From “Reviving the Golden Rule: How the Ancient Ethic of Neighbor Love Can Heal the World” by Andrew DeCort
When I met Ferdosa in eastern Ethiopia on October 17, 2018, I was in an Abrahamic moment in my own life. I had resigned from my job teaching Christian ethics at the Ethiopian Graduate School of Theology in Addis. I knew that I couldn’t remain on a safe Christian island as othering escalated in Ethiopia, including in overwhelmingly Christian areas. But I wasn’t sure what was next.
Ferdosa’s words burned in my heart: “Dr. Andrew, no one has ever told me to love my enemies! Starting today, I will love my enemies and teach others to love their enemies!” As she held my hand up, it was like she was making a covenant of enemy love with me. In that moment, a question was born inside me: “How many other youth like Ferdosa are longing for hope beyond othering but have never been invited into the way of neighbor love?”
In the months that followed, my wife, Lily and I, along with our partner Tekalign Nega, started the Neighbor-Love Movement. Our mission was simple: to invite the youth of Ethiopia to see their enemies as neighbors and to practice this love amid the crisis of othering. We wanted to revive the movement Jesus started in this ancient homeland of Christianity and Islam. We compressed the heart of this movement into a concise Neighbor-Love Covenant, with seven practices that embody this love in how we see, listen, and act with others.
Since 2019, thousands of youth have signed the Neighbor-Love Covenant, and over twenty million people have encountered our invitation to love others as neighbors. Our humble work continues today as Ethiopia is being devastated by the twenty-first century’s deadliest civil war. Against odds, we believe with Ferodosa that this ancient movement can still bring healing and hope out of the despair of othering.