Go Deeper

Moses launched NLM with his command, “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18). He included the most vulnerable people in his vision of neighbor-love – the poor, the deaf, the blind, and the foreigner. Moses rejected violent myths justifying slavery and taught that each person is created in God’s precious image (Genesis 1:26).

Jesus radicalized NLM with his command, “Love your enemies and do good to those who hate you” (Luke 6:27). Jesus defined “the neighbor” as the most hated person in his society – an ethnic, religious, and political enemy who loved across boundaries (Luke 10:25-37). Jesus promised, “Do this and you will live.” He claimed that we meet God in “the least of these” (Matthew 25:31-46).

Mohammad continued NLM with his command, “Be good to your neighbors near and far” (Quran 4:36). He declared, “The most virtuous behavior is to engage those who break relations, to give to those who withhold from you, and to forgive those who wrong you” (Hadith At-Tabarani, no. 282). He invited humanity to recognize our diversity as God’s gift (Quran 49:13).

Democracy institutionalizes NLM: each life and every voice matters equally under the law. In his Civil Rights Movement, Martin Luther King Jr. taught that people of all colors, creeds, and classes are neighbors and called for “a worldwide good-neighbor policy” (Strength to Love). Neighbor-love energizes a democratic society of dialogue, trust, cooperation, innovation, and flourishing.