Demonizing People

Google defines to “demonize” as “to portray or misrepresent someone, a group, or an idea as wicked, dangerous, or entirely evil.” For example, some people demonize immigrants, talking as if all immigrants are wicked, violent criminals. (They aren’t. They actually commit crimes at lower rates than American citizens.) Some people demonize members of the LGBTQ community, as if being LGBTQ were some type of terrible character defect. (In most cases, it’s not even a choice, as I have discussed before.) Some people demonize Muslims. Or people of other races. Or people who have different political views.

The people of Jesus’s day were no different. Most Jews and Samaritans would not even associate with each other. When Jesus tried to get food and lodging in a Samaritan village on his way to Jerusalem, the Samaritans turned him away because he was a Jew.[1] 

Tax collectors were similarly off limits for good Jews in Jesus’s day. They had a reputation for being dishonest and corrupt because they got to keep whatever tax money they collected in excess of what Rome required, which incentivized them to collect as much as possible by any means possible. Jesus was criticized for merely eating with them.[2]

In the same category was what the New Testament generically calls “sinners”—people like prostitutes, for example. Good Jews didn’t associate with them, so it was scandalous when Jesus allowed one to touch him.[3]

Demonizing is easy. It makes life so much simpler when we can stereotype groups of people who are “different” as being evil or dangerous or morally corrupt. Then we can feel morally superior, and avoid them or discriminate against them or mistreat them. But it’s also wrong.

People are people, and we should treat everyone the way we want others to treat us.[4] Furthermore, Jesus warned us against judging others,[5] just as he also warned us against insulting others.[6] We are instead to “love one another”[7]—incredibly, he told us to love even our enemies.[8]

And as I have said before, “love” in the New Testament is not a feeling—it’s an action, and a choice. It means we should treat others—even those who are “different”—with respect, kindness, and consideration.

So demonizing people is definitely not what Jesus wants us to do.

[1]. Luke 9:51-53

[2]. Matthew 9:11, 11:19; Mark 2:16; Luke 5:30, 7:34, 15:2

[3]. Luke 7:36-39

[4]. Matthew 7:12

[5]. Matthew 7:1-5

[6]. Matthew 5:22

[7]. John 13:34-35, 15:12, 15:17

[8]. Matthew 5:44, Luke 6:27, 6:35