Another parable was of Peter and Cornelius (Acts 11 vv. 1-18) this parable shows that matter who you are you can still receive the word of god. Even if you are apart of another religion, everyone has a right to receive god. Also this shows that god is not prejudice and neither is Peter, and all Christians should not be prejudice and they should treat everyone with equality and understanding. Jesus’ teachings are for everyone and not just Jews. Also in the bible passage All one in Christ (Galatians 3v.28). This parable shows the same meaning as “Peter and Cornelius” it means no matter who you are all animals and human beings are equal, we are all equal even if you are a gentile, Jew, black or white we are all in one union with Christ.
Our everyday lives are full of prejudice and discrimination, despite the many Christians in the world, prejudice and discrimination still takes place. It is an unfair act towards another person, and Christians follow Jesus’ example by not being Prejudice or Discriminated towards other people. Prejudice and Discrimination are two very different words, “prejudice” is to prejudge someone before you get to know them. Or to have an unfair opinion about a person or a group just because they are different to yourself, whereas prejudice is an unfair though about someone, discrimination is the thought of prejudice however that is put into action, or in terms or verbal or physical abuse
. A good example of this would be Hitler, he was prejudice against the jews, but he put that Prejudice thought into action and made it discriminative by killing the Jews which is wrong, it clearly states in the bible that discrimination and prejudice is wrong and it goes against all teachings of the Christian Faith. Many Christians have their own opinions on how they should react to prejudice and discrimination Violent and non-violent. There are a number of well-known Christian pacifists, such as Martin Luther King, Desmond Tutu and Trevor Huddleston. But one of the most Famous has to be Martin Luther King, he was very motivated for his cause and did many things in order to get his achievement without resorting to violence. Martin Luther King was an American Baptist Minister. In the Southern states of America in the 1950´s and 1960´s discrimination and prejudice against black people was very common indeed. Many blacks did not have the right to vote and certain public places were said to be for "whites only" Martin Luther King was a Christian who campaigned endlessly for equal treatments of blacks and whites. He taught that Christian love was the way forward. “Love,” he said, is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend. Martin Luther King supported non-violent protests and said that it was the way forward.
Martin Luther King organised many non- violent protests, some of which were bus- boycotts and sit-ins Martin Luther King organised a ‘bus boycott´, after a tired black woman refused to give up her seat to a white and ended up being arrested because this was classed as an ‘offence´. This movement became known as the Civil Rights movement and in 1960 Martin Luther King became its leader. In 1956 the government passed a law making it illegal to segregate people on buses. This is an example of King using a non-violent method to get his point across. After many years of peaceful protests Martin Luther King was awarded the Noble Peace Prize. As I said before, not all Christians respond to racism non-violently. Many people use violence.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer is an example of someone who used violent protest in an attempt to defeat Hitler’s racial policies during the Second World War. In 1933 Bonhoeffer joined the Confessing Church, which resisted the Nazi attempt to impose anti-Semitism on the church and society. Later, after the start of the War he joined the political resistance, but this led to him being arrested and imprisoned in Berlin. It was here in Flössenberg on April 9, 1945 that he was hung, in the Nazi concentration camp.
Bonhoeffer was once a pacifist, but the whole time that he was working to free the Jews he realised that non-violent protests would get him nowhere. He even joined the conspiracy to assassinate Adolf Hitler. They attempted to bomb his office on July 20, 1944, but failed. Because Bonhoeffer was once a pacifist he did not intend to use violence, but he realised that he could only fight violence with violence. He believed that ‘it is better to do evil than to be evil´.
“Prejudice and Discrimination are the greatest sins for a Christian to commit. They are totally evil”. Prejudice and Discrimination can lead to the greatest means of evil in the world, the bible teaches Christians to not be Prejudice and Discriminated towards other people as it could lead to evil things. In history prejudice thoughts have lead on to massacres of people or discrimination. These two words have brought some of the most evil people in power, with terrible consequences, one example of this could be Hitler, he caused the slaughter of millions of Jews and others whom he considered inferior human beings. He thought all Jews were unhumane and that that had made Germany loose World War 1, Hitler had a appealing personality of overpowering forcefulness. An amoral man, rootless and incapable of personal friendships, by this Christians should learn that prejudice is wrong, and that they should never resort to prejudice nor discrimination, they should learn that it can lead to many evil things.
Also another example of this could be the recent events of September 11th, Osama Bin Laden was the main culprit in this, of course he had Prejudice thoughts about America so he in his hatred of America he turned the prejudice into discrimination and crashed two planes in the twin towers of Manhattan, causing one of Americas landmarks to crash down killing thousands of people. Christians should see that prejudice is wrong and leads to suffering. However prejudice and discrimination are not the greatest sins in the world, they go on a lot in the world but some are not on such a major scale. Other evils in the world can be just as bad, examples of these are nuclear weapons and war, many people have been killed because of these, or murder, rape and starvation. In the world there is plenty of these evils but many of us do nothing to stop these, even some Christians don’t, but does that make us prejudice? Or even discriminative? Maybe all of these evils can be linked with prejudice and discrimination, as maybe if you hated someone you might kill someone, or in the example of war, you don’t like one country so you declare war. Therefore I conclude that I believe Prejudice and Discrimination are the greatest sins of all, many evil things can result in these two words, such as some of the things I mentioned above (murder, rape, war) these can be triggered by prejudice thoughts and then lead onto discrimination which is (murder, rape and war.
