Caress, Don't Scratch

It's 2016, and the most polarizing presidential election in recent history has been on the horizon in the United States. Acts of terror seem ever more prevalent around the globe. Illness, drought, and famine plague much of the world.

In Caress, Don't Scratch, Bishop Ike Eweama points to a major problem that parallels these global ills: a willful ignorance of our obligation as believers to love others-unconditionally.

Conservative Christians often shun social justice out of a groundless fear of trespassing upon biblical truth or ceding liberties in service to the collective. However, in the same vein as Martin Luther King Jr.'s cry for love and racial harmony in his iconic "I Have a Dream" speech, Bishop Eweama calls on humanity to step up as a group. He urges us-as individuals and as a society-to sow seeds of peace, not staunchly autonomous libertarianism.

We don't have the luxury of choosing how or whom-or even whether-to love. It's the manner in which we make good on the debt we owe to one another, to our communities, to God, and to ourselves. Bishop Eweama urges that change starts within, and unconditional love begins with a caress, not a scratch.