“Love Your Enemies”: Contact Across the Dividing Wall

Jesus’s command in Luke 6 is active. He does not only say to avoid hating enemies. He says to do good to them, bless them, and pray for them. Paul’s churches lived this out at the table. Jews and Gentiles, slaves and masters ate together, and Paul treated a refusal to share that table as a denial of the gospel (Gal. 2:11–14). Ephesians says Christ “broke down the barrier of the dividing wall” (Eph. 2:14). The New Testament picture is not tolerance at a distance. It is people from hostile groups sharing a life.

What contact does to prejudice. In 1954 the psychologist Gordon Allport proposed that prejudice between groups falls when members have real contact under good conditions: equal status, shared goals, cooperation, and the support of authorities. Pettigrew and Tropp (2006) tested this with a meta-analysis of 713 samples from 515 studies. Contact between groups typically reduced prejudice. The effect did not appear to come from biased samples or publication bias, and the more rigorous studies showed larger effects, not smaller ones. Contact with individuals tended to reduce prejudice toward the whole outgroup, not just the people met. Allport’s conditions made the effect stronger, but they were not required for it.

What the studies cannot tell us. This is research in social psychology, not neuroscience. It measures attitudes, mostly through questionnaires, and the outgroups studied are mainly racial, ethnic, and other social groups, not personal enemies. Reducing prejudice is a smaller thing than love. Jesus’s command reaches people who curse us, which contact research does not test. Still, the convergence is real. The early church’s answer to hostility, a shared table across the dividing wall, matches what the largest body of research on prejudice says works.

Practice

Living it out

Five practices drawn from this passage. Each says how strong the research behind it is. What the labels mean.

1. 1

   Share a table across a line

   Once this month, eat with someone from a group you tend to distrust or avoid.

   StrongStrong that contact between groups reduces prejudice across hundreds of studies (Pettigrew & Tropp, 2006).
2. 2

   Work side by side on a shared goal

   Serve with people unlike you on a project with a common aim, such as a build, a food drive, or a coaching staff.

   StrongStrong that Allport’s conditions of cooperation and shared goals strengthen the effect of contact (Pettigrew & Tropp, 2006).
3. 3

   Pray for one enemy by name, daily

   For thirty days, pray for the good of one person who has wronged you or opposes you.

   ObedienceObedience. Commended by Scripture (Luke 6:28). The paper’s forgiveness research (Section 10) is related but does not test this practice.
4. 4

   Do one concrete good for someone who dislikes you

   Choose an action, not just a feeling.

   ObedienceObedience. Commended by Scripture (Luke 6:27; Rom. 12:20). Untested in the research.
5. 5

   Let one friendship change your picture of a whole group

   Contact with individuals tends to reduce prejudice toward their whole group. Notice when one person challenges a stereotype you hold, and say so.

   StrongStrong that contact effects generalize to the outgroup as a whole (Pettigrew & Tropp, 2006).

Studies cited on this page1

1. ↗ Pettigrew, T. F., & Tropp, L. R. (2006). A meta-analytic test of intergroup contact theory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90(5), 751–783. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.90.5.751