I’m a Genesis 1:27 Christian

Genesis 1:27 says, “So God created humankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them, male and female he created them.” To me, this means that every single human being, on this Earth, male and female, was created by God and is loved by God. So that we are also to honor every human being in our neighborhood, our country, and in this world. Interestingly, science backs up this Biblical declaration: there is less than 1% difference in the DNA of all human beings. Regardless of intelligence, skin color, race, education, job positions or anything else we humans are much more alike each other than different from each other.

How did I come to this understanding? I am a white woman, born in 1941, who grew up in this culture that echoes the 17th and 18th century Enlightenment era’s love of the mind as opposed to every other feature of human beings like the heart and soul and body. The Enlightenment era also promoted white peoples above every other race on the planet and was a firm supporter of the patriarchy’s view that men were superior in every way to women. I absorbed all this emphasis on men and the mind as I grew up in this culture without even knowing it.

I gave my life to Christ in my early 40’s. The very first thing that changed in me was the question I always asked myself: “What should I be doing?” or “What do I have to do?” became “What do I really want to do?” That was the first time I really looked at myself as someone who no longer had to just follow the culture, but actually had her own path to walk. Later, after my husband of 27 years died in 2001, I was led on a twenty-year journey to get to know African Americans, Latinos, Asians and Native Americans. I made two trips to Haiti in 2002 and 2003—5 weeks in all. I started studying Spanish with a tutor and later spent a month in Oaxaca, Mexico, where I experienced a culture that charged nothing for three outdoor band concerts each weekend or for carnivals celebrating our Lady of Guadalupe.

The year after he died I finished my training as a spiritual director, worked with people who needed help in their spiritual lives. As I moved to Charlotte NC in 2008, I started my bilingual blog, By the Waters, on Facebook, but had to drop the Spanish version nine months later as my tutor could no longer edit it. In Charlotte, I interviewed low-income people at Crisis Assistance Ministry, where I learned a lot about how they lived. I took a “Whiteness” course. And I’ve read a number of books by African-American, Latino, Asian, and Native Americans authors. All of these experiences have changed how I now think about the wonderful mixture of races and ethnicity in our country. And all this led me to the definition that came to me in January of this year that I am a Genesis 1:27 Christian.

As I’ve faced up to my own sin over the years and to all I have done in my life, my resistance to other people(s) has to a large extent has been greatly reduced. God has healed so much of what has happened to me in my lifetime. I no longer project my “stuff” onto others and I am able to be comfortable in the company of all different sorts of people. The Lord has healed so much in me that I was unable to deal with.

I look to Jesus’s two great commandments for the source of how I now look at all the races: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22:37-39).’ My neighbor is now every person on this planet. And in the age of Covid and now Global Warming, both of which are affecting every single person here on Earth, my neighbors are across the whole world! How well we nations did in developing the Covid vaccines, cooperating across the world in an amazing fashion, so that we could really minimize Covid’s affect on the world populations as soon as possible.

We’re not doing so well with Global Warming, because of the hold that the oil and gas industries have on the world governments. And the U. S. government under Trump has undone a lot of the laws this year that were designed to help reduce global warming by the early 2030’s. President Trump has almost no feeling for how the floods and fires and hurricanes are affecting the citizenry here, much less across the world. Our task now is to develop the tools and the knowledge needed to fight the rising heat across the world in cooperation with every other country.

I know this sounds impossible—loving, caring for all citizens of this world. The Lord will call you to your own purpose, whatever He will reveal to you that fulfills you and brings you joy. It may take some time for God to reveal what it is what you need to do to fulfill the purpose He implanted in you at your creation. He will show you what you are to do, and when and how you are to do it. You can count on that, if you are listening to His “still, small voice” (Psalm 46:10) within you.

The image of God that we were made in is one of caring and love, compassion and mercy, and even justice. Our job is to face ourselves and all that we have done, to give up all the judgment and hatred and projection onto others, so that we can forgive ourselves for our sins and embrace others in spite of their sin—of course, with God’s help, for we cannot do this on our own. We are made in God’s image, and God is love! So our true vocation/purpose on earth is to love everyone we meet and to affirm them as children of God, all of whom were made in His image. Amen.