From “Love Your Neighbor: How Psychology Can Enliven Faith and Transform Community” by Katherine M. Douglass and Brittany M. Tausen
As Christians, we believe that all people are created in God’s image. This does not mean that we are all exactly the same; each human is unique. It does, however, mean that we all carry the same value, worth, and dignity because of who we are and whose we are. God loves each of us immeasurably more than we can comprehend. Perhaps in an effort to formalize these values, the writer of the Declaration of Independence included the phrase “all men are created equal.” And yet we know that women and people of color were not automatically granted equal opportunities. Black women, for example, were not allowed to vote until 1965 (more than 180 years after the Declaration of Independence was written). It wasn’t until 1974 that a woman could open a bank account without a male cosigner and that all people were protected from credit discrimination based on race. The history of the United States is, and continues to be, stained with examples and policies that very clearly place a higher value on some people than others – the history of enslavement and forced racial segregation in the United States are other examples. From a theological perspective, these policies reveal a failure to honor the imago Dei in every person. They also reveal something that social psychologists are constantly measuring – specifically, negative attitudes toward groups of people with whom we do not identify.