Thinking And Acting Outside The Box

Don’t we love to think of ourselves as unique, free thinking individuals who make our own decisions?

Bill Bishop, not the fighter pilot one, wrote The Big Sort, a book on how we pick our neighbourhoods. Bishop says that we have a tendency to choose to live among those who are politically ‘like us.’ By choosing politically like-minded parts of the country or city, we become a little less likely to encounter other points of view.

Knowing how power works, it should be no surprise to us that the political machinery is well aware of their constituencies and who is living in their neighburhoods. Not only do they know where we live, they know how to design their message to appeal to our self-interest.

Here again, Christians and all those who care for their neighbours, need to be ‘as wise as serpents and a harmless as doves.” Those who do think of the needs of those who are different from us, have a greater responsibility to speak and act for the common good.


Peter