:1-6 NRSV "You Must Forgive"
1 Jesus said to his disciples, "Occasions for stumbling are bound to come, but woe to anyone by whom they come! 2 It would be better for you if a millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea than for you to cause one of these little ones to stumble.
3 Be on your guard! If another disciple sins, you must rebuke the offender, and if there is repentance, you must forgive. 4 And if the same person sins against you seven times a day, and turns back to you seven times and says, 'I repent,' you must forgive."
5The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith!" 6The Lord replied, "If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, 'Be uprooted and planted in the sea,' and it would obey you.
Exodus 22 NRSV
21 You shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.
Exodus 23 NRSV
12 Six days you shall do your work, but on the seventh day you shall rest, so that your ox and your donkey may have relief, and your homeborn slave and the resident alien may be refreshed.
Leviticus 19 NRSV
10 You shall not strip your vineyard bare, or gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the alien: I am the LORD your God.
Leviticus 19 NRSV
33 When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien.
34 The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.
Numbers 15 NRSV
14 An alien who lives with you, or who takes up permanent residence among you, and wishes to offer an offering by fire, a pleasing odor to the LORD, shall do as you do.
15 As for the assembly, there shall be for both you and the resident alien a single statute, a perpetual statute throughout your generations; you and the alien shall be alike before the LORD.
16 You and the alien who resides with you shall have the same law and the same ordinance.
Deuteronomy 1 NRSV
16 I charged your judges at that time: "Give the members of your community a fair hearing, and judge rightly between one person and another, whether citizen or resident alien."
Deuteronomy 10 NRSV
19 You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.
Deuteronomy 23 NRSV
7 You shall not abhor any of the Edomites, for they are your kin. You shall not abhor any of the Egyptians, because you were an alien residing in their land.
Deuteronomy 24 NRSV
17 You shall not deprive a resident alien or an orphan of justice; you shall not take a widow's garment in pledge.
Deuteronomy 27 NRSV
19 "Cursed be anyone who deprives the alien, the orphan, and the widow of justice." All the people shall say, "Amen!"
Jeremiah 7 NRSV
5 For if you truly amend your ways and your doings, if you truly act justly one with another, 6 if you do not oppress the alien, the orphan, and the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own hurt, 7 then I will dwell with you in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your ancestors forever and ever.
Jeremiah 22 NRSV
3 Thus says the LORD: Act with justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor anyone who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the alien, the orphan, and the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place.
Zechariah 7 NRSV
9 Thus says the LORD of hosts: Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another; 10 do not oppress the widow, the orphan, the alien, or the poor; and do not devise evil in your hearts against one another.
Matthew 25 NRSV
31 "When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, 33 and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left.
34 Then the king will say to those at his right hand, 'Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; 35 for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.'
37 Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? 38 And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? 39 And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?' 40 And the king will answer them, 'Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.'
41 Then he will say to those at his left hand, 'You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; 42 for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.'
44 Then they also will answer, 'Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?' 45 Then he will answer them, 'Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.' 46 And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."
God's Everlasting Covenant with David
2 Samuel 7:1-17 NRSV
8 Now therefore thus you shall say to my servant David: Thus says the LORD of hosts: I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep to be prince over my people Israel; 9 and I have been with you wherever you went, and have cut off all your enemies from before you; and I will make for you a great name, like the name of the great ones of the earth.
10 And I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them, so that they may live in their own place, and be disturbed no more; and evildoers shall afflict them no more, as formerly, 11 from the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel; and I will give you rest from all your enemies. Moreover the LORD declares to you that the LORD will make you a house. 12 When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come forth from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. 13 He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. 14 I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me. When he commits iniquity, I will punish him with a rod such as mortals use, with blows inflicted by human beings. 15 But I will not take my steadfast love from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you. 16 Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me; your throne shall be established forever.
17 In accordance with all these words and with all this vision, Nathan spoke to David.
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