By Sister Deborah M. Cerullo, SSND
Dan White Jr.’s book, Love Over Fear: Facing Monsters, Befriending Enemies and Healing Our Polarized World, focuses on fear and polarization from a Christian perspective. It is filled with fresh insights from well-known scripture passages as they apply both to our times and to Jesus' times.
In White’s search for solutions to polarization, he says Jesus faced the same emotional and spiritual gridlock we are facing today. Underneath polarization, according to White, is fear, which needs to be excavated to make room for the growth of love, the unsurpassable love of God.
There is no comparison to the love displayed in the life of Jesus. “This love is most glorious, most brilliant, most scandalous when it is poured out on those we are most frightened of.”
And so, White says, his book is a journey of casting off fear to find the way of love.
One of the most startling chapters for me is Love Holds the Space. White states that in selecting his disciples, Jesus gathered three Zealots who were militant nationalists, a tax collector who favored the Sadducee party, six fishermen who lived hand to mouth and were exploited by Roman taxation, one member of the Sicarii party (a radical Jewish group, some of whom were terrorists), and a wealthy nobleman who was linked to the Pharisees. This was scandalous!
White likens it to organizing a home church with a few Black Lives Matter protesters, some blue-collar workers who believe Donald Trump will fix the country, a couple on public assistance while working for minimum wage at McDonald's, a wealthy Republican who owns an oil refinery down South, and a member of Antifa.
It's an understatement to say these men would have loathed being in the same room with each other. If it were not for Jesus holding the space they'd all naturally slide into the cultural ditch of hatred for one another. … Jesus traveled with them in close quarters, ate with them, interrupted debates between them and modeled a love that defied political debates. With deep affection he calls them friends (John 15:15).
White's chapter on love of enemies, Affection for Monsters, promotes the notion that Jesus asks us to move with affection toward those we abhor, rather than the standard response of either avoidance or attack, even verbally.
He devotes the entire chapter to all the ways we still create “monsters” out of others when Jesus asks us to call them friends.
At the end of every chapter, White provides reflection questions for the reader’s consideration. Each question is a thoughtful and insightful query into what is contained in the chapter, and provides the reader with the opportunity to digest the material at a deeper level.
I highly recommend this book for all those interested in dismantling the hostility we feel toward others, which White says may be the most pressing issue of our time. Whether we agree with that or not, it is an excellent resource for following Jesus’ command to love our enemies.
